隨 → 同人
Hexagram 17: Following → Hexagram 13: Fellowship
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 3, 6).
Line 3
六三 係丈夫。失小子。隨有求得。利居貞。
Six in the third place means: If one clings to the strong man, One loses the little boy. Through following one finds what one seeks. It furthers one to remain persevering.
Line 6
上六 拘係之。乃從維之。王用亨于西山。
Six at the top means: He meets with firm allegiance And is still further bound. The king introduces him To the Western Mountain.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
敗魚鮑室，臭不可息；上山履塗，歸傷我足。
Rotten fish in a stinking chamber, the smell cannot be endured; climbing the mountain through the mire, I return with injured feet.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder rests within the lake, but the scene reeks of decay. Rotting fish in a brine-seller's shop fill the air with a stench that will not subside — an unmistakable image of corruption so deep it saturates everything. Then the speaker climbs a muddy mountain road and comes home with injured feet. The verse pairs moral defilement with physical hardship: once one enters a foul environment, the contamination clings, and the path back is itself damaging. From Following to Fellowship, the tension is deliberate — Tong Ren calls for union under heaven's clarity, yet this verse shows what happens when one follows the wrong company into a rotten space. True fellowship requires discernment about whom to join.
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