Limping Toward the Ideograms

This week I put out my translation and commentary of hexagram 39, Halting or Limping.

This was a nightmarish text to translate! The simplicity made it exceptionally difficult, exactly as the text indicates.

I’ll show you some of what I was working with.

Line 3: 往蹇來反

往

“Go” is foot + king (the king can go anywhere he pleases, for he has dominion)

蹇

Halting/limping. I had initially intended the hexagram to be “Limping” rather than “Halting”. It has been translated as limping, impasse, trouble, obstruction, and halting, which I ended up agreeing with.

The triple meaning of the word comes in handy here halt as in “stop”, halt as in “limp”, and halt as in “waver”. Each is significant to the hexagram.

Halting is cold/withered + foot. Cold is a person in a house surrounded by grass (for warmth)

So with this we have “Go limp” or “go halt”. Neither is satisfactory, I ended up translating it as “Going and halting”. Because one goes on the path and halts (stopping, limping, wavering)

Now for the second half of the sentence.

來

Coming is an image of wheat. The ancient Shuowen dictionary states that wheat = to come because “天所來也 (“it comes from the heavens”)” Which I find quite satisfactory.

With this we have the two directions, “coming and going”.

反

Return/Reverse is again+hand. I translate it as “back” as in the back of the hand, or in this case “coming back”.

So we have directly: Go halt. Come back.

I made this “Going and halting or coming back.” To show that these two sections are options. Choices at the fork in the road.