大壯 → 渙
Hexagram 34: Great Power → Hexagram 59: Dispersion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 5, 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 3
九三 小人用壯。君子用罔。貞厲。羝羊觸藩。羸其角。
Nine in the third place means: The inferior man works through power. The superior man does not act thus. To continue is dangerous. A goat butts against a hedge And gets its horns entangled.
Line 4
九四 貞吉。悔亡。藩決不羸。壯于大輿之輹。
Nine in the fourth place means: Perseverance brings good fortune. Remorse disappears. The hedge opens; there is no entanglement. Power depends upon the axle of a big cart.
Line 5
六五 喪羊于易。无悔。
Six in the fifth place means: Loses the goat with ease. No remorse.
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
陳魚觀社，佷荒踰矩，為民開緒，亡其祖考。
Displaying fish at the village festival; wild and excessive, transgressing the bounds. He opens the way for the people's ruin; the ancestral rites are lost.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above heaven exposes a ruler's spectacular impropriety. 'Displaying fish and watching the land sacrifice' alludes to Duke Ling of Chen, who paraded the intimate garments of his lover Xia Ji at court while viewing sacred rites — a brazen fusion of lechery and sacrilege. 'Willful and dissolute, overstepping all bounds' follows naturally. The verse then pivots: attempting to 'open threads for the people' while 'forgetting ancestral forebears' — reform undertaken by one who has already destroyed the moral foundations it requires. From Great Power to Dispersion, wind blows across water in Huan, scattering what should be gathered. The transformation captures how Chen's dissolution began from the throne itself, radiating outward until no social bond remained intact.
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