復 → 渙
Hexagram 24: Return → Hexagram 59: Dispersion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 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 2
六二 休復。吉。
Six in the second place means: Quiet return. Good fortune.
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
怒非其怨，貪垢腐鼠。而呼鵲鴟，自分失餌。致被殃患。
Rage not born of true grievance; coveting a rotten mouse. Calling out to the magpie and hawk; taking what is due to oneself, losing the bait. Thereby inviting calamity.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder returns beneath the earth, but the anger is misdirected. One rages at those who bear no grudge, then covets a rotten mouse with the greed of a hawk-owl fighting over carrion. The verse evokes the Zhuangzi parable of the owl guarding a putrid rat, suspecting the phoenix of wanting to steal it — projecting one's own baseness onto the noble. By calling in the magpie and the owl, the figure divides his own spoils among quarreling scavengers and loses even the rotten morsel, bringing disaster upon himself. From Return to Dispersion, wind above water scatters what had cohered. The transformation shows how misplaced anger and petty greed disintegrate the self: what should reconsolidate instead disperses into ruin.
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