復 → 剝
Hexagram 24: Return → Hexagram 23: Splitting Apart
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 6).
Line 1
初九 不遠復。无祗悔。元吉。
Nine at the beginning means: Return from a short distance. No need for remorse. Great good fortune.
Line 6
上六 迷復。凶。有災眚。用行師。終有大敗。以其國君凶。至于十年不克征。
Six at the top means: Missing the return. Misfortune. Misfortune from within and without. If armies are set marching in this way, One will in the end suffer a great defeat, Disastrous for the ruler of the country. For ten years It will not be possible to attack again.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
持刃操肉，對酒不食。夫亡從軍，少子入獄，抱膝獨宿。
Holding a blade over meat; facing wine, unable to eat. The husband gone to the army; the young son sent to prison — embracing her knees, she sleeps alone.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder returns beneath the earth, but the household that awaits is hollowed out. A knife grips meat and wine sits poured, yet no one eats — the meal is untouched because grief has stolen all appetite. The husband has gone to war, the youngest son is imprisoned, and the one who remains hugs her knees alone through the night. This is domestic devastation rendered in three stark strokes: conscription, incarceration, solitude. From Return to Splitting Apart, the mountain crumbles upon the earth as yin erodes the last yang line. The transformation embodies the stripping away of a household's supports one by one, until only the lone figure remains, embracing her own knees in the dark.
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