震 → 蒙
Hexagram 51: The Arousing Thunder → Hexagram 4: Youthful Folly
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 4, 6).
Line 1
初九 震來虩虩。後笑言啞啞。吉。
Nine at the beginning means: Shock comes–oh, oh! Then follow laughing words–ha, ha! Good fortune.
Line 2
六二 震來厲。億喪貝。躋于九陵。勿逐。七日得。
Six in the second place means: Shock comes bringing danger. A hundred thousand times You lose your treasures And must climb the nine hills. Do not go in pursuit of them. After seven days you will get them back again.
Line 4
九四 震遂泥。
Nine in the fourth place means: Shock is mired.
Line 6
上六 震索索。視矍矍。征凶。震不于其躬。于其鄰。无咎。婚媾有言。
Six at the top means: Shock brings ruin and terrified gazing around. Going ahead brings misfortune. If it has not yet touched one's own body But has reached one's neighbor first, There is no blame. One's comrades have something to talk about.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
眾鳥所翔，中有大怪，九身无頭。魂驚魄去，不可以居。
Where the many birds soar, among them is a great horror: nine bodies without heads. Soul startled, spirit fled — one cannot dwell here.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder doubled yields to mountain over water: shock meets bewilderment. Among a flock of soaring birds lurks a great monstrosity — nine bodies without a head. The soul is terrified, the spirit flees; this is no place to dwell. The image of a nine-bodied headless creature evokes the mythological aberrations catalogued in the Shanhaijing, beings that defy natural order. The flock seems normal until the grotesque is revealed within it. From The Arousing to Youthful Folly, the transformation warns that thunder's shock may expose what was hidden in darkness. Mountain over water, the spring emerging below — but when what emerges is monstrous rather than clear, even the spring of understanding becomes a source of terror.
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