比 → 睽
Hexagram 8: Holding Together → Hexagram 38: Opposition
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 5 changing lines (lines 1, 2, 4, 5, 6).
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 2
六二 比之自內。貞吉。
Six in the second place means: Hold to him inwardly. Perseverance brings good fortune.
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 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.
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
城上有烏，自號破家。呼喚鴆毒，為國患災。
A crow upon the city wall, crying out its own ruin. It summons poisonous zhenniao; bringing plague and disaster to the state.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Water upon earth is shadowed by a dark omen. A crow perches on the city wall, crying out its own name: 'Break the house!' It summons poison — the zhen-bird whose feathers contaminate wine — and brings plague upon the state. The crow atop the rampart is a classic ill omen in Han-dynasty lore, associated with urban disaster and siege. Its self-naming cry ('breaking the house') is a sinister word-play: the bird announces the doom it embodies. From Holding Together to Opposition, fire and lake pull in opposite directions, each evaporating what the other provides. The poisoned alliance of Bi becomes Kui's fundamental estrangement: what should cooperate instead destroys, and the warning cries go unheeded until the state itself is consumed.
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