小過 → 既濟
Hexagram 62: Small Exceeding → Hexagram 63: After Completion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 1, 4, 5).
Line 1
初六 飛鳥以凶。
Six at the beginning means: The bird meets with misfortune through flying.
Line 4
九四 无咎。弗過遇之。往厲必戒。勿用永貞。
Nine in the fourth place means: No blame. He meets him without passing by. Going brings danger. One must be on guard. Do not act. Be constantly persevering.
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.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
眾邪充側，鳳凰折翼。微子復北，去其邦國。
Evil crowds press close on every side; the phoenix's wings are broken; Viscount Wei returns north; leaving his homeland behind.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Thunder rumbles above the mountain, but the court is crowded with evil advisors, and the phoenix's wings are broken. The Viscount of Wei departs northward, leaving his state behind. The Viscount of Wei (微子), half-brother of the tyrant King Zhou of Shang, was one of the Three Benevolent Ones who recognized the dynasty's moral collapse. When remonstrance failed, he fled rather than remain complicit in the ruin. The broken phoenix is the Shang dynasty itself — a once-magnificent creature brought down by internal corruption. From Small Exceeding to After Completion, the mountain's thunder resolves into water above fire — everything in its correct position, the task nominally finished. But the verse's 'completion' is bitterly ironic: what is completed is not salvation but the dynasty's destruction. The Viscount's departure confirms it is over.
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