Hexagram 56 · 旅 · lǚ
Hexagram 56. Lǚ · The Wanderer
☲☶ Fire over mountain: Lí above, Gèn below.
Lii intimates that (in the condition which it denotes) there may be some little attainment and progress. If the stranger or traveller be firm and correct as he ought to be, there will be good fortune.
Lii intimates that (in the condition which it denotes) there may be some little attainment and progress. If the stranger or traveller be firm and correct as he ought to be, there will be good fortune.
Fire running along the mountain: a traveler who nowhere stays long. You are on foreign ground — a new milieu, trade, country — with no reserve of standing. Be restrained, courteous, wary of disputes; be content with little and do not presume: the wanderer survives by modesty.
The Image
Fire runs along the mountain, nowhere lingering: the wanderer's condition. You are on foreign ground — a new milieu, country, trade — without reserves or old merits. The rules of the road: modesty, courtesy, exactness in obligations, caution in disputes; be content with the attainable. Arrogance burns the wanderer's shelter faster than any enemy.
Interpretation of hexagram 56
LVI. The Lu Hexagram. The subject of 2 therefore, if he advance, will not be acceptable to his ruler, and will not be employed. The only way in which he can be useful by developing the light that is in him is pointed out in the conclusion. The constellation of the Bushel corresponds to our Ursa Major, or perhaps part of Sagittarius.
The lines of hexagram 56
First line
The first line, divided, shows the stranger mean and meanly occupied. It is thus that he brings on himself (further) calamity.
Line 3 is strong, in its proper place. It is the last line more¬ over of the trigram of Brightness. All these conditions are favourable to the employment of its subject; but its correlate is the weak 6, which is at the extremity of the trigram of movement. There is no more power therefore in 6, and the subject of 3 has no one to co-operate with him. His symbolism and auspice are worse than those of 2; but his own proper goodness and capacity will save him from error. Mei is a small star in or near the Bushel.
Second line
The second line, divided, shows the stranger, occupying his lodging-house, carrying with him his means of livelihood, and provided with good and trusty servants.
The symbolism of line 4 is the same as that of 2, till we come to the last sentence. Then there is the strange correlation of the two strong lines in 4 and 1; and the issue is good.
Third line
The third line, undivided, shows the stranger, burning his lodging-house, and having lost his ser¬ vants. However firm and correct he (try to) be, he will be in peril.
The subject of line 5 is in the ruler’s place, himself weak, but ‘ the lord ’ of the trigram of movement. He can do little unhelped, but if he can bring into the work and employ in his service the talents of 1, 3, and 4, and even of 2, his correlate, the results will be admirable. Nothing consolidates the prosperity of a country so much as the co-operation of the ruler and able ministers.
Fourth line
The fourth line, undivided, shows the traveller in a resting-place, having (also) the means of liveli¬ hood and the axe, (but still saying),‘I am not at ease in my mind.’
All the conditions of line 6 are unfavourable, and its subject is left to himself without any helpers. He is isolated for long, and undone. The issue is only evil.
Fifth line
The fifth line, divided, shows its subject shoot¬ ing a pheasant. He will lose his arrow, but in the end he will obtain praise and a (high) charge.
LVI. The name Lii denotes people travelling abroad, and is often translated by ‘ strangers.’ As early as the time of king Wan, there was a class of men who went about from one state to another, pur¬ suing their business as pedlars or travelling merchants; but in Mencius II, i, chap. 5. 3, it is used for travellers generally, whatever it was that took them out of their own states. Confucius himself is adduced as a travelling stranger; and in this hexagram king Wan is supposed to have addressed himself to the class of such men, and told them how they ought to comport themselves. They ought to cultivate two qualities,—those of humility and integrity (firm correctness). By means of these they would escape harm, and would make some little attainment and progress. Their rank was too low to speak of great things in connexion with them. It is interesting to find travellers, strangers in a strange land, having thus a place in the Yi.
Top line
The sixth line, undivided, suggests the idea of a bird burning its nest. The stranger, (thus represented), first laughs and then cries out. He has lost his ox(-like docility) too readily and easily. There will be evil.
For the manner in which the component trigrams are supposed
Did hexagram 56 come up in your reading? The oracle itself gives the full reading, with changing lines and the second hexagram.
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