小過 → 遯
Hexagram 62: Small Exceeding → Hexagram 33: Retreat
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 5, 6).
Line 5
六五 密雲不雨。自我西郊。公弋取彼在穴。
Six in the fifth place means: Dense clouds, No rain from our western territory. The prince shoots and hits him who is in the cave.
Line 6
上六 弗遇過之。飛鳥離之。凶。是謂災眚。
Six at the top means: He passes him by, not meeting him. The flying bird leaves him. Misfortune. This means bad luck and injury.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
切切之患，凶重憂荐，為虎所吞。
Pressing, urgent peril; misfortune weighs heavy, calamity upon calamity; devoured by the tiger.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder rumbles above the mountain, but pressing danger mounts relentlessly — misfortune compounds, sorrows pile upon each other, until one is devoured by the tiger. The verse is pure dread compressed into three phrases: anxiety escalating, calamity doubling, the predator closing in. No named figure, no historical allusion — just the existential terror of being hunted with no escape. The tiger represents danger that does not negotiate. From Small Exceeding to Retreat, the mountain's thunder gives way to heaven rising above the mountain — the image of strategic withdrawal. The verse shows what happens when retreat comes too late: the one who should have withdrawn while the path was clear is now swallowed whole. Retreat is medicine; delay makes it poison.
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