大壯 → 鼎
Hexagram 34: Great Power → Hexagram 50: The Cauldron
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 6).
Line 1
初九 壯于趾。征凶有孚。
Nine at the beginning means: Power in the toes. Continuing brings misfortune. This is certainly true.
Line 6
上六 羝羊觸藩。不能退。不能遂。无攸利。艱則吉。
Six at the top means: A goat butts against a hedge. It cannot go backward, it cannot go forward. Nothing serves to further. If one notes the difficulty, this brings good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
長尾踒虵，畫地為河，深不可涉，絕無以北，惆然憤息。
A long-tailed serpent drags along; a line drawn on the ground becomes a river. Deep and impossible to ford; utterly cut off from the north. One sighs in bitter frustration.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above heaven confronts an impassable barrier. A long-tailed serpent coils across the ground, and a line drawn in the earth becomes a river too deep to ford. There is no way north — the path is absolutely severed. One can only sigh in frustrated anger. The verse evokes the legend of drawing a line to serve as a boundary, turning imagination into real obstacle. From Great Power to the Cauldron, fire blazes above wind in Ding, the sacred vessel that transforms raw offerings into refined nourishment. The transformation is blocked: the cauldron requires ingredients to reach it, but the river drawn in the earth prevents delivery. Power that cannot cross the threshold of transformation remains raw, unrefined, and ultimately useless — strength that sighs at its own irrelevance.
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