归妹 The Marrying Maiden
Upper trigram: Thunder (thunder) · Lower trigram: Lake (the lake)
Right elements in the wrong order — desire outrunning propriety.
Modern interpretation
Be very careful with commitments now. The pieces are present but the order is wrong — passion is outrunning structure. What is entered hastily now will need untangling later. Slow down and check the sequence.
The Judgment · 卦辞
征凶，无攸利。
“Kwei Mei indicates that (under the conditions which it denotes) action will be evil, and in no wise advantageous.” — James Legge, The Yî King (1882)
The six lines · 爻辞
Read from the bottom line upward. Each line pairs the received Chinese text with Legge's English translation.
归妹以娣。跛能履，征吉。
“The first line, undivided, shows the younger sister married off in a position ancillary to the real wife. (It suggests the idea of) a person lame on one leg who yet manages to tramp along. Going forward will be fortunate.”
眇能视，利幽人之贞。
“The second line, undivided, shows her blind of one eye, and yet able to see. There will be advantage in her maintaining the firm correctness of a solitary widow.”
归妹以须，反归以娣。
“The third line, divided, shows the younger sister who was to be married off in a mean position. She returns and accepts an ancillary position.”
归妹愆期，迟归有时。
“The fourth line, undivided, shows the younger sister who is to be married off protracting the time. She may be late in being married, but the time will come.”
帝乙归妹，其君之袂不如其娣之袂良。月几望，吉。
“The fifth line, divided, reminds us of the marrying of the younger sister of (king) Tî-yî, when the sleeves of her the princess were not equal to those of the (still) younger sister who accompanied her in an inferior capacity. (The case suggests the thought of) the moon almost full. There will be good fortune.”
女承筐无实，士刲羊无血，无攸利。
“The sixth line, divided, shows the young lady bearing the basket, but without anything in it, and the gentleman slaughtering the sheep, but without blood flowing from it. There will be no advantage in any way.”
About changing lines
In a real I Ching reading, hexagrams are built by casting coins or yarrow stalks six times, bottom line first. Some lines come out “old” (unstable) — an old yin or old yang flips into its opposite, producing a second hexagram that shows where the situation is heading. The changing lines are the moving parts of your answer: read their individual line statements above, and they point to the direction of change.
Ask a question and cast the coins — free, with a plain-English interpretation grounded in the classical text.
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