遯 → 小過
Hexagram 33: Retreat → Hexagram 62: Small Exceeding
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 5).
Line 1
初六 遯尾厲。勿用有攸往。
Six at the beginning means: At the tail in retreat. This is dangerous. One must not wish to undertake anything.
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 5
九五 嘉遯貞吉。
Nine in the fifth place means: Friendly retreat. Perseverance brings good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
騎騅與蒼，南賈太行。逢駮猛虎，為所吞殤，葬於渭陽。
Riding dappled and grey horses; trading south toward Taihang. They meet a fearsome striped tiger; devoured and slain — buried at the Wei's sunny bank.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven above the mountain exceeds as thunder over mountain — Small Exceeding, where the small oversteps its bounds. Riding a piebald and a dappled horse, one travels south to trade at Taihang Mountain. On the road one meets a fearsome mottled tiger, and is devoured. The burial takes place at Weiyang, south of the Wei River. The verse is a straightforward tale of fatal miscalculation: a merchant ventures into dangerous terrain and encounters a predator he cannot escape. Taihang is the great mountain range dividing the North China Plain from the Shanxi plateau — forbidding territory for a trader with fine horses. From Retreat to Small Exceeding, the mountain's withdrawal becomes the thunder atop the mountain — a small creature overreaching. The merchant who should have retreated further instead advanced into tiger country, and the small exceeded its capacity with lethal consequences.
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