Hexagram 31
咸
Xián
Influence
Upper Trigram
兌 Duì
Lake — Joyous
Lower Trigram
艮 Gèn
Mountain — Stillness
Classical Texts
The Judgment
亨。利貞。取女吉。
The Image
山上有澤，咸。君子以虛受人。
The Lines
Line 1
初六 咸其拇。
Line 2
六二 咸其腓。凶。居吉。
Line 3
九三 咸其股。執其隨。往吝。
Line 4
九四 貞吉悔亡。憧憧往來。朋從爾思。
Line 5
九五 咸其脢。无悔。
Line 6
上六 咸其輔頰舌。
The Kiss
Francesco Hayez, 1859
Influence
Two lovers embrace in a stone archway, their bodies meeting in passionate kiss. Francesco Hayez painted this scene in 1859 during Italy's unification movement, clothing his figures in medieval dress but charging their encounter with contemporary political resonance. The man's foot rests on the stair's edge, suggesting imminent departure; the woman's hand presses his neck, holding the moment. Their mutual attraction bridges separation—he must leave, she must let him go, yet the kiss suspends that inevitable parting. The archway frames them, public space containing private feeling.
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Zhou Dynasty diviners called this hexagram Xian (咸), meaning "influence" or "universal." The character originally depicted cutting or wounding, suggesting how deep feeling penetrates defenses. Lake (Dui) sits above Mountain (Gen): joyous waters rest on still earth, the yielding touching the firm, mutual response arising naturally when opposites meet. Ancient practitioners saw this configuration when attraction between different natures created movement and change. Hayez's lovers embody this structure—masculine and feminine, departure and remaining, public duty and private desire, each responding to what the other offers. Hayez's Romantic painting shows two lovers in medieval dress embracing in a stone archway, their passionate kiss capturing a stolen moment. Created during the Italian unification movement, the work became a symbol of both personal and political union. The mutual attraction and responsive connection between the figures illustrates the hexagram's theme of influence through genuine feeling. The Judgment text states simply: "Influence. Success. Perseverance furthers. Taking a maiden to wife brings good fortune." The text addresses courtship and proper union, but Song Dynasty commentary extends the principle: all effective relationships require mutual influence freely given and received. The painting captures that reciprocal movement—neither lover dominates, both lean into the embrace. Hayez exhibited this work at the Brera Academy when Austrian forces still occupied parts of Italy; contemporary viewers read the kiss as allegory for Italy's passionate desire for unification. Political influence flows through romantic imagery. The Image Text offers counsel: "The superior person encourages people to approach him by his readiness to receive them." Influence works through receptivity rather than force—the mountain receives the lake's waters, the lake reflects the mountain's form, each altered through contact. Hayez painted in the Romantic tradition but deployed it toward Risorgimento politics, showing how aesthetic influence serves ideological persuasion. In the I-Ching's sequence, Influence follows the Clinging: after clarity through attachment (30), responsive attraction between different elements (31) arises. The lovers must part—his cloak already swirls with departing movement—but the kiss marks them both, influence lingering after presence fades.
Yilin: Forest of Changes
From Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — the verse for Hexagram 31 in its unchanging form. A Han dynasty collection of four-character verses interpreting every hexagram transformation.
雌單獨居，歸其本巢，毛羽憔悴，志如死灰。
空巢殘羽風中搖，枯藤纏枝不堪撓。夕照餘暉照冷壁，影單形隻自蕭條。
An empty nest, remnant feathers sway in the wind; dead vines tangle the branches beyond untangling. The last rays of sunset illuminate a cold wall — a lone shadow, solitary form, desolate.
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A lake upon a mountain returns to itself — Influence reflecting upon Influence. The original verse reads: a lone female bird dwells solitary, returning to her own nest, feathers withered and bedraggled, her spirit like dead ashes. This is desolation at its most intimate: not exile but voluntary retreat into an empty home, not anger but the extinction of desire itself. The 'dead ashes' (死灰) alludes to the Zhuangzi's image of the sage whose heart has become still as cold cinders. Yet here it carries no transcendence, only grief. From Influence to Influence, the hexagram does not transform — the lake remains upon the mountain, openness receives only its own echo. Mutual resonance, turned inward with no partner, becomes the loneliest of all conditions.
中文注释
山上有澤，咸之自返。原詩：雌單獨居，歸其本巢——孤雌獨守空巢。毛羽憔悴——羽毛零落凋殘。志如死灰——心志冷如灰燼。此為《莊子》「形如槁木，心如死灰」之意象，然無超脫之境，唯餘哀涼。非被逐而是自歸，非憤怒而是心死。咸之咸——卦不變，澤仍在山上，虛受之心迴響的只有自身之空。感應本為二者之間之事，一方退回自身、不再對外開放，則感通之道化為至深之孤寂。
Related Hexagrams
Same upper trigram: Lake (兌)
Same lower trigram: Mountain (艮)