復 → 遯
Hexagram 24: Return → Hexagram 33: Retreat
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 5, 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 3
六三 頻復。厲。无咎。
Six in the third place means: Repeated return. Danger. No blame.
Line 4
六四 中行獨復。
Six in the fourth place means: Walking in the midst of others, One returns alone.
Line 5
六五 敦復。无悔。
Six in the fifth place means: Noblehearted return. No remorse.
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
仲冬無秋，鳥鵲飢憂。困於米食，數驚鸇鵰。
Midwinter without autumn; the magpies and sparrows starve in worry. Desperate for grain and food; startled again and again by hawks and falcons.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder returns beneath the earth, but the season is wrong — midwinter has arrived without an autumn to precede it, and the birds and magpies starve in anxious hunger. Deprived of grain, they are startled again and again by hawks and falcons overhead. The natural order is disrupted: harvest has been skipped, and the small creatures that depend on seasonal abundance find themselves exposed to predators with no cover and no food. From Return to Retreat, heaven above mountain, the gentleman distances himself from petty men. The transformation reveals why retreat is necessary: when the cycle itself is broken and the season of gathering never came, survival means withdrawing before the raptors strike.
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