旅 The Wanderer
Upper trigram: Fire (fire) · Lower trigram: Mountain (the mountain)
The outsider's hexagram — be a good guest: adaptable and humble.
Modern interpretation
You are the outsider here. Be adaptable, humble, and clear about your purpose — do not overreach. Small successes build trust; courtesy is your currency. The wanderer survives on respect, not demands.
The Judgment · 卦辞
小亨。旅贞吉。
“Lü intimates that (in the condition which it denotes) there may be some little attainment and progress. If the stranger or traveller be firm and correct as he ought to be, there will be good fortune.” — 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.
旅琐琐，斯其所取灾。
“The first line, divided, shows the stranger mean and meanly occupied. It is thus that he brings on himself (further) calamity.”
旅即次，怀其资，得童仆，贞。
“The second line, divided, shows the stranger, occupying his lodging-house, carrying with him his means of livelihood, and provided with good and trusty servants.”
旅焚其次，丧其童仆，贞厉。
“The third line, undivided, shows the stranger, burning his lodging-house, and having lost his servants. However firm and correct he (try to) be, he will be in peril.”
旅于处，得其资斧，我心不快。
“The fourth line, undivided, shows the traveller in a resting-place, having (also) the means of livelihood and the axe, (but still saying), ‘I am not at ease I in my mind.’”
射雉，一矢亡，终以誉命。
“The fifth line, divided, shows its subject shooting a pheasant. He will lose his arrow, but in the end he will obtain praise and a (high) charge.”
鸟焚其巢，旅人先笑后号咷。丧牛于易，凶。
“The sixth line, undivided, suggests the idea of a bird burning its nest. The stranger, (thus represented), first laughs and then cries out. He has lost his ox(-like docility) too readily and easily. There will be evil.”
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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