Trees on a mountain and wild geese advancing by stages: a hexagram of gradual progress, pictured as a bride going to her marriage, good when each step stays correct.
The lower trigram is Gen ☶, mountain, whose quality is stopping; the upper is Xun ☴, wind and wood, whose quality is entering, here a compliant yielding. Stillness below and compliance above make an advance that does not rush, which Zhu Xi links to a woman going to her marriage. With the second to fifth lines all in their correct places, the text calls it good fortune, provided correctness holds.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
漸，女歸吉，利貞。
Jian: a woman goes to her marriage. Good fortune. It is fitting to be correct and firm.
漸 means to advance gradually. The lower trigram stops and the upper yields, so the movement forward is unhurried, and Zhu Xi sees in it a woman going to her husband's home. From the second line to the fifth, every line stands in its correct place, so the text judges the marriage favorable, and then adds a caution: it is fitting to stay correct and firm. Progress here is measured by its order as much as by its arrival.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
山上有木，漸。君子以居賢德善俗。
Trees on the mountain: Jian. The noble person, accordingly, settles into worthy virtue and improves the common ways.
Zhu Xi's point is that both things, settling into virtue and improving customs, must proceed step by step. He also suspects the text is damaged here: either 賢, “worthy,” is an extra character, or a character has dropped out after 善, “improve.” The translation keeps the text as it stands.
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
鴻漸于干，小子厲，有言，无咎。
By stages, the wild goose reaches the water's edge. The young one is in danger; there is talk. No blame.
Wild geese fly in order and advance by stages, Zhu Xi notes, and 干 is the bank of the water. Just beginning to move up from the bottom, this line has found no secure place yet, and it has no correspondent above. So the young one meets danger and some criticism, but in terms of what is right there is no blame.
Line 2, yin (六二)changing line in the shared reading
鴻漸于磐，飲食衎衎，吉。
By stages, the wild goose reaches the broad rock. It eats and drinks in quiet contentment. Good fortune.
磐 is a large rock: farther from the water, the goose is more secure there. 衎衎 means harmonious and content. Yielding, central and correct, the second line advances at its proper pace and has a correspondent in the fifth line above, so the image is one of ease and the verdict favorable.
Line 3, yang (九三)changing line in the shared reading
鴻漸于陸，夫征不復，婦孕不育，凶，利禦寇。
By stages, the wild goose reaches the dry heights. The husband sets out and does not return; the wife conceives but bears no child. Misfortune. It is favorable to ward off raiders.
A water bird is not at home on dry land. Too firm, off-center and without a correspondent, the third line gives the images of the husband who never returns and the child never born, and Zhu Xi says no misfortune is greater. Yet the same excess of firmness has its use: it is fit for warding off raiders.
Line 4, yin (六四)changing line in the shared reading
鴻漸于木，或得其桷，无咎。
By stages, the wild goose reaches the trees. It may find a level bough. No blame.
Geese do not perch in trees, but if one finds a level bough, it can rest securely. The fourth line rides on the hard third line, yet it is yielding and compliant, hence the image of the safe branch. Whoever is like this, Zhu Xi says, has no blame.
Line 5, yang (九五)changing line in the shared reading
鴻漸于陵，婦三歲不孕，終莫之勝，吉。
By stages, the wild goose reaches the high mound. For three years the wife does not conceive. In the end nothing can overcome it. Good fortune.
陵 is a high mound. The fifth line holds the place of honor, and its proper partner, the second line, is below, but the third and fourth lines stand between them; hence the years without a child. Still, they cannot in the end take away what is rightly matched, and the text judges this good fortune. Delay is not the same as loss.
Top line, yang (上九)changing line in the shared reading
鴻漸于陸，其羽可用為儀，吉。
By stages, the wild goose reaches the paths of the clouds. Its feathers can serve as ceremonial adornment. Good fortune.
Zhu Xi agrees with Hu and Cheng Yi (胡氏, 程氏) that 陸, “dry land,” should here be read 逵, the roads of the clouds, and finds that the rhyme confirms it. 儀 means the feathers used to decorate banners and standards. At the greatest height, beyond the ranks of human positions, the goose is still of use: its feathers become ornament. Very high, yet not useless; hence good fortune.
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.