履 → 小畜
Hexagram 10: Treading → Hexagram 9: Small Taming
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 3, 4).
Line 3
六三 眇能視。跛能履。履虎尾。咥人凶。武人為于大君。
Six in the third place means: A one-eyed man is able to see, A lame man is able to tread. He treads on the tail of the tiger. The tiger bites the man. Misfortune. Thus does a warrior act on behalf of his great prince.
Line 4
九四 履虎尾。愬愬終吉。
Nine in the fourth place means: He treads on the tail of the tiger. Caution and circumspection Lead ultimately to good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
郭叔距頤，為棘所拘；龍額重顙。禍不成殃，復歸其鄉。
Guo Shu propping up his chin, held fast by thorns. Dragon brow and heavy forehead. The disaster does not become calamity; he returns again to his homeland.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven above the lake, a scene of narrow escape. Guo Shu resists with chin jutted out but finds himself entangled in thorns. A dragon-browed, heavy-foreheaded figure appears — formidable yet trapped. But the verse pivots: disaster does not fully ripen into calamity, and the traveler returns safely to his homeland. The allusion likely draws on a Spring and Autumn episode of a stubborn lord caught in political thorns who nonetheless survives. From Treading to Small Taming, the gentle wind of heaven restrains without breaking. The crisis passes not through force but through yielding — the small taming that softens pride before it becomes fatal.
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