The I Ching, Legge tr.: The Yî King Text: Section I...

This is a translation and scholarly commentary on Hexagram 7 (Sze/Shih) from the *I Ching* (Book of Changes), the classical Chinese divination text, rendered in a 19th-century sinological tradition. The hexagram concerns military leadership and the conduct of warfare in a feudal kingdom: its six lines address themes of disciplined mobilization, the authority and trustworthiness of a commanding general, the dangers of divided or weak leadership, strategic retreat, and the proper rewards and appointments distributed by a ruler after a successful campaign. The central argument is that the single strong (undivided) line in the second position represents the ideal general — experienced, correct, and given the king's full confidence — while the surrounding weak lines explain failures of command, defensive justification for war, and the limits of who should hold power. A distinctive claim running through the commentary is that only righteous, defensive warfare is morally sanctioned, with "birds in the fields" symbolizing mere plunderers who may legitimately be destroyed. The commentator also engages critically with rival translations (P. Regis, Canon McClatchie) to argue for more textually faithful and contextually coherent readings of ambiguous lines, particularly line 3. Overall the work functions both as a divination manual and as a treatise on legitimate political and military authority, filtered through systematic line-by-line symbolic analysis.

The I Ching, Legge tr.: The Yî King Text: Section I...

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