Upper Trigram
艮 Gèn
Mountain — Stillness
Lower Trigram
離 Lí
Fire — Clinging
Classical Texts
The Judgment
Success through smallness. Persistence brings good fortune to the wanderer. When a stranger, you should not be gruff or overbearing. Having no large circle of acquaintances, don't give yourself airs. Be cautious and reserved—this protects from evil. Be obliging toward others and win success. A wanderer has no fixed abode; home is the road. Take care to remain upright and steadfast, sojourning only in proper places, associating only with good people. Then you have good fortune and can go your way unmolested.
The Lines
Line 1
If the wanderer busies himself with trivial things, he draws down misfortune upon himself. A wanderer should not demean himself or busy himself with inferior things along the way. The humbler and more defenseless your outward position, the more you should preserve inner dignity. A stranger mistaken if hoping to find friendly reception through jokes and buffoonery. The result will be only contempt and insulting treatment.
Line 2
The wanderer comes to an inn. He has his property with him. He wins the steadfastness of a young servant. This wanderer is modest and reserved. Not losing touch with their inner being, they find a resting place. In the outside world, they don't lose the liking of other people, so all further them. They can acquire property and moreover win the allegiance of a faithful servant—a thing of inestimable value to a wanderer.
Line 3
The wanderer's inn burns down. He loses the steadfastness of his young servant. Danger. A truculent stranger doesn't know how to behave properly. Meddling in affairs and controversies that don't concern them, they lose their resting place. Treating their servant with aloofness and arrogance, they lose the man's loyalty. When a stranger in a strange land has no one left on whom to rely, the situation becomes very dangerous.
Line 4
The wanderer rests in a shelter. He obtains his property and an ax. My heart is not glad. A wanderer who knows how to limit desires outwardly, though inwardly strong and aspiring. Finding at least a place of shelter, succeeding in acquiring property, but not secure. Always on guard, ready to defend with arms. Hence not at ease—persistently conscious of being a stranger in a strange land.
Line 5
He shoots a pheasant. It drops with the first arrow. In the end this brings both praise and office. Traveling statesmen would introduce themselves to local princes with the gift of a pheasant. You shoot one, killing it at the first shot. Thus you find friends who praise and recommend you, and in the end the prince accepts you and confers an office. If you know how to meet the situation and introduce yourself in the right way, you may find a circle of friends and a sphere of activity even in a strange country.
Line 6
The bird's nest burns up. The wanderer laughs at first, then must needs lament and weep. Through carelessness he loses his cow. Misfortune. Loss of one's resting place. If heedless and imprudent when building the nest, this misfortune may overtake you. If you let yourself go, laughing and jesting, forgetting that you are a wanderer, you will later have cause to weep and lament. Through carelessness losing your cow—your modesty and adaptability—evil will result.
Yilin: Forest of Changes
From Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — the verse for Hexagram 56 in its unchanging form. A Han dynasty collection of four-character verses interpreting every hexagram transformation.
羅網四張，鳥无所翔。征伐困極，飢窮不食。
Nets are spread in every direction; the bird has nowhere to fly. Campaign and conquest pushed to the limit; starving and destitute, without food.
Read full commentary ↓
Fire on the mountain returns to fire on the mountain — The Wanderer doubled. Nets spread in all four directions; the bird has nowhere to fly. The traveler, exhausted from endless campaigns, starves in his own destitution. This is the wanderer's condition taken to its logical extreme: when source and target are the same hexagram, the pattern intensifies without relief. No transformation occurs; the fire simply burns on the same mountain. From The Wanderer to The Wanderer, there is no escape from transience. The nets are ubiquitous, the hunger permanent, and the warfare without end. The only shift possible is in the wanderer's stance: even trapped, one may choose how to bear the unbearable.
中文注释
山上有火復為山上有火——旅之重卦。「羅網四張」——天羅地網，四面封鎖。「鳥無所翔」——飛鳥無處可去。「征伐困極，飢窮不食」——征戰至極，飢困而無食。此為旅人之處境推至極端：源卦與變卦相同，則模式無轉化地反覆加劇。火仍燃於同一座山，無處可變。從旅至旅，流離無解，羅網無隙，飢餓不止，戰事無休。唯一可能之轉變在於姿態：縱被困，仍可選擇如何承受。
Related Hexagrams
Same upper trigram: Mountain (艮)