Home › I Ching · 64 hexagrams › Hexagram 38
James Legge, 1899 (public domain)
Khwei indicates that, (notwithstanding the condition of things which it denotes), in small matters there will (still) be good success.
Khwei — fire flaming upward, water flowing downward, two sisters whose wills move apart — is the hexagram of alienation, and the oracle bounds its promise honestly: in small matters there will still be good success. Lost horses come back; do not chase. Meeting bad men need not be an error. Meet your lord in a bye-passage and there is no mistake. The dragged carriage and shaven head: no good beginning, but a good end. Solitary amid disunion, meet the good man and blend sincere desires. Bite through the skin with your relative and go forward without error. The pig bearing mud and the carriage of ghosts prove a near relative; the bow comes down, genial rain falls, good fortune.
Line 1
The first line, undivided, shows that (to its subject) occasion for repentance will disappear. He has lost his horses, but let him not seek for them;—they will return of themselves. Should he meet with bad men, he will not err (in communicating with them).
Line 2
The second line, undivided, shows its subject happening to meet with his lord in a bye-passage. There will be no error.
Line 3
In the third line, divided, we see one whose carriage is dragged back, while the oxen in it are pushed back, and he is himself subjected to the shaving of his head and the cutting off of his nose. There is no good beginning, but there will be a good end.
Line 4
The fourth line, undivided, shows its subject solitary amidst the (prevailing) disunion. (But) he meets with the good man (represented by the first line), and they blend their sincere desires together. The position is one of peril, but there will be no mistake.
Line 5
The fifth line, divided, shows that (to its subject) occasion for repentance will disappear. With his relative (and minister he unites closely and readily) as if he were biting through a piece of skin. When he goes forward (with this help), what error can there be?
Line 6
The topmost line, undivided, shows its subject solitary amidst the (prevailing) disunion. (In the subject of the third line, he seems to) see a pig bearing on its back a load of mud, (or fancies) there is a carriage full of ghosts. He first bends his bow against him, and afterwards unbends it, (for he discovers) that he is not an assailant to injure, but a near relative. Going forward, he shall meet with (genial) rain, and there will be good fortune.