未濟 → 歸妹
Hexagram 64: Before Completion → Hexagram 54: The Marrying Maiden
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 6).
Line 1
初六 濡其尾。吝。
Six at the beginning means: He gets his tail in the water. Humiliating.
Line 6
上九 有孚于飲酒。无咎。濡其首。有孚失是。
Nine at the top means: There is drinking of wine In genuine confidence. No blame. But if one wets his head, He loses it, in truth.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
龍生馬淵，壽考且神。飛騰上天，舍宿軒轅，常居樂安。
The dragon born in the horse-pool; long-lived and divine. Flying upward to heaven; dwelling among the stars of Xuanyuan; forever resting in joyful peace.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Fire above water, and a dragon is born in a horse's abyss. Long-lived and numinous, it ascends to heaven, lodges among the stars of Xuanyuan, and dwells forever in peaceful ease. The 'horse abyss' (馬淵) as a dragon's birthplace suggests transformation from the mundane to the celestial — the horse becomes the dragon. Xuanyuan is the constellation associated with the Yellow Emperor, the celestial residence of sovereignty itself. From Before Completion to the Marrying Maiden, fire-over-water transforms into thunder above the lake. The Marrying Maiden is about knowing endings — 'the gentleman understands what is transient by seeing what endures.' The dragon's eternal rest among the stars embodies this: what begins in the depths of a horse-pool ends in celestial permanence.
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