困 → 謙
Hexagram 47: Oppression → Hexagram 15: Modesty
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 2, 3, 4, 5).
Line 2
九二 困于酒食。朱紱方來。利用享祀。征凶无咎。
Nine in the second place means: One is oppressed while at meat and drink. The man with the scarlet knee bands is just coming. It furthers one to offer sacrifice. To set forth brings misfortune. No blame.
Line 3
六三 困于石。據于蒺蔾。入于其宮。不見其妻。凶。
Six in the third place means: A man permits himself to be oppressed by stone, And leans on thorns and thistles. He enters the house and does not see his wife. Misfortune.
Line 4
九四 來徐徐。困于金車。吝。有終。
Nine in the fourth place means: He comes very quietly, oppressed in a golden carriage. Humiliation, but the end is reached.
Line 5
九五 劓刖。困于赤紱。乃徐有說。利用祭祀。
Nine in the fifth place means: His nose and feet are cut off. Oppression at the hands of the man with the purple knee bands. Joy comes softly. It furthers one to make offerings and libations.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
涉尸留鬼，大斧所視。文昌司過，簡公亂死。
Wading through corpses, lingering ghosts; the great axe watches over them. Wenchang records transgressions; Duke Jian meets a violent end.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
A lake without water: corpses lie in the ford, ghosts linger, and the great axe casts its shadow. The star Wenchang presides over transgressions, and Duke Jian dies in chaos. The 'Jian Gong' most likely refers to Duke Jian of Qi, assassinated by the powerful minister Tian Chengzi in 481 BC. Wenchang, the celestial arbiter of records and faults, watches as political murder unfolds. The great axe symbolizes the executioner's instrument hovering over the doomed. From Oppression to Modesty, a mountain hidden within the earth, the transformation is grimly appropriate. Modesty levels the high and raises the low, but Duke Jian's downfall shows that forced leveling through assassination is Modesty's dark inversion: the ruler brought low not by virtue but by violence.
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