井 → 比
Hexagram 48: The Well → Hexagram 8: Holding Together
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 2, 3).
Line 2
九二 井谷射鮒。甕敝漏。
Nine in the second place means: At the wellhole one shoots fishes. The jug is broken and leaks.
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.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
馬驚破處，王孫沉溝。身死魂去，自為患害。
The horse startles and bolts through the breach; the young lord sinks into the ditch. Body dead, soul departed; he brings calamity upon himself.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water drawn up through wood holds the community together, but here a horse bolts and catastrophe follows. A startled horse breaks through its traces, and a young nobleman drowns in a ditch. Body dead, spirit departed — he brought this calamity upon himself. The 'prince sinking in a ditch' recalls several Spring and Autumn incidents of nobles dying ignominiously in flight. From The Well to Holding Together, water spreads upon the earth, bonding all beneath it. Yet the bond here is between recklessness and consequence: the well's structural containment gives way to Bi's open water, and whoever fails to hold together with care is swept away.
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