After the stripping, one yang line returns at the base: the time of coming back. Things go through again, and the text favors turning back early toward what is right.
Zhen ☳, thunder, whose quality is movement (動), lies beneath Kun ☷, the earth, whose quality is yielding (順). Zhu Xi reads fu as yang coming back to life at the bottom once stripping has run its course, the hexagram of the eleventh month. Movement below that rises through yielding means going out and coming in without harm, and the return follows the natural course of heaven.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
復，亨。出入无疾，朋來无咎。反復其道，七日來復，利有攸往。
Fu: success. Out and in, there is no affliction; friends arrive, and there is no blame. It goes and comes back along its way; in seven days it returns. It is favorable to have somewhere to go.
Fu is yang returning to life at the bottom. When stripping is complete the figure is all yin, the tenth month, yet yang already stirs below; after a month of gathering the single yang line is formed: the eleventh month. Movement rising through yielding is why going out and coming in meet no harm and friends arrive without blame. Counting from Hexagram 44, Gou, where the first yin appears in the fifth month, seven lines pass before yang returns; Zhu Xi calls this heaven's natural course and reads the seven days as the expected time of return. With firm strength growing, going forward is favored.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
雷在地中，復。先王以至日閉關，商旅不行，后不省方。
Thunder inside the earth: Fu. On the solstice the former kings shut the passes; merchants and travelers stayed put, and the ruler made no tour of the regions.
Thunder still inside the earth is yang just beginning, too faint to be disturbed. Zhu Xi explains the shut passes as quiet kept so the small yang can be nourished, and cites the Yueling: in this month people fasted, kept themselves withdrawn, and waited for yin and yang to settle.
Lines (爻辭)
From the bottom line to the top. In the line names, nine (九) marks a yang line and six (六) a yin line.
Line 1, yang (初九)changing line in the shared reading
不遠復，无祇悔，元吉。
Returning before going far. It does not come to regret. Great good fortune.
This single yang line at the bottom is the master of the hexagram, the returning light itself. Zhu Xi glosses 祇 as “to reach”: having strayed only a little at the very start of an affair, the first line (初九) turns back to the good before it ever arrives at regret. He calls that great goodness and the way of good fortune. The line favors the quick correction made while the path back is still short.
Line 2, yin (六二)changing line in the shared reading
休復，吉。
A graceful return. Good fortune.
Soft, compliant, central and correct, the second line (六二) sits right next to the returning yang and is willing to place itself beneath it. Zhu Xi calls this the beauty of coming back: turning toward the good that is close at hand. The text judges it favorable. Returning can mean letting someone better show the way.
Line 3, yin (六三)changing line in the shared reading
頻復，厲，无咎。
Returning again and again. Danger, but no blame.
Neither central nor correct, a yin line at the restless top of the thunder trigram, the third line (六三) comes back but cannot hold on. Zhu Xi reads it as straying and returning over and over. The repeated slipping is the danger; the returning each time is why there is no blame. The text does not dismiss a return just because it has had to be made before.
Line 4, yin (六四)changing line in the shared reading
中行獨復。
Going along in the middle of the crowd, it alone turns back.
Among the yin lines, the fourth (六四) alone answers the yang line at the bottom, walking with the crowd yet turning by itself toward the good. No good fortune is named, Zhu Xi explains, since the returning yang is still too faint to accomplish much; but this is simply what is right, and outcomes are beside the point. He cites Master Dong (董子): the humane set right what is due without scheming for profit.
Line 5, yin (六五)changing line in the shared reading
敦復，无悔。
A wholehearted return. No regret.
In the ruler's place, central and compliant, the fifth line (六五) meets the time of returning and comes back wholeheartedly. Zhu Xi calls this solid, earnest return the way to have no regret. Where the third line kept slipping, this one returns with depth, and the verdict reflects it.
Top line, yin (上六)changing line in the shared reading
迷復，凶，有災眚。用行師，終有大敗，以其國君凶，至于十年不克征。
Lost on the way back. Misfortune; there are disasters and calamities. If troops are sent out, in the end there is a great defeat, reaching even the ruler of the state: misfortune. For ten years it cannot march.
At the very end of the hexagram a soft line has lost its way and never comes back. Zhu Xi calls this the road to misfortune, and the text piles up pictures of it: disaster on every side, an army routed, a defeat that reaches even the ruler, since he glosses 以 as “reaching to,” and ten years without strength to set out again. It is the reverse of the first line's quick return.
If you drew this hexagram
Which text to read depends on how many lines are changing. With none, read the judgment; with one, read that line; with more, follow Zhu Xi's rules in the Yixue qimeng.
Text: Zhu Xi, Yuanben Zhouyi benyi (原本周易本義), Siku Quanshu Wenyuange copy, as transcribed by the Kanseki Repository (KR1a0031), corrected and punctuated by K-magpie. Translation and explanation: written by AI (Claude) from Zhu Xi's commentary and checked against the text and commentary. Sources and the list of corrections are on the Today's Hexagram page.
Characters corrected in this hexagram — judgment: 朋來元咎 → 朋來无咎 · image: 閉闗 → 閉關