小畜 → 渙
Hexagram 9: Small Taming → Hexagram 59: Dispersion
Changing Lines
This transformation involves 2 changing lines (lines 1, 3).
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.
Trigram Changes
Yilin Verse
鶉尾奔奔，火中成軍；虢叔出奔，下失其君。
The quail is tail in wild flight; an army forms amid the flames. Lord Guo is uncle flees; below, the lord is lost.
— Jiao Yanshou, Yilin (Forest of Changes), 1st century BCE
Commentary
Wind above heaven disperses into wind racing over water — Dispersion's scattering force. Quail-tails bob and bounce — evoking the Shijing ode 'Chun Zhi Ben Ben' that satirizes rulers whose immorality shames even the faithful birds. Fire assembles an army in chaotic formation. The Viscount of Guo flees his state; below, the people lose their sovereign. From Small Taming to Dispersion, the verse traces how moral disorder scatters political coherence. Huan's wind over water disperses what had been gathered: the state fragments, its ruler absconds, and the people are left without a center. The quail — a bird proverbial for fidelity — serves as a reproach: even animals keep their mates, yet this lord abandons his domain.
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