金角大王平頂山蓮花洞 · 27
Leaf 27 of the pilgrimage · 金角大王 The Elder Horn King
Golden Horn King 金角大王
In Journey to the West 西遊記 (c. 1592) · a demon on the road west · nicknamed 金角大王 “The Elder Horn King”
A Taoist patriarch's errand-boy who spent a chapter as the crowned elder of a cave with real rank and real invitations, and was sealed into the property he was set to watch.
The great deeds 大事記
- ch. 32
Arguing in Lotus Cave
蓮洞議僧The elder brother of Lotus Cave knew who the Tang priest was and whose disciples he had; against his brother's plan he entered the argument, and lost it.
- ch. 33
Trusting the Gourd to a Brother
付葫與弟He gave his brother the gourd and the jade vase to go and take the pilgrims, which is the decision the whole chapter turns on.
- ch. 34
Bowing to a False Mother
拜假為母The answer to his own invitation came back dressed as his mother; he made his bows to a monkey in her clothes, and the cave took its orders from her.
- ch. 34
Bound in the Golden Snare
金繩縛猴The golden snare his mother had brought went round the monkey's arms; he left a counterfeit of his own making in the same shape and carried off the real one.
- ch. 35
The Gourd of Right Names
應名入葫The gourd runs on a name and an answer. He answered to his own and went in, and Wukong pasted Laojun's seal-words across the mouth of it.
- ch. 35
Restored to Boyhood by the Gourd
童子還爐His master came down for the inventory, tipped immortal breath into the gourd, and the elder horn king stood up again as a boy.
結局 The ending
Nothing is executed. Taishang Laojun collects the gourd, the vase, the sword, the fan and the snare, says in front of the monkey that Guanyin had borrowed his two furnace boys to put a test in the pilgrim's path, and pours them back out of the property they were made to steal. The brothers go home to the fire; the cave's population of small devils does not.
The book itself: why the monkey was pinned, which translation — The 500 years · The translations · The 81 trials