A single yin appears beneath five yang: a hexagram of unexpected meeting, warning against binding oneself to a force that grows stronger than it looks.
Qian ☰, heaven, strong, lies above Xun ☴, wind, whose quality is entering, and a single yin line has slipped in at the bottom. Zhu Xi reads the name as meeting: after pure yang, this yin turns up suddenly, like someone met without any appointment. The judgment warns against taking so strong and unsteady a partner in marriage, and the lines show the yang lines working out how to contain it.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
姤，女壯，勿用取女。
Gou: the woman is strong. Do not take this woman in marriage.
Zhu Xi glosses the name as meeting. Once Hexagram 43, Guai, has cut away the last yin, pure yang follows, and then a single yin line appears at the bottom again, unlooked for, like an encounter no one arranged. He judges such a meeting improper from the start. One yin facing five yang shows a woman whose virtue is not steadfast and whose strength is excessive, and taking her as a partner would harm the yang. The warning concerns what one binds oneself to.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
天下有風，姤。后以施命誥四方。
Under heaven there is wind: Encounter. The sovereign issues his commands and proclaims them to the four quarters.
Wind moving under heaven reaches everything it passes, meeting each thing in turn. Zhu Xi leaves this sentence without a note. In the text, the sovereign does the same with his commands, sending them out to the four quarters so that they reach everyone.
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, yin (初六)changing line in the shared reading
繫于金柅，貞吉。有攸往，見凶。羸豕孚蹢躅。
Tied to a metal brake. Being correct and firm brings good fortune. If it has somewhere to go, misfortune appears. A lean pig is sure to pace and paw.
The first line (初六) is the single yin just beginning to grow. Zhu Xi reads the first half as a warning to it: stay tied to the metal brake, a strong block for a cart, and keep still and correct, so that it does no harm. Knowing its momentum will not simply stop, he reads the lean pig, restless even while weak, as a warning to the noble person to prepare well in advance.
Line 2, yang (九二)changing line in the shared reading
包有魚，无咎，不利賓。
There is a fish in the wrapper. No blame. It is not favorable for the guests.
Fish, Zhu Xi notes, are yin things, and the second line (九二) is the first to meet the yin line below, so it holds the fish in its wrapping. As long as it keeps hold of it, there is no blame. Letting it out to meet the guests, the other yang lines, would spread the harm widely. A problem contained early is easier than one chased later.
Line 3, yang (九三)changing line in the shared reading
臀无膚，其行次且，厲，无大咎。
The rump has no skin; walking is halting. Danger, but no great blame.
The third line (九三) has the same halting gait as the fourth line of Hexagram 43, Guai. Too hard and off center, it cannot reach the yin below and has no partner above, so it can neither settle nor advance. Zhu Xi finds a benefit in that isolation: having met no one, it has taken no harm from the yin. Uneasy, then, but not seriously at fault.
Line 4, yang (九四)changing line in the shared reading
包无魚，起凶。
No fish in the wrapper. Rising to act brings misfortune.
The fourth line (九四) is the natural partner of the yin line at the bottom, but the second line got there first, so its wrapper is empty. Zhu Xi's note says no more than that. The text adds that rising to act from this position brings misfortune. What has already gone elsewhere is not won back by force.
Line 5, yang (九五)changing line in the shared reading
以杞包瓜，含章，有隕自天。
A tall tree wraps around a melon. Beauty is kept hidden within. Something falls from heaven.
Melons, Zhu Xi says, are yin things that grow low, sweet but quick to rot, while the 杞 is a tall, solid tree. The strong, central and correct fifth line (九五) presides from above and shields against the young yin before it spoils. Yin and yang take turns prevailing, the ordinary course of time; yet holding one's excellence in reserve and acting calmly can turn that course, and what was not there suddenly appears, as if fallen from heaven.
Top line, yang (上九)changing line in the shared reading
姤其角，吝，无咎。
Meeting with the horns. Humiliation, but no blame.
Horns are hardness at the very top, and so is the top line (上九): strong, high, without office, and too far away to meet the yin below. Zhu Xi likens its outcome to that of the third line. Standing so aloof is cause for some embarrassment, yet since nothing was met, nothing is to blame.
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.