Monkey by Wu Ch'eng-en Read Free Book Online Page A

gong.’
    A crocodile accordingly beat the drum and a turtle sounded the gong, and in a twinkling the three dragons arrived.
    ‘Brother,’ said the Dragon of the South, ‘what urgent business has made you beat the drum and sound the gong?’
    ‘You may well ask,’ said the Dragon King. ‘A neighbour of mine, the Sage of the Mountain of Flowers and Fruit, came to me today asking for a magic weapon. I gave him the iron with which the Milky Way was pounded. Now he says he must have clothes. We have nothing of that sort here. Couldn’t one of you find me something, so that we can get rid of him?’
    The Dragon of the South was furious. ‘Brothers,’ he cried, ‘let us summon men-at-arms and arrest the rascal.’
    ‘Out of the question!’ said the Dragon King.’ The slightest touch of that iron is deadly.’
    ‘It would be better not to tamper with him,’ said the Dragon of the West. ‘We’ll give him some clothes, just to get rid of him, and then we’ll complain to Heaven, and Heaven will punish him.’
    ‘That’s a good idea,’ said the Dragon of the North. ‘I’ve got a pair of cloud-stepping shoes made of lotus-fibre.’
    ‘I’ve got a cap of phoenix-plume and red gold,’ said the Dragon of the South.
    ‘I’ve got a jerkin of chain-mail, made of yellow gold,’ said the Dragon of the West.
    The Dragon King was delighted and brought them in to see Monkey and offer their gifts. Monkey put the things on and, with his wishing-staff in his hand, strode out. ‘Dirty old sneaks,’ he called out to the dragons as he passed. In great indignation they consulted together about reporting him to the powers above.
    The four old monkeys and all the rest were waiting for their king beside the bridge. Suddenly they saw him spring out of the waves, without a drop of water on him, all shiningand golden, and run up the bridge. They all knelt down, crying ‘Great King, what splendours !’ With the spring wind full in his face, Monkey mounted the throne and set up the iron staff in front of him. The monkeys all rushed at the treasure and tried to lift it. As well might a dragon-fly try to shake an ironwood-tree; they could not move it an inch.
    ‘Father,’ they cried, ‘you’re the only person that could lift a thing as heavy as that.’
    ‘There’s nothing but has its master,’ said Monkey, lifting it with one hand. ‘This iron lay in the Sea Treasury for I don’t know how many hundred thousand years, and only recently began to shine. The Dragon King thought it was nothing but black iron and said it was used to flatten out the Milky Way. None of them could lift it, and they asked me to go and take it myself. When I first saw it, it was twenty feet long. I thought that was a bit too big, so I gradually made it smaller and smaller. Now just you watch while I change it again.’ He cried ‘Smaller, smaller, smaller!’ and immediately it became exactly like an embroidery needle, and could comfortably be worn behind the ear.
    ‘Take it out and do another trick with it,’ the monkeys begged. He took it from behind his ear and set it upright on the palm of his hand, crying ‘Larger, larger!’ It at once became twenty feet long, whereupon he carried it up on to the bridge, employed a cosmic magic, and bent at the waist, crying’ Tall!’ At which he at once became a hundred thousand feet high, his head was on a level with the highest mountains, his waist with the ridges, his eye blazed like lightning, his mouth was like a blood-bowl, his teeth like sword-blades. The iron staff in his hand reached up to the thirty-third Heaven, and down to the eighteenth pit of Hell. Tigers, panthers, wolves, all the evil spirits of the hill and the demons of the seventy-two caves did homage to him in awe and trembling. Presently he withdrew his cosmic manifestation, and the staff again became an embroidery needle. He put it behind his ear and came back to the cave.
    One day when Monkey had been giving a great banquet to the