兌 → 噬嗑
Hexagram 58: The Joyous Lake → Hexagram 21: Biting Through
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 2, 5, 6).
Line 2
九二 孚兌吉。悔亡。
Nine in the second place means: Sincere joyousness. Good fortune. Remorse disappears.
Line 5
九五 孚于剝。有厲。
Nine in the fifth place means: Sincerity toward disintegrating influences is dangerous.
Line 6
上六 引兌。
Six at the top means: Seductive joyousness.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
南循汝水，茂樹斬枝。過時不遇，惄如周飢。
Following the Ru River south, flourishing trees have their branches cut. The time passes without meeting what was sought; anxious and hungry like the want of Zhou.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Paired lakes yield to fire and thunder — Biting Through, the enforcer's hexagram. One travels south along the Ru River where lush trees have had their branches lopped. The appointed time passes without a meeting, and hunger gnaws like the famine songs of old Zhou. The image is of law applied too late or in the wrong manner: the trees are pruned but the traveler still misses the rendezvous. From The Joyous to Biting Through, delight is interrupted by severance. Lightning and thunder clarify laws and punish obstruction, but here the obstruction is temporal — the moment has already passed, and no amount of decisive action can retrieve it.
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