旅 → 節
Hexagram 56: The Wanderer → Hexagram 60: Limitation
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 6 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 3, 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 3
九三 旅焚其次。喪其童僕。貞厲。
Nine in the third place means: The wanderer's inn burns down. He loses the steadfastness of his young servant. Danger.
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
三足无頭，弗知所之。心狂精傷，莫使為明，不見月光。
Three legs, no head; it knows not where to go. The mind is deranged, the spirit wounded; nothing can serve as light. The moon's glow is not seen.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire on the mountain, and a three-legged creature with no head stumbles blindly, not knowing where to go. Mind deranged and spirit broken, nothing serves as illumination — even the moonlight is invisible. The headless three-legged form may invert the auspicious three-legged sun-crow: where the sun-crow carries light across the sky, this creature is its dark parody, groping through a world without guidance. From The Wanderer to Limitation, water above the lake establishes boundaries and measure. Yet the verse depicts a being beyond all limitation — not transcending it but falling below it, too damaged even to perceive the structures that might save it. Limitation here is medicine the patient cannot swallow.
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