Peace, Line 4

Legge's translation of the fourth line gives its subject as fluttering down, not relying on his own rich resources but calling in his neighbours, a picture the commentary elsewhere associates with genuine sincerity rather than mere lack of means. The image of fluttering rather than descending with weight or display marks a deliberate lightness, wealth set aside in favor of open company with those nearby.

Six in the fourth place opens Kun, the upper trigram of Earth, immediately across the boundary the third line watched over, and it is the first yielding line the hexagram has shown since its opening three lines of unbroken yang. Where those earlier lines advanced through shared strength, this line's virtue is the opposite gesture, a willing descent that forgoes personal advantage in order to draw others in without pretense or boastfulness.

Set against Peace's Judgment, the great come and the small go, the fourth line marks the point where that arriving greatness begins to be matched by an answering humility from what receives it. Legge's text frames this not relying on rich resources as trust placed in relationship rather than in possession, the same value the third line's sincerity anticipated from the other side of the boundary.

Six in the fourth place, as a changing line, favors calling on companions honestly rather than relying on one's own accumulated resources or standing. A querent shown this line is asked to descend lightly, fluttering rather than dropping with the weight of display, and to draw neighbors into the matter through sincerity instead of impressing them with wealth already possessed.

Flipping this line changes the upper trigram from Kun to Zhen, Thunder, giving Zhen over Qian, the hexagram called Great Power. The light, humble descent of the fourth line gives way, on the far side of change, to a hexagram of vigorous strength moving upward with real force, thunder above heaven rather than earth quietly receiving it. The movement is from a deliberately modest gesture toward an assertive one, suggesting that humility honestly offered here can, once changed, become the confident strength Great Power describes, rather than remaining permanently self effacing.

Within Peace's arc, the fourth line is the point where the upper trigram's receptive character first answers the lower trigram's rising strength, matching arriving greatness with a willing, unpretentious welcome. A reading landing here suggests that present success depends on this kind of light, sincere outreach to others, and that it carries within it the seed of a far more forceful advance still to come.