咸 → 比
Hexagram 31: Influence → Hexagram 8: Holding Together
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 3, 4).
Line 3
九三 咸其股。執其隨。往吝。
Nine in the third place means: The influence shows itself in the thighs. Holds to that which follows it. To continue is humiliating.
Line 4
九四 貞吉悔亡。憧憧往來。朋從爾思。
Nine in the fourth place means: Perseverance brings good fortune. Remorse disappears. If a man is agitated in mind, And his thoughts go hither and thither, Only those friends On whom he fixes his conscious thoughts Will follow.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
雙鳧俱飛，欲歸稻池，經涉萑澤，為矢所射，傷我胸臆。
A pair of ducks fly together; wishing to return to the rice pond. Passing through the reed marshes; struck by an arrow. It wounds my breast.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A lake upon a mountain: two wild ducks fly together, yearning for the rice paddies below. But their path crosses a marsh of thorny reeds where arrows fly, and one is struck in the breast. The paired ducks — a classical symbol of companionship and conjugal devotion — are wounded not by a predator but by a hunter's arrow, an external force that violates their natural bond. The marsh of thorns (萑澤) was also historically a gathering place for bandits. From Influence to Holding Together, the mountain's mutual resonance becomes water gathering upon the earth, the image of nations uniting. Yet the verse inverts this promise: the journey toward union is ambushed, and closeness itself becomes vulnerability when the path traverses hostile territory.
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