比 → 遯
Hexagram 8: Holding Together → Hexagram 33: Retreat
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 3 changing lines (lines 3, 4, 6).
Line 3
六三 比之匪人。
Six in the third place means: You hold together with the wrong people.
Line 4
六四 外比之。貞吉。
Six in the fourth place means: Hold to him outwardly also. Perseverance brings good fortune.
Line 6
上六 比之无首。凶。
Six at the top means: He finds no head for holding together. Misfortune.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
早霜晚雪，傷害禾麥。損功棄力，飢無所食。
Locust clouds blot out the sun; every ear of grain is stripped bare. The old farmer kneels in the mud, crying out to heaven.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water upon earth should sustain the harvest, but the original verse tells of early frost and late snow destroying the grain and wheat. Effort is wasted, strength abandoned; there is nothing to eat. Nature's timing goes wrong — frost falls before its season, snow arrives too late — and the farmer's labor yields nothing. This is agricultural ruin not through laziness but through cosmic misalignment: the seasons themselves betray the compact between heaven and earth. From Holding Together to Retreat, heaven above the mountain pulls away. Gen's stillness offers no warmth, and Qian's heaven withdraws beyond reach. The alliance between farmer and soil dissolves when heaven refuses to cooperate — retreat is the only honest response.
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