The Wenyan commentary: what it says about Qian and Kun

The Wenyan (文言, often rendered "Commentary on the Words of the Text") is the only one of the Ten Wings devoted to just two hexagrams: Qian, the Creative, and Kun, the Receptive. It defines the four words of Qian's Judgment, 元亨利貞, as four virtues, and it reads the six dragon lines and the six lines of Kun — "treading on frost, hard ice comes" — as lessons about character and timing.

Why only two hexagrams

Qian and Kun are pure yang and pure yin, and the Great Treatise calls them the gate of the Changes. Every other hexagram is some mixture of their lines. Giving them a commentary of their own treats them as the key to the whole book: understand these two well and the rest follows.

The name itself is interpreted differently. Some read 文言 as "words explaining the text"; others, following an old gloss, as "ornamented words," because its style is more polished than the other Wings. Tradition linked it to Confucius, and many passages begin 子曰 ("the Master said"); modern scholars treat it, like the rest of the Ten Wings, as a later compilation in his school. In the received text it is printed after the line texts of Qian and of Kun respectively.

The four virtues: 元亨利貞

Qian's Judgment is only four characters: 元亨利貞. The Wenyan opens by turning them into a moral scheme:

元者，善之長也；亨者，嘉之會也；利者，義之和也；貞者，事之幹也.

• 元 is the leader of goodness — origin, the impulse that starts things.
• 亨 is the gathering of excellence — things coming together and getting through.
• 利 is the harmony of what is right — benefit that does not betray fairness.
• 貞 is the trunk of affairs — firmness that lets things be carried through.

It then maps them onto conduct: the superior person embodies humaneness and can lead others (元), brings excellence together in accord with ritual (亨), benefits others in harmony with rightness (利), and is firm and correct enough to manage affairs (貞).

Almost the same words appear in the Zuozhuan, in a speech attributed to Mu Jiang, who interprets 元亨利貞 when a divination gives her Hexagram 17, Sui. Which text borrowed from which is not settled, but it shows the "four virtues" reading was circulating early.

It is not the only reading. Zhu Xi, insisting that the Zhouyi began as a divination book, read the same four characters as a formula: great success, favourable if correct and firm. Many modern scholars go further and read 貞 as "to divine" or "a divination about…". Our guide yuan heng li zhen compares these readings. When the Wenyan speaks, it is giving the ethical interpretation, not the only possible one.

What it adds to the dragon lines

The Wenyan goes through Qian's six lines several times, each pass from a different angle — human affairs, timing, the movement of yang energy, and the sage. Its question-and-answer form is memorable:

• [First line](/iching/hexagrams/1-qian/line-1), the hidden dragon. 龍德而隱者也 — a person with the dragon's virtue who stays hidden. Such a person 遯世無悶, withdraws from the world without resentment, is 確乎其不可拔, firm and cannot be uprooted. The line is not "do nothing" but "do not be moved by the lack of recognition."
• Second line, the dragon in the field. 龍德而正中者也 — the dragon's virtue, correct and central. Its marks are ordinary: 庸言之信，庸行之謹, trustworthy in everyday speech, careful in everyday conduct.
• Third line, the superior person active all day. 君子進德脩業. 忠信，所以進德也；脩辭立其誠，所以居業也 — loyalty and good faith advance virtue; refining one's words to stand on sincerity secures the work.
• Fifth line, the flying dragon. Here the Wenyan gives its famous image of resonance: 同聲相應，同氣相求。水流濕，火就燥，雲從龍，風從虎 — like sounds answer each other, like energies seek each other; water flows to the wet, fire goes to the dry, clouds follow the dragon, wind follows the tiger. A person of real worth draws others naturally.
• [Top line](/iching/hexagrams/1-qian/line-6), the arrogant dragon. 貴而無位，高而無民 — honoured but without a position, high but without people. And the sharpest sentence in the whole commentary: 亢之為言也，知進而不知退，知存而不知亡，知得而不知喪 — "arrogance" means knowing how to advance but not how to retreat, how to keep but not how to lose, how to gain but not how to let go.

The frost underfoot

Kun's Wenyan is shorter but contains one of the best-known passages in Chinese literature. It comments on Kun's first line, 履霜，堅冰至 — "treading on frost, hard ice is coming":

積善之家，必有餘慶；積不善之家，必有餘殃 — a family that accumulates good will have abundant blessings; one that accumulates what is not good will have abundant calamity. It continues that great disorders do not arise in a single morning or evening; 其所由來者漸矣 — they come on gradually, and the fault lies in not discerning them early. The frost is a small sign of a large trend. The lesson is attention to beginnings.

On Kun's second line it gives a compact ethic: 君子敬以直內，義以方外，敬義立而德不孤 — the superior person is straight within through reverence, square without through rightness; with these established, virtue is not alone. On the third line it describes a beauty that 含之以從王事，弗敢成也 — that keeps itself contained, serves the work, and does not claim the completion. It also opens with a paradox worth remembering: 坤至柔而動也剛 — Kun is utterly yielding, yet when it moves it is firm.

Putting it into practice

You will meet the Wenyan only when a cast involves Hexagram 1 or 2, but then it is worth reading in full:

• If Qian appears, read the four virtues as a checklist: is your aim a good beginning, does it bring people together, is the benefit fair, can you carry it through?
• If a dragon line moves, read its Wenyan passage beside the line text. "Hidden" and "arrogant" are described as attitudes you can recognise in yourself.
• If Kun's first line moves, ask what small sign in your situation you have been stepping over.
• If all six lines move in Qian or Kun, the special texts 用九 and 用六 apply; see all six lines changing.

When you are ready, cast a reading and see whether either of these two foundational hexagrams speaks.