XXI. The Shih Ho Hexagram.
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Shih Ho indicates successful progress (in the condition of things which it supposes). It will be advantageous to use legal constraints.
1. The first line, undivided, shows one with his feet in the stocks and deprived of his toes. There will be no error.
2. The second line, divided, shows one biting through the soft flesh, and (going on to) bite off the nose. There will be no error.
the symbol of a thoughtless lad, who cannot see far, and takes only superficial views.
Line 2 is also weak, but in its proper place, showing a woman, living retired, and only able to peep as from her door at the subject of the fifth line. But ignorance and retirement are proper in a woman.
Line 3, at the top of the lower trigram Khwăn, and weak, must belong to a subject of the utmost docility, and will wish to act only according to the exigency of time and circumstances.
Line 4, in the place proper to its weakness, is yet in immediate proximity to 5, representing the sovereign. Its subject is moved accordingly, and stirred to ambition.
Line 5 is strong, and in the place of the ruler. He is a superior man, but this does not relieve him from the duty of self-contemplation or examination.
There is a slight difference in the 6th paragraph from the 5th, which can hardly be expressed in a translation. By making a change in the punctuation, however, the different significance may be brought out. Line 6 is strong, and should be considered out of the work of the hexagram, but its subject is still possessed by the spirit of its idea, and is led to self-examination.
