旅 → 大過
Hexagram 56: The Wanderer → Hexagram 28: Great Exceeding
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 4, 5, 6).
Line 1
初六 旅瑣瑣。斯其所取災。
Six at the beginning means: If the wanderer busies himself with trivial things, He draws down misfortune upon himself.
Line 2
六二 旅即次。懷其資。得童僕貞。
Six in the second place means: The wanderer comes to an inn. He has his property with him. He wins the steadfastness of a young servant.
Line 4
九四 旅于處。得其資斧。我心不快。
Nine in the fourth place means: The wanderer rests in a shelter. He obtains his property and an ax. My heart is not glad.
Line 5
六五 射雉。一矢亡。終以譽命。
Six in the fifth place means: He shoots a pheasant. It drops with the first arrow. In the end this brings both praise and office.
Line 6
上九 鳥焚其巢。旅人先笑後號咷。喪牛于易。凶。
Nine at the top means: The bird's nest burns up. The wanderer laughs at first, Then must needs lament and weep. Through carelessness he loses his cow. Misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
蟠梅折枝，與母分離，絕不相知。
The coiling plum tree breaks a branch; separated from the mother, severed beyond knowing.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire on the mountain, and a plum branch breaks from its trunk. A climbing plant coils around the old plum tree, but its weight snaps the limb, severing child from mother forever. The separation is absolute — 'they will never know each other again.' The plum tree, symbol of resilience in Chinese poetry, here cannot bear the parasitic burden. From The Wanderer to Great Exceeding, the lake submerges the trees, and the ridgepole sags under impossible weight. The verse embodies Great Exceeding's crisis: the structure is overloaded, the branch breaks, and what should have been nurturing connection becomes the very force that destroys it. Maternal bonds severed by excessive strain — this is the wanderer's deepest grief.
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