Text of Confucianism Part 02

Author(s): James Legge
Publisher: Oxford

Page 90

SECT. 1.
THE KUN HEXAGRAM.
63
4. The fourth line, divided, shows (its subject as a lady), the horses of whose chariot appear in retreat. She seeks, however, (the help of) him who seeks her to be his wife. Advance will be fortunate; all will turn out advantageously.
5. The fifth line, undivided, shows the difficulties in the way of its subject's) dispensing the rich favours that might be expected from him. With firmness and correctness there will be good fortune in small things; (even) with them in great things there will be evil.
6. The topmost line, divided, shows (its subject) with the horses of his chariot obliged to retreat, and weeping tears of blood in streams.
III. The character called Kun is pictorial, and was intended to show us how a plant struggles with difficulty out of the earth, rising gradually above the surface. This difficulty, marking the first stages in the growth of a plant, is used to symbolise the struggles that mark the rise of a state out of a condition of disorder, consequent on a great revolution. The same thing is denoted by the combination of the trigrams that form the figure ;-as will be seen in the notes on it under Appendix II.
I have introduced within parentheses, in the translation, the words in the case which the hexagram presupposes. It is necessary to introduce them. King Wăn and his son wrote, as they did in every hexagram, with reference to a particular state of affairs which they had in mind. This was the unspoken text which controlled and directed all their writing; and the student must try to get hold of this, if he would make his way with comfort and success through the Yî. Wăn saw the social and political world around him in great disorder, hard to be remedied. But he had faith in himself and the destinies of his House. Let there be prudence and caution, with unswerving adherence to the right; let the government of the different states be entrusted to good and able men :-then all would be well.
The first line is undivided, showing the strength of its subject. He will be capable of action, and his place in the trigram of mobility will the more dispose him to it. But above him is the
Digitized by Google