大畜 → 遯
Hexagram 26: Great Taming → Hexagram 33: Retreat
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 4, 5).
Line 1
初九 有厲。利已。
Nine at the beginning means: Danger is at hand. It furthers one to desist.
Line 2
九二 輿說輹。
Nine in the second place means: The axletrees are taken from the wagon.
Line 4
六四 童牛之牿。元吉。
Six in the fourth place means: The headboard of a young bull. Great good fortune.
Line 5
六五 豶豕之牙。吉。
Six in the fifth place means: The tusk of a gelded boar. Good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
大尾小腰，重不可搖。棟橈榱壞，臣為君憂。陽大之言，消不為患，使我復安。
A great tail and a slender waist; heavy, impossible to move. The ridgepole bows, the rafters crack; the minister worries for the lord. Yang Da's counsel brings no calamity to dissolve; it restores our peace.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven stored within the mountain strains under pressure. A creature with an enormous tail and tiny waist is too heavy to move, echoing the Zuo Zhuan's classic warning: 'When the tail is too large, it cannot wag.' The ridgepole sags and the rafters crack, as ministers fret for their lord. This verse layers two famous structural metaphors from the Chinese political canon. 'Tail too large to wag' warns of subordinates grown too powerful for the center to control; 'the ridgepole sags' from the I-Ching's Great Exceeding hexagram signals governance overburdened to the breaking point. Yet the verse resolves: frank counsel dispels the crisis, and stability returns. From Great Taming to Retreat, accumulated strength must know when to yield, or its own weight becomes the danger.
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