Kuei Mei / The Marrying Maiden

above:Ch^en The Arousing, Thunder
below:Tui The Joyous, Lake

The fifth [six], divided, reminds us of the marrying of the younger sister of (King) Ti-Yi 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 is almost full. There will be good fortune.

King Ti-Yi has already mentioned under the fifth line of hexagram 11, and in connection with some regulation which he made about marriage of the daughters of the royal house. His sister here is honorably mentioned, so as to suggest that the adorning which she preferred was 'the ornament of the hidden man of the heart'. The comparison of her to 'the moon almost full' I am ready to hail as an instance where the Duke of Kau is for once poetical. Khang-tze, however, did not see poetry, but a symbol in it. 'The moon is not full,' he says, 'but only nearly full. A wife ought not to eclipse her husband!' However, the sister of Ti-yi gets happily married, as she deserves to do, being represented by the line in the place of honor, having its proper correlate in 2.