Hexagram 56 · Lǚ 旅 The Traveler

旅，小亨，旅貞吉。

Lü: small success. For the traveler, being correct and firm brings good fortune.

旅 means living as a stranger away from home. The fifth line holds the center of the outer trigram and defers to the yang lines above and below it, and stillness clings to brightness, so there is small success. Zhu Xi adds a point of principle: travel is no settled life and might seem a time when anything will do, but the Way is present everywhere, so travel has its own correctness, not to be set aside even for a moment. The good fortune lies in keeping it.

山上有火，旅。君子以明慎用刑，而不留獄。

Fire on the mountain: Lü. The noble person, accordingly, uses punishment with clear sight and care, and does not let cases linger.

Zhu Xi's comment is eight characters long: care in punishment is like the mountain, and not letting cases linger is like the fire. The mountain stays put; the fire does not stay anywhere for long.

Line 1, yin (初六)changing line in the shared reading

旅瑣瑣，斯其所取災。

The traveler fusses over petty things. This is how he brings calamity on himself.

In a time of travel, a weak yin line in the lowest place: the picture is of a small-minded traveler, and the text says the calamity is his own doing. Zhu Xi says only that the line's weakness and low position produce this. Pettiness on the road is not a small matter.

Line 2, yin (六二)changing line in the shared reading

旅即次，懷其資，得童僕貞。

The traveler reaches a lodging, keeps provisions close, and gains young servants who are true and reliable.

Reaching a lodging means security, Zhu Xi says; provisions at hand mean ease; servants who are upright and trustworthy mean no deceit and someone to rely on. He calls this the best a traveler can have, and traces it to the second line's yielding, central and correct quality.

Line 3, yang (九三)changing line in the shared reading

旅焚其次，喪其童僕，貞厲。

The traveler's lodging burns; he loses his young servants. Even being correct and firm, there is danger.

Too firm and off-center at the top of the lower trigram, this line is a traveler who presses too hard: the lodging burns and the servants are gone. Zhu Xi explains the grammar: losing the servants outright is more than losing their loyalty, so here 貞 belongs with the words that follow, and even firm correctness meets danger.

Line 4, yang (九四)changing line in the shared reading

旅于處，得其資斧，我心不快。

The traveler finds a place to stay and gets provisions and an axe. My heart is not at ease.

Firm in a soft place, at the bottom of the upper trigram, this line uses softness and can put itself below others, so it finds a place and what it needs. But the position is not its proper one; above it there is no firm ally, and below only a weak correspondent. That is why the heart stays uneasy even with provisions in hand.

Line 5, yin (六五)changing line in the shared reading

射雉，一矢亡，終以譽命。

Shooting a pheasant, one arrow is lost. In the end, praise and an appointment come of it.

The pheasant, with its patterned plumage, stands for Li, bright and patterned. Soft, compliant, bright and central, the fifth line rules the Li trigram, hence the picture of shooting a pheasant. An arrow is lost, but the cost is small, and in the end there is praise and a charge conferred.

Top line, yang (上九)changing line in the shared reading

鳥焚其巢，旅人先笑後號咷。喪牛于易，凶。

A bird's nest burns. The traveler laughs first and later wails and weeps. He loses his ox without noticing. Misfortune.

Overly firm, at the top of the hexagram and the extreme of Li, this line is proud and unyielding, which Zhu Xi calls the road to misfortune. The burned nest, the laughter that turns into wailing and the ox that slips away unnoticed all picture a traveler undone by his own arrogance.