鼎 → 履
Hexagram 50: The Cauldron → Hexagram 10: Treading
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 5).
Line 1
初六 鼎顛趾。利出否。得妾以其子。无咎。
Six at the beginning means: A ting with legs upturned. Furthers removal of stagnating stuff. One takes a concubine for the sake of her son. No blame.
Line 3
九三 鼎耳革。其行塞。雉膏不食。方雨虧悔。終吉。
Nine in the third place means: The handle of the ting is altered. One is impeded in his way of life. The fat of the pheasant is not eaten. Once rain falls, remorse is spent. Good fortune comes in the end.
Line 5
六五 鼎黃耳金鉉。利貞。
Six in the fifth place means: The ting has yellow handles, golden carrying rings. Perseverance furthers.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
長子入獄，婦饋母哭。霜降旬日，嚮晦伏法。
The eldest son enters prison; his wife brings food, his mother weeps. Frost falls for ten days; toward nightfall, the sentence is carried out.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire over wind fills the cauldron; above, heaven sets the standard while the lake below must tread carefully. The eldest son enters prison. His wife brings food; his mother weeps. Frost descends — the traditional season of execution — and within ten days, as dusk settles, the sentence is carried out. The verse follows ancient legal custom: capital punishment was administered in autumn when nature's killing energy aligned with the act. The sequence is devastating in its precision: imprisonment, family anguish, the frost calendar ticking down, execution at nightfall. From The Cauldron to Treading, the transformation maps ritual order onto lethal consequence. The cauldron's fire refines; Treading's heaven-over-lake demands one walk correctly or face the tiger's bite.
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