大壯 → 未濟
Hexagram 34: Great Power → Hexagram 64: Before Completion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 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 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
桀亂無道，民散不聚，倍室棄家，逃遁出走。
Jie is lawless and without the Way; the people scatter and will not gather. They abandon their rooms and leave their homes; they flee and run away.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder above heaven meets the tyranny of King Jie, last ruler of the Xia dynasty. His reign was so cruel and dissolute that the people scattered, refusing to gather, abandoning their homes and fleeing in all directions. The verse names no specific atrocity — the chaos is total, beyond individual incident. When the ruler himself embodies disorder, the entire social fabric unravels. From Great Power to Before Completion, fire floats above water in Weiji: the elements refuse to interact, each stuck in its natural but unproductive position. The transformation captures the essence of Jie's failure — fire that should descend to heat the water and water that should rise to quench the fire remain permanently estranged. A kingdom of unfinished potential, where power was present but order was never achieved.
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