睽 → 遯
Hexagram 38: Opposition → Hexagram 33: Retreat
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 5).
Line 1
初九 悔亡。喪馬勿逐自復。見惡人。无咎。
Nine at the beginning means: Remorse disappears. If you lose your horse, do not run after it; It will come back of its own accord. When you see evil people, Guard yourself against mistakes.
Line 2
九二 遇主于巷。无咎。
Nine in the second place means: One meets his lord in a narrow street. No blame.
Line 3
六三 見輿曳。其牛掣。其人天且劓。无初有終。
Six in the third place means: One sees the wagon dragged back, The oxen halted, A man's hair and nose cut off. Not a good beginning, but a good end.
Line 5
六五 悔亡。厥宗噬膚。往何咎。
Six in the fifth place means: Remorse disappears. The companion bites his way through the wrappings. If one goes to him, How could it be a mistake?
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
華燈百枝，消暗衰微。精光訖盡，奄如灰縻。
A splendid lamp of a hundred branches; its darkness fades and weakens. Its brilliant light is spent and gone; suddenly it becomes like ash and dust.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire above the lake, and a hundred-branched chandelier blazes in the night — then gutters, fades, and dies. The brilliant light exhausts itself to the last spark, collapsing like ash scattered in the wind. The verse traces the arc of splendor to extinction: what once illuminated a hall with overwhelming radiance dwindles to nothing, its energy consumed beyond recovery. The hundred branches suggest a great house or dynasty whose many lights burn simultaneously but cannot sustain themselves. From Opposition to Retreat, heaven stands above the mountain, and the gentleman distances himself from petty persons with stern composure. The transformation counsels timely withdrawal: when the light is failing, the wise retreat before they share its extinction.
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