Home › I Ching · 64 hexagrams › Hexagram 30
James Legge, 1899 (public domain)
Lî indicates that, (in regard to what it denotes), it will be advantageous to be firm and correct, and that thus there will be free course and success. Let (its subject) also nourish (a docility like that of) the cow, and there will be good fortune.
Lî — fire doubled, brightness clinging to brightness — is the hexagram of attachment: what you fasten yourself to decides what you burn as. Fire must have its fuel; light must cling to what is right. I say: be firm and correct, nourish the docility of the cow, and there is free course and success. The lines grade the clinging. Confused steps trodden reverently — no mistake. A place in yellow — great good fortune. The declining sun answered with groans — evil. Tears flowing in torrents — good fortune, for such sorrow is honest. Rise early, rise gently, cling to the correct, and your light outlasts the day.
Line 1
The first line, undivided, shows one ready to move with confused steps. But he treads at the same time reverently, and there will be no mistake.
Line 2
The second line, divided, shows its subject in his place in yellow. There will be great good fortune.
Line 3
The third line, undivided, shows its subject in a position like that of “the declining sun.” Instead of playing on his instrument of earthenware, and singing to it, he utters the groans of an old man of eighty. There will be evil.
Line 4
The fourth line, undivided, shows the manner of its subject’s coming. How abrupt it is, as with fire, with death, to be rejected (by all)!
Line 5
The fifth line, divided, shows its subject as one with tears flowing in torrents, and groaning in sorrow. There will be good fortune.
Line 6
The topmost line, undivided, shows the king employing its subject in his punitive expeditions. Achieving admirable (merit), he breaks (only) the chiefs (of the rebels). Where his prisoners were not their associates, he does not punish. There will be no error.