大過 → 未濟
Hexagram 28: Great Exceeding → Hexagram 64: Before Completion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 5, 6).
Line 3
九三 棟橈。凶。
Nine in the third place means: The ridgepole sags to the breaking point. Misfortune.
Line 5
九五 枯楊生華。老婦得其士夫。无咎无譽。
Nine in the fifth place means: A withered poplar puts forth flowers. An older woman takes a husband. No blame. No praise.
Line 6
上六 過涉滅頂。凶。无咎。
Six at the top means: One must go through the water. It goes over one's head. Misfortune. No blame.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
甘露醴泉，太平機關。仁德咸應，歲樂民安。
Sweet dew, the sweet spring; the fulcrum of Great Peace. Benevolent virtue is answered in kind; the years are joyful, the people at ease.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Lake over wind reaches fire above water — Before Completion, the final hexagram where the fox's tail dips in the water just before crossing. Sweet dew and sweet springs appear, the mechanism of great peace. Benevolence and virtue are answered in kind; the year is joyful and the people secure. The verse is a utopian vision: miraculous sweet dew (甘露) and sweet springs (醴泉) were auspicious omens in Han-dynasty thought, signs that heaven approved of the ruler's virtue. The 'mechanism of great peace' (太平機關) suggests the cosmic machinery operating in perfect harmony. From Great Exceeding to Before Completion, the overburdened beam reaches the threshold of a new order. Before Completion is not failure but the moment just before success — the fox nearly across the stream. The sweet dew falls as heaven's advance endorsement of a peace not yet fully achieved but already manifest in the land's bounty.
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