小畜 → 困
Hexagram 9: Small Taming → Hexagram 47: Oppression
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 4 changing lines (lines 1, 3, 4, 6).
Line 1
初九 復自道。何其咎。吉。
Nine at the beginning means: Return to the way. How could there be blame in this? Good fortune.
Line 3
九三 輿說輻。夫妻反目。
Nine in the third place means: The spokes burst out of the wagon wheels. Man and wife roll their eyes.
Line 4
六四 有孚。血去惕出。无咎。
Six in the fourth place means: If you are sincere, blood vanishes and fear gives way. No blame.
Line 6
上九 既雨既處。尚德載。婦貞厲。月幾望。君子征凶。
Nine at the top means: The rain comes, there is rest. This is due to the lasting effect of character. Perseverance brings the woman into danger. The moon is nearly full. If the superior man persists, Misfortune comes.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
行役未已，新事復起；姬姜勞苦，不得休息。
Service and labor not yet ended; new tasks arise again. Ji and Jiang toil and suffer; finding no rest or reprieve.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind above heaven drains into the lake with no water — Oppression's exhaustion. Military duties drag on without end; new tasks pile upon the old before the first is finished. The women of noble clans — Ji and Jiang — toil and suffer without respite. From Small Taming to Oppression, the gentle wind that once refined heaven's force is now wrung dry. Kun's lake has lost its water: an empty vessel that cannot nourish. The verse echoes the Shijing soldiers' lament — 'What day do we not march?' — where service becomes an endless drain. Ji and Jiang, the great surname clans of Zhou and Qi, represent the highest-born reduced to grinding labor. When even the privileged find no rest, oppression has become total.
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