9 March 2020
Hexagram 10, line 1
素履往无咎 Su 素: in early texts almost exclusively used as a descriptive adjective: ‘unadorned, plain, not processed or modified’. This also means that what follows it is a noun, an object.…
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30 June 2019
Hexagram 10, Judgment
履虎尾不咥人亨 Lü 履: to step on (something); to walk; to proceed. The Mawangdui text has li 禮, ‘rules of conduct’, which reminds of the Xugua 序卦 line about H10: 物畜然後有禮故受之以履: “When…
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17 December 2018
Hexagram 09, line 6
既雨既處。尚德載。婦貞厲。月幾望。君子征凶。 Ji 既: on oracle bone and bronze inscriptions used with the meaning of ‘finished, complete, the end, to stop, the final stage’ (Liu Xinglong 劉興隆,《新編甲骨文字典》, p. 299; Ma Rusen 馬如森, 《殷墟甲骨學》, entry…
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19 March 2018
Hexagram 09, line 5
有孚攣如。富以其鄰。 有孚攣如: this sentence also occurs at H61.5. You fu 有孚: see here. Luan 攣: to join, to connect. There are a few dictionaries (like 《新甲骨文編》) who link this character to an oracle…
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14 March 2018
Hexagram 09, line 4
有孚血去. 惕出. 无咎. It has been more than a year since I wrote my last Translation Note. This has mainly to do with one word: punctuation. The original Chinese text does…
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