Heaven and water run in opposite directions: a hexagram of contention. The text favors wariness, keeping to the middle and fairness, and warns against pushing a quarrel to the end.
Water ☵, whose quality is peril, lies below heaven ☰, whose quality is strength. Zhu Xi reads song as contention: strength above presses down while danger below watches for its chance. The judgment approves of the sincere party who stays wary and keeps to the middle, warns against carrying a dispute through to the end, and looks to the fair-minded great person.
Judgment (卦辭)
The text attached to the whole hexagram, read when no line is changing.
訟，有孚窒惕，中吉，終凶。利見大人，不利涉大川。
Song. There is sincerity, but it is blocked. Wary, keeping to the middle: good fortune. Carried to the end: misfortune. It is favorable to see the great person. It is not favorable to cross the great river.
Song is contention. Heaven above is firm and presses down; water below is perilous and watches for a chance against those above, so the trigrams themselves stage a dispute. Zhu Xi finds the sincere but blocked party in the second line, solid at the center yet with no partner above; it can still be wary and keep to the middle, which is good fortune. The top line, too firm and at the end, drives the dispute to its limit: misfortune. The fifth line, firm, central and correct, is the great person. Strength set on top of danger makes a river crossing unfavorable.
Image (大象)
The Image commentary (象傳) reads the whole hexagram from its two trigrams.
天與水違行，訟。君子以作事謀始。
Heaven and water move in contrary directions: Song. The noble person, accordingly, plans at the start of every undertaking.
Heaven is above and water runs below, so their courses part. Zhu Xi's note is short: plan with care at the start of a task, and the roots of contention are cut off before they grow. The image places the remedy for dispute at the very beginning.
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
不永所事，小有言，終吉。
Not prolonging the matter. A little criticism. In the end, good fortune.
A soft line at the very bottom lacks the force to keep a quarrel going, and Zhu Xi's note says little more than that. Because it lets the matter drop, it suffers only a few words against it, and the end is good. The text here sides with the one who does not drag a dispute out.
Line 2, yang (九二)changing line in the shared reading
不克訟，歸而逋，其邑人三百戶，无眚。
Unable to win the dispute, one returns home and withdraws. A town of three hundred households: no calamity.
As master of the perilous trigram, the second line is the one that wants to fight. But it is firm in a soft place, central in the lower trigram, and faces the fifth line, firm and in the seat of honor, a power it cannot match. So it goes back and withdraws. Three hundred households, Zhu Xi says, is a small town: the figure keeps itself small and modest, and so escapes disaster.
Line 3, yin (六三)changing line in the shared reading
食舊德，貞厲，終吉。或從王事，无成。
Living on what old virtue has earned. Correct and firm: danger, but good fortune in the end. If it goes out to serve in the king's affairs, there is no achievement.
Shi here means to live on, as one lives on a fief: what one already enjoys. A soft yin line is not built for contention, so it holds to its long-standing share and stays correct. Zhu Xi says there is danger, but the end is good. Stepping out to serve those above would bring no success; for him, keeping to the ordinary and staying put is what serves this line well.
Line 4, yang (九四)changing line in the shared reading
不克訟，復即命，渝，安貞吉。
Unable to win the dispute. It turns back to what is right and changes its mind. Settling calmly in correctness: good fortune.
Firm and off-center, the fourth line has a quarrel in it. Because it sits in a soft place, though, it cannot win, and Zhu Xi turns that into a picture of change: it goes back to what is right, alters its intent, and settles calmly in correctness. Ming here, he explains, means right principle. Losing the argument becomes the occasion to turn around.
Line 5, yang (九五)changing line in the shared reading
訟，元吉。
Dispute. Great good fortune.
The fifth line is firm, central and correct in the seat of honor, and Zhu Xi sees in it the one who hears disputes and settles them fairly. In his reading, this is the dispute that reaches a fair judge: where there is reason, it is heard and upheld. The good fortune rests on fairness and on having right on one's side, not on force.
Top line, yang (上九)changing line in the shared reading
或錫之鞶帶，終朝三褫之。
It may be granted a leather sash of office, but before the morning is over it is stripped away three times.
The sash belongs to the robes of office bestowed by command. A firm line at the extreme of the dispute fights to the end and may even win, hence the award. Zhu Xi asks how anything gained through contention could last: the same morning it is taken away three times. He reads it as a dispute without reason that wins for a while yet loses what it won, a warning he calls deep.
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.