Legge opens with an admission most editors would cut: "I wrote out a translation of the Yi King, embracing both the Text and the Appendixes, in 1854 and 1855; and have to acknowledge that when the manuscript was completed, I knew very little" about it. He had rendered the whole book into English before he understood it. The volume a reader holds is the second attempt, nearly thirty years later, and it says so on its first page.
The Yî King — Sacred Books of China Part II, SBE Vol. 16 (trans. James Legge, 1882)
Open to all
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
page 1
The translator’s English as printed (James Legge). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
The fourth Appendix. The fifth. First paragraph. Mythology of the Yi. Operation of God in nature throughout the year. Concluding paragraphs. The sixth Appendix. The seventh.
Plates I, II, III, exhibiting the hexagrams and trigrams.
THE TEXT.
SECTION I.
REXAGRAM PAGE
I. Khin . . . . ny
- II. Khwan . . : . : : : : . 59 HI. un . . . : . . . . . 62
- IV. Mang. . . . . . . . . 64
- Vv. Hsii . - . . . . . . . 67
- VI. Sung . oe . . . . . 69
- VII. Sze. . : . . . . . - FI
- VII. Pi. . - . . . . : . - 73
- IX. Hsido KAA. : . . . . . . 76
- XI. Thai . : : . . . . . . 81
- XII. Phi. . . . . : . . . . 83
- XIII. Thung Zan. : . . . . . . 86
- XIV. Taya. . . . . . . . - 88
- XV. Khien . . . . oe . »~ » 8&9
- XVI. Yi . . : . . : . . . . gt
- XVII. Sui . . . . . . . . . - 93
- XVIII. Ka . . ole . : : . . - 95
- XIX. Lin . . . . . . . . : - 97
- XX. Kwan . . . . . . . . - 99
- XXI. Shih Ho . . . : . . . . . Ior
- XXII. Pt . . : . : . . . . - 103
- XXIII. Po . . . : : . . . . « 105
- XXIV. Fa . . . . . . . . . . 107
- XXV. Wi Wang : . eee . . 109
- XXVI. Ta KAO . . : . . . . . . 112
- XXXVI. f 2... eg
- XXVIII. Ta Kwo . . . . : : . . . 116
CONTENTS. ix
HEXAGRAM PAGE
XXIX. Khan. . . . 118
XXX. Li . . . . . 120
SECTION II.
XXXI. Hsien 123
XXXIH. Hang 125
XXXIII. Thun . 127
XXXIV. TA Kwang 129
XXXV. Bin . 131
XXXVI. Ming f 134
XXXVII. Xia Zan . + 136
XXXVIHI. Khwei . . nr) 139
XXXIX. Kien . . 14!
XL. Kieh 144
XLI. Sun. . . . 146
XLII. Yi. . 149
XLII. =Kwai . 151
XLIV. Kau. . . 154
XLV. Shui oe 156
XLVI. Shang. . 159
XLVII. Khwan 161
XLVI. Qing. 164
XLIX. Ko. . 167
L. Ting . . 169
LI. Kan. . . 172
LIT. Kan. . . 175
LIII. Xien 178
LIV. Kwei Mei 180
LV. Fang . . . 183
LVI. Li. . . . 187
LVII. Sun. 189
LVIII. Tui. 192
LIX. Hw4n . . . 194
LX. Kieh o 8 8 197
LXI. Kung Fd. 199
LXII. Hsiéo Kwo 201
LXIII. Ai gi 204
LXIV. Wei 3t 207
x CONTENTS.
THE APPENDIXES.
I. TREATISE ON THE THWAN, THAT IS, ON KING WAN’S
EXPLANATIONS OF THE ENTIRE HEXAGRAMS.
SEcTION I.
Khien to Li . . . . . . . . .
SECTION II.
Hsien to Wei 8f . . . . . . . .
II, TREATISE ON THE SYMBOLISM OF THE HEXAGRAMS,
AND OF THE DUKE OF KAU’S EXPLANATIONS OF
THE SEVERAL LINES.
SECTION I.
KhientoLt . . . . . . .
SECTION II.
Hsien to Wei 8f . . . . . . . .
III. THE GREAT APPENDIX. x! wv}
SECTION I.
ChaptersI-XII . . . .hUehUhUtRti‘(‘C
SEcTION II.
ChaptersI-XII . . . . 8
IV. SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE THWAN AND YAO ON THE FIRST AND SECOND HEXAGRAMS, AND SHOWING HOW THEY MAY BE INTERPRETED OF MAN’S NA- TURE AND DOINGS.
SECTION I.
On Khien . . . . . . . .
SECTION II.
On Khwan . . . . . . . . .
V. TREATISE OF REMARKS ON THE TRIGRAMS,
ChaptersI-XI . . . . . 2 ee
PAGE
213-237
238-266
267-305
305-347
p. 348
p. 379
p. 418
CONTENTS. xi
- VI. THE ORDERLY SEQUENCE OF THE HEXAGRAMS. PAGE SECTION I. KhientoLf. . . . . . 433 SECTION II. Hsin toWei8t . . . 2. «© «© «© 435
- VII. TREATISE ON THE HEXAGRAMS TAKEN PROMIS- CUOUSLY, ACCORDING TO THE OPPOSITION OR DIVERSITY OF THEIR MEANING . . . . 441
What he found on the second attempt is the more interesting half: "I soon arrived at the view of the meaning and object of the Yi ... and I was delighted to find that there was a substantial agreement between my interpretations of the hexagrams and their several lines and those given by the most noted commentators from the Han dynasty down to the present." A Victorian translator checking himself against two thousand years of Chinese scholarship and reporting that he agrees with it.
And then, in the same breath, he parts from them: those commentators "have not formulated the scheme so concisely as I have done, and they were fettered by their belief in the Confucian authorship of the Appendixes." That is a specific scholarly claim — that the Ten Wings are not Confucius's — offered as the one place the tradition's own reading is constrained. Deference and disagreement in a single sentence, and the disagreement is the position most scholarship since has taken.
The apparatus is worth knowing before opening the text: sixty-four hexagrams in two sections, then seven Appendixes, then "THE ORDERLY SEQUENCE OF THE HEXAGRAMS" and a "TREATISE ON THE HEXAGRAMS TAKEN PROMISCUOUSLY, ACCORDING TO THE OPPOSITION OR DIVERSITY OF THEIR MEANING", and three plates exhibiting the hexagrams and trigrams. A reader who wants the divinatory text alone should go to Section I; almost everything else in the volume is commentary that the tradition attached later.