Biting Through
- In Chinese
- 噬嗑 shìkè
- Above
- The Clinging, fire
- Below
- The Arousing, thunder
Did you get this hexagram?
Mark your changing lines and keep your cast.
Mark my castWhat hexagram 21 means
Hexagram 21 is the picture of a mouth with something caught between the jaws. Legge gives the literal sense of its name as “Union by gnawing”.
The thing in the way has to be bitten through before the jaws can meet. Legge applies the picture to “the body politic” and writes “Remove the obstacles to union, and high and low will come together with a good understanding.”
The judgment is favorable and it names the means. Wilhelm has “It is favorable to let justice be administered.” Legge has “It will be advantageous to use legal constraints.”
The six lines are scenes of punishment. In Legge's reading the bottom and top lines show those who receive it, and the four lines between them show those who inflict it.
The judgment and the image
The judgment
噬嗑亨。利用獄。
BITING THROUGH has success. It is favorable to let justice be administered.
success things flow and come throughit furthers it is favorable
The image
雷電《噬嗑》。先王以明罰勑法。
Thunder and lightning: The image of BITING THROUGH. Thus the kings of former times made firm the laws Through clearly defined penalties.
What the commentaries say
The commentary on the judgment explains the name. It comes from “The existence of something between the jaws”.
The same commentary reads the two trigrams, thunder below and fire above. It says that “Movement is denoted (by the lower trigram), and bright intelligence (by the upper)”, and that the two unite as thunder and lightning.
It also points to the fifth line, a broken line in the place of rule. The commentary admits that this line “is not in its proper position”, and still finds it “advantageous for the use of legal constraints”.
The image is thunder and lightning together. From it the commentary draws the work of the ancient kings, who “framed their penalties with intelligence, and promulgated their laws”.
Wilhelm puts the weight on clarity. The kings of former times made the laws firm “Through clearly defined penalties”.
Legge reads the shape of the figure itself. Whole lines stand in the first and last places, and they suggest the jaws, with “the mouth between them kept open by something in it”.
He also asks how the obstacles are to be removed, and answers in plain terms. It is “By force, emblemed by the gnawing; that is, by legal constraints.”
The six lines
First line
屨校滅趾，无咎。
His feet are fastened in the stocks, So that his toes disappear. No blame.
no blame there is no mistake in it
The punishment here comes early. Legge calls it “that of the stocks, administered for a small offence, and before crime has made much way”. The commentary says what the stocks do, which is that “there is no walking (to do evil)”.
Legge adds a reservation. If the toes are cut off and not only held in restraint, he writes that “the punishment appears to a western reader too severe”.
When only this line changes, it becomes hexagram 35, Progress
Second line
噬膚滅鼻，无咎。
Bites through tender meat, So that his nose disappears. No blame.
no blame there is no mistake in it
Here the one who punishes has a simple case. Legge calls biting through the soft flesh “an easy thing”.
The nose is another matter. Just below this line Legge sees “a strong offender represented by the strong line”, and the commentary agrees that the subject of the line “is mounted on the strong (first line)”. So the punishment goes further, and the text still finds no error.
When only this line changes, it becomes hexagram 38, Opposition
Third line
噬腊肉遇毒，小吝，无咎。
Bites on old dried meat And strikes on something poisonous. Slight humiliation. No blame.
humiliation it leads to embarrassmentno blame there is no mistake in it
The task gets harder. Legge reads the action of this line as “ineffective”, shown by “the hard task of gnawing through dried flesh”. Wilhelm has the biter strike “on something poisonous”.
The commentary gives the cause, which is that “his position is not the proper one for him”. The regret is small, and Legge concludes that “the auspice is not all bad”.
When only this line changes, it becomes hexagram 30, The Clinging
Fourth line
噬乾胏，得金矢。利艱貞、吉。
Bites on dried gristly meat. Receives metal arrows. It furthers one to be mindful of difficulties And to be persevering. Good fortune.
it furthers it is favorablegood fortune it goes well
This is the one line with good fortune, and it comes with a condition. The meat is “the flesh dried on the bone”, and its subject has to “realise the difficulty of his task and be firm”.
Legge explains the money and arrows as pledges that the parties in a case once brought to the court. Receiving them “indicates his exercising his judicial functions; and what he gnaws through indicates their difficulty”.
The commentary adds why firmness is still needed. Of the subject of this line it says “his light has not yet been sufficiently displayed”.
Legge ties the warning to the place of the line. He writes that “though the line is strong, it is in an even place; and hence comes the lesson of caution”.
When only this line changes, it becomes hexagram 27, Nourishment
Fifth line
噬乾肉，得黃金。貞厲无咎。
Bites on dried lean meat. Receives yellow gold. Perseveringly aware of danger. No blame.
danger there is dangerno blame there is no mistake in it
Legge calls this line “the lord of judgment”. Because the line is weak, he “will be disposed to leniency; and his judgments will be correct”.
Legge takes the yellow gold as the sign of that correctness. The line is still weak, so the text adds a caution, to be “firm and correct, realising the peril (of his position)”. Wilhelm has “Perseveringly aware of danger.”
When only this line changes, it becomes hexagram 25, Innocence
Sixth line
何校滅耳，凶。
His neck is fastened in the wooden cangue, So that his ears disappear. Misfortune.
misfortune it goes badly
The top line is the one line whose verdict is evil. Legge sees in it “one persisting in wrong, a strong criminal, wearing the cangue, and deaf to counsel”.
The commentary explains the lost ears. It says of this person that “he hears, but will not understand”.
When only this line changes, it becomes hexagram 51, The Arousing
Hexagram 21 unchanging
If none of your six lines is moving, you read the hexagram as a whole. That is the judgment and the image above, without any of the line texts.
The book gives the reason. Lines that do not move are “non-moving lines, which serve only as structural matter in the hexagram, without intrinsic meaning of their own”.
For hexagram 21 unchanging, what remains is the judgment, which speaks of success and favors the use of justice, and the image of thunder and lightning, where penalties are made clear and the laws are made firm.
Questions people ask
What does hexagram 21 mean?
It describes an obstacle that keeps things apart and has to be bitten through. The judgment is favorable, and Legge has “It will be advantageous to use legal constraints.”
What does hexagram 21 unchanging mean?
With no moving lines you read only the judgment and the image. For hexagram 21 that is success through the use of justice, and laws made firm “Through clearly defined penalties”.
What does hexagram 21 changing to 27 mean?
It is hexagram 21 with its fourth line moving. That line is the one with good fortune, on the condition that its subject “realise the difficulty of his task and be firm”, and when it changes the hexagram becomes number 27.
What does hexagram 21 changing to 51 mean?
It is hexagram 21 with its top line moving. That line shows a person in the cangue who “hears, but will not understand”, and when it changes the hexagram becomes number 51.
Is hexagram 21 a good sign?
The judgment is favorable. Legge's note says “The auspice of the figure is favourable. There will be success.” The lines are more mixed. Four of them end without error, the fourth has good fortune, and the top line alone is evil.
What are the trigrams of hexagram 21?
Thunder is below and fire is above. The commentary on the judgment reads the lower one as movement and the upper one as “bright intelligence”, and Legge's version of the image calls the pair “thunder and lightning”.
Richard Wilhelm, translated by Cary F. Baynes. Shih Ho in James Legge. Biting Through in Wilhelm and Baynes.
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