遯 → 小畜
Hexagram 33: Retreat → Hexagram 9: Small Taming
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 4).
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 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 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.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
畜牝無駒，養雞不雛，群羊三歲，不生兩頭。
Raise a mare, no foal is born; keep hens, no chicks hatch. A flock of sheep at three years old; not one bears twin young.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Heaven above the mountain disperses into wind blowing across heaven — Small Taming's gentle restraint. A mare kept for breeding produces no foal; hens are raised but hatch no chicks; a flock of sheep reaches three years old without bearing lambs. Every form of husbandry fails. The animals are present, the conditions apparently adequate, yet nothing is generated. From Retreat to Small Taming, the verse describes the frustration of restraint without result. Small Taming's wind across heaven gently holds things in check — but here the restraint has become sterility. The retreat that should preserve productive capacity has instead drained it. What is tamed too lightly produces nothing; what withdraws too far from engagement loses the vitality needed to create.
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