豐 → 噬嗑
Hexagram 55: Abundance → Hexagram 21: Biting Through
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 3, 6).
Line 3
九三 豐其沛。日中見沬。折其右肱。无咎。
Nine in the third place means: The underbrush is of such abundance That the small stars can be seen at noon. He breaks his right arm. No blame.
Line 6
上六 豐其屋。蔀其家。闚其戶。闃其无人。三歲不覿。凶。
Six at the top means: His house is in a state of abundance. He screens off his family. He peers through the gate And no longer perceives anyone. For three years he sees nothing. Misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
左指右麾，邪淫侈靡。執節无良，靈公以亡。
Pointing left, commanding right; depraved, extravagant, and wasteful. Holding authority without virtue, Duke Ling thereby perished.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder and fire converge in Abundance, and the verse condemns a debauched ruler. Pointing left and waving right, he indulges in licentiousness and extravagance. He holds authority without virtue, and Duke Ling perishes because of it. This most likely refers to Duke Ling of Chen, who carried on an affair with the notorious beauty Xia Ji alongside his ministers Kong Ning and Yi Xingfu. According to the Zuo Zhuan, they openly wore Xia Ji's undergarments at court. Duke Ling was assassinated in 599 BC by Xia Zhengsu. From Abundance to Biting Through, fire and thunder enforce justice: abundance squandered on depravity meets the hexagram of judicial punishment, where lightning illuminates crimes and thunder delivers the sentence.
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