井 → 未濟
Hexagram 48: The Well → Hexagram 64: Before Completion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 5, 6).
Line 3
九三 井渫不食。為我心惻。可用汲。王明。並受其福。
Nine in the third place means: The well is cleaned, but no one drinks from it. This is my heart's sorrow, For one might draw from it. If the king were clear-minded, Good fortune might be enjoyed in common.
Line 4
六四 井甃无咎。
Six in the fourth place means: The well is being lined. No blame.
Line 5
九五 井冽。寒泉食。
Nine in the fifth place means: In the well there is a clear, cold spring From which one can drink.
Line 6
上六 井收勿幕。有孚元吉。
Six at the top means: One draws from the well Without hindrance. It is dependable. Supreme good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
登高車反，視天彌遠。虎口不張，害賊消亡。
Climbing high, the carriage turns back; gazing at heaven, it seems ever farther. The tiger's jaws do not open; harm and villainy fade away.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water drawn up through wood, the well looks upward to the heavens. One ascends a height only to find the carriage overturned, and gazing at the sky, it seems ever more distant. Yet the tiger's mouth does not open, and harm and threat dissolve into nothing. The verse moves from frustration to unexpected safety: the journey fails, the goal recedes — but the danger that loomed never materializes. From The Well to Before Completion, fire sits above water, each element straining toward the other's position but not yet arriving. The well's upward aspiration meets Weiji's perpetual almost-there: completion remains just out of reach, but so does destruction. In the space of not-yet, the tiger holds its jaws shut, and the wanderer lives to try again.
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