遯 → 坎
Hexagram 33: Retreat → Hexagram 29: The Abysmal Water
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4, 6).
Line 2
六二 執之用黃牛之革。莫之勝說。
Six in the second place means: he holds him fast with yellow oxhide. No one can tear him loose.
Line 3
九三 係遯。有疾厲。畜臣妾吉。
Nine in the third place means: A halted retreat Is nerve-wracking and dangerous. To retain people as men- and maidservants Brings good fortune.
Line 4
九四 好遯。君子吉。小人否。
Nine in the fourth place means: Voluntary retreat brings good fortune to the superior man And downfall to the inferior man.
Line 6
上九 肥遯无不利。
Nine at the top means: Cheerful retreat. Everything serves to further.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
盛中後跌，衰老復掇，盈滿減毀，疾羸肥腯，鄭昭失國，重耳與立。
Prosperous at the height, then stumbling in decline; the wasted recover, the full are diminished. Overflowing fullness leads to ruin; the sick grow stout again. Duke Zhao of Zheng lost his state; Chong'er was restored.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven above the mountain plunges into doubled water — the Abysmal, peril upon peril. Prosperity peaks and then stumbles; the aged and weakened recover briefly. Fullness diminishes and is destroyed; the sickly thin one unexpectedly grows fat. Then the verse names its figures: Duke Zhao of Zheng loses his state, and Chong Er gains his throne. Duke Zhao of Zheng was deposed through foreign interference around 695 BC; Chong Er (Duke Wen of Jin) wandered in exile for nineteen years before returning to become one of the Five Hegemons. From Retreat to the Abysmal, the mountain collapses into the abyss — yet the abyss itself is the crucible of reversal. What rises must fall; what falls may rise. Retreat here is the mechanism of fortune's wheel, not its terminus.
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