歸妹 → 未濟
Hexagram 54: The Marrying Maiden → Hexagram 64: Before Completion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 6).
Line 1
初九 歸妹以娣。跛能履。征吉。
Nine at the beginning means: The marrying maiden as a concubine. A lame man who is able to tread. Undertakings bring good fortune.
Line 6
上六 女承筐无實。士刲羊无血。无攸利。
Six at the top means: The woman holds the basket, but there are no fruits in it. The man stabs the sheep, but no blood flows. Nothing that acts to further.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
火燒公床，破家滅亡。然得安昌，先憂重喪。
Fire burns the lord's bed; the household is shattered and destroyed. Yet in the end, peace and prosperity are found; first comes grief and heavy mourning.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder over lake ends in fire over water: the maiden's troubled bond confronts Before Completion's unresolved crossing. Fire burns the lord's bed; the household is destroyed and the family perishes. Yet somehow, peace and prosperity follow. First comes worry and double bereavement. The verse embodies Before Completion's paradox: destruction precedes renewal, and the crossing is not yet accomplished even as new conditions emerge. The burning bed is the annihilation of domestic order, total and irreversible. Yet the verse insists that from this ash, stability arises. From the Marrying Maiden to Before Completion, fire sits above water, each element straining toward its natural place but not yet arrived. The final verse of hexagram 54's cycle leaves the outcome suspended between catastrophe and hope.
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