屯 → 需
Hexagram 3: Difficulty at the Beginning → Hexagram 5: Waiting
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 2, 3).
Line 2
六二 屯如邅如。乘馬班如。匪寇婚媾。女子貞不字。十年乃字。
Six in the second place means: Difficulties pile up. Horse and wagon part. He is not a robber; He wants to woo when the time comes. The maiden is chaste, She does not pledge herself. Ten years–then she pledges herself.
Line 3
六三 即鹿無虞。惟入于林中。君子幾不如舍。往吝。
Six in the third place means: Whoever hunts deer without the forester Only loses his way in the forest. The superior man understands the signs of the time And prefers to desist. To go on brings humiliation.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
夏臺羑里，湯文所厄。鬼侯俞賄，商王解舍。
Xiatai, Youli—the prisons where Tang and Wen were confined. The Marquis of Gui sent bribes; the Shang king released them.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Clouds and thunder give way to clouds rising above heaven: initial hardship transforms into patient waiting. Xiatai and Youli name the two most famous prisons of antiquity, where King Tang and King Wen were unjustly confined. Tang was imprisoned by the tyrant Jie of Xia; Wen was held by King Zhou of Shang. Yet both emerged to found new dynasties. The verse then pivots: the Ghost Marquis offered bribes, and the Shang king released his captive. According to the Shiji, the Ghost Marquis (Guihou, also called Jiuhou) was one of Shang's three highest nobles; his daughter was killed by King Zhou for refusing debauchery, and Guihou himself was minced into paste. From Difficulty at the Beginning to Waiting, the message is clear: righteous endurance under unjust confinement is the price of future sovereignty.
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