Good fortune, misfortune, remorse, humiliation, no blame: the I Ching's verdict words explained

Most lines of the I Ching end with a short verdict: 吉 (good fortune), 凶 (misfortune), 悔 (remorse), 吝 (humiliation or regret), 厲 (danger) or 無咎 (no blame). They are not grades on a single scale. 吉 and 凶 describe gain and loss; 悔 and 吝 describe small faults and the worry that comes with them; 厲 is a warning about the present; 無咎 says you can come through without fault. Read together, they tell you not only how things stand but what attitude turns them.

What the Great Commentary says

The Xici, the "Great Commentary" among the Ten Wings, defines the terms itself, which makes it the best place to start:

• 吉凶者，失得之象也；悔吝者，憂虞之象也。 "Good fortune and misfortune are images of losing and gaining; remorse and humiliation are images of worry and anxiety."
• 吉凶者，言乎其失得也；悔吝者，言乎其小疵也；無咎者，善補過也。 "Good fortune and misfortune speak of losing and gaining; remorse and humiliation speak of small flaws; no blame means being good at repairing mistakes."

So the vocabulary has three tiers: real gain or loss (吉, 凶), small faults felt as unease (悔, 吝), and the possibility of correction (無咎).

The six words one by one

• 吉 ji, good fortune. The situation tends toward gain; the conduct described is fitting. It is strengthened as 元吉 (great or supreme good fortune, as in the fifth line of Kun, 黃裳，元吉) and qualified as 終吉 (good fortune in the end, after difficulty) or 貞吉 (good fortune through steadiness, or, in the older reading, "the divination is auspicious").
• 凶 xiong, misfortune. The situation tends toward loss, usually because of the conduct described. The top line of Bi, 比之無首，凶, "holding together without a head: misfortune", is typical: the misfortune is attached to a specific failing.
• 悔 hui, remorse. You will regret something, but the regret is the kind that leads you to change. The top line of Qian, 亢龍有悔, "the arrogant dragon will have cause to regret", is the classic case. A very common variant is 悔亡, "remorse disappears": a reason for regret existed but is resolved.
• 吝 lin, humiliation. Often translated "humiliation", "regret" or "distress", it is the stuck, embarrassed kind of fault: you see the problem but do not change. The fourth line of Meng, 困蒙，吝, "entangled folly: humiliation", shows it well.
• 厲 li, danger. The present position is precarious. It is a warning, not a verdict on the outcome, and it is very often followed by something else.
• 無咎 wu jiu, no blame. No fault will be found, or you can get through without fault. It is not the same as good fortune; it usually means a narrow escape earned by correct conduct.

Two other formulas sit beside these: 無不利 (nothing that is not favourable, as in Kun's second line, 不習無不利) and 利 plus a phrase ("it is favourable to cross the great river"), which describe what is advisable rather than how things turn out.

How strong is each?

The tradition does not publish a ranking, and you should be wary of any page that turns the words into scores. Still, a rough order is widely used, and it follows from the Xici:

• 元吉 is the strongest positive; 吉 is clearly positive.
• 無咎 and 悔亡 are mildly positive: a problem is avoided or resolved.
• 悔 and 吝 are mild negatives, but in opposite directions. Zhu Xi put it neatly in his comment on the Xici: 悔 is moving from misfortune toward good fortune, 吝 is moving from good fortune toward misfortune. Remorse leads to change; humiliation comes from refusing it.
• 厲 is a serious warning about the present.
• 凶 is the clearest negative.

The Xici also says 憂悔吝者存乎介, "concern about remorse and humiliation lies in the small turning point": the small, early choice is where these mild verdicts are decided.

Reading combinations

The interesting work is in combinations, which are very common. The sequence of the words is usually the sequence of events or conditions:

• 厲，無咎 — danger, but no blame. The third line of Qian: 君子終日乾乾，夕惕若，厲，無咎, "the noble one is active all day and wary at night: danger, no blame". The position is risky; vigilance is what makes it blameless. The same pair appears in the third line of Fu, 頻復，厲，無咎, "repeated return: danger, no blame". Note that commentators disagree about the punctuation of Qian 3 (whether 夕惕若厲 is one phrase), which is a good reminder that even the verdict words have been read in more than one way.
• 貞吉 / 貞凶 / 貞厲. With 貞 the verdict depends on how you read 貞: "steadiness brings good fortune" or "the divination: auspicious". See yuan heng li zhen for why this one word divides translators. 貞凶 in particular often means "persisting in this is unfortunate", which is a warning to change course.
• 吝，終吉 and similar. A present difficulty, a good end. The verdict nearest the end of the sentence usually describes the outcome.
• 無咎 after a condition. "If you do X, no blame." The blamelessness is conditional; read the condition carefully.

Common misreadings

• Treating 無咎 as a win. It is a pass, not a prize.
• Treating 悔 as bad news. Remorse that leads to correction is one of the healthiest verdicts in the book.
• Reading the verdict without the image. The verdict is attached to a scene; it says what follows if you are in that position and act that way.
• Adding up verdicts across lines. Three lines with 吉 do not make a "more fortunate" cast than one. Read the lines the changing-line rules point to, and let their verdicts speak in context. Our article is a hexagram good or bad? takes this further.

Using the verdict words in your reading

When you cast, find the line or lines that apply and underline the verdict. Then ask three questions: is it about gain and loss, about a small fault, or about correction? What conduct in the line is it attached to? And if there are two verdicts, which comes first, and what changes between them? An answer like "danger, but no blame" is rarely a forecast; it is usually instructions: the situation is risky, stay alert, and you will not be at fault.