A stony road, and nobody to translate

Qian to Qian: the poem

道陟石阪，胡言連蹇。譯瘖且聾，莫使道通。請謁不行，求事無功。

The road climbs a stony slope; foreign speech falters. The interpreter is mute and deaf; no one can get the message through. The request for an audience goes nowhere; the business comes to nothing.

This is our translation of the received verse. “Hu” is an old Chinese term for peoples beyond the northern and western borders; here we render 胡言 as “foreign speech”. The poem names no traveller, destination or official.

The climb is only the beginning

First the traveller has trouble with the ground underfoot. Then with speech. An interpreter ought to help at that point, but the poem denies him both hearing and voice. The traveller cannot get as far as presenting his request.

The verse leaves the business unspecified. That gives you room to stay with the predicament: you have something to ask, and cannot reach someone who can hear it. There is no need to invent a court, a border post or a named mission to feel the frustration.

Finding this poem after a cast

The Jiaoshi Yilin arranges its verses by pairs of hexagrams. Start with the hexagram you cast, then look up the one it changes into. If no lines change, use the same hexagram twice. This verse sits at Qian to Qian, 1 to 1.

The Yilin verse and the I Ching’s own text are separate readings. Qian’s dragons belong to the I Ching; this unsuccessful journey belongs to the Yilin. Read each in its own setting before trying to connect them.

For a small experiment, ask someone to repeat back a request you have sent them. Compare what you meant with what they heard. That is one way to bring the poem’s problem into view without treating its ending as your future.

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