Text of Confucianism Part 02

SR No.: 007676
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: James Legge
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1882
Total Pages: 2405
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 43 MB

Page 169

142
THE YÎ KING.
TEXT.
with the great man. (In these circumstances), with firmness and correctness, there will be good fortune.
1. From the first line, divided, we learn that advance (on the part of its subject) will lead to (greater) difficulties, while remaining stationary will afford ground for praise.
2. The second line, divided, shows the minister of the king struggling with difficulty on difficulty, and not with a view to his own advantage.
3. The third line, undivided, shows its subject advancing, (but only) to (greater) difficulties. He remains stationary, and returns (to his former associates).
4. The fourth line, divided, shows its subject advancing, (but only) to (greater) difficulties. He remains stationary, and unites (with the subject of the line above).
5. The fifth line, undivided, shows its subject struggling with the greatest difficulties, while friends are coming to help him.
6. The topmost line, divided, shows its subject going forward, (only to increase) the difficulties,
with him, and head of some branch of the descendants of the royal house. It is as easy for 5, so supported, to deal with the disunion of the time, as to bite through a piece of skin.
Line 6 is an even place, and yet the line is strong;—what can its subject effect? He looks at 3, which, as weak, is a proper correlate; but he looks with the evil eye of disunion. The subject of 3 appears no better than a filthy pig, nor more real than an impossible carriage-load of ghosts. He bends his bow against him, but he unbends it, discovering a friend in 3, as I did in 4, and 5 in 2. He acts and with good luck, comparable to the falling rain, which results from the happy union of the yang and yin in nature.
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