Retreat, Line 2

The second line is where the retreat acquires something to hold on to. Legge's translation has the subject holding his purpose as fast as if bound by a thong made from the hide of a yellow ox, and states that the thong cannot be broken; the commentary on the image glosses the picture as firmness of determination. Nothing in the line moves. What it describes is an attachment strong enough that no external pressure can loosen it, at the exact moment when the hexagram is otherwise about letting go.

Both halves of the image are chosen rather than decorative. Yellow is the colour of the centre in the Chinese scheme of five colours, and this stroke holds the central place of the lower trigram Gen. The ox is a yielding beast of burden and not a fierce one, and the line is itself a yielding stroke, correctly placed in an even seat. So the firmness on offer is not that of a strong line forcing an outcome. It is the toughness of hide, which holds because it gives.

Set against the first line, which had nothing to grip at all, this one has found the thing the retreat is for. A withdrawal that abandons its purpose along with its ground is a rout rather than a retreat. The hexagram approves of retiring, and this line specifies what must not retire alongside it, which is why the whole weight of the image falls on a binding that cannot be broken rather than on any distance covered.

Six in the second place tells a querent what to keep. The situation is one of withdrawal, and the line does not argue with the withdrawal; it identifies the single commitment that travels with the person rather than staying behind with the position being surrendered. Bound as if by a thong of yellow oxhide that nothing can break, the subject is unshakeable about a purpose while being entirely willing to move.

The position supports that combination. A yielding stroke correctly occupies an even place and holds the centre of the mountain trigram Gen, and yellow is the colour of the centre. A querent drawing this line is usually being asked to concede something and is afraid that conceding it means conceding everything. The text separates the two cleanly. Ground is negotiable and purpose is not, and the reading is a good one precisely because the person is in a position to tell which is which.

When the line changes, the lower trigram Gen becomes Xun and the figure becomes Coming to Meet, King Wen 44, in which a single yielding line arrives beneath five strong ones and begins to grow. That is a caution attached to a favourable line rather than a contradiction of it. What one holds to unbreakably will eventually meet something it did not choose, and a bond that no pressure can loosen can still be reached by what walks quietly up underneath it.