比 → 復
Hexagram 8: Holding Together → Hexagram 24: Return
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 5).
Line 1
初六 有孚比之。无咎。有孚盈缶。終來有它吉。
Six at the beginning means: Hold to him in truth and loyalty; This is without blame. Truth, like a full earthen bowl: Thus in the end Good fortune comes from without.
Line 5
九五 顯比。王用三驅。失前禽。邑人不誡。吉。
Nine in the fifth place means: Manifestation of holding together. In the hunt the king uses beaters on three sides only And forgoes game that runs off in front. The citizens need no warning. Good fortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
季去我東，髮櫛如蓬。展轉空床，內懷憂傷。
My love has gone east; hair unkempt like wild grass. Tossing on an empty bed; filled within by sorrow.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water upon earth should keep companions near, but here the beloved has departed eastward. Hair unkempt as tangled wormwood, the abandoned one tosses on an empty bed, heart full of grief. The 'youngest' (季) who has gone east may be a husband or a youngest brother — the word carries both familial and affectionate overtones. The imagery of disheveled hair and sleepless nights echoes the Shijing tradition of women's lament poetry. From Holding Together to Return, thunder stirs beneath the earth in midwinter's solstice, promising that what has departed will circle back. The verse's anguish is real, but Fu's cosmic pattern insists: separation is not permanent. The one who has gone east will return.
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