Hexagram 63: After Completion
Ji Ji · 既濟
The Judgment
Success in small matters. Persistence furthers. At the beginning good fortune, at the end disorder. The transition from the old to the new time is already accomplished. In principle, everything stands systematized, and it is only in regard to details that success is still to be achieved. We must be careful to maintain the right attitude. Everything proceeds as if of its own accord, and this can all too easily tempt us to relax and let things take their course without troubling over details. Such indifference is the root of all evil. Symptoms of decay are bound to be the result. This is the rule indicating the usual course of history. But this rule is not an inescapable law. He who understands it can avoid its effects through unremitting perseverance and caution.
The Image
Water over fire. Take thought of misfortune and arm yourself against it in advance. When water in a kettle hangs over fire, the two elements stand in relation and generate energy. But the resulting tension demands caution. If the water boils over, the fire is extinguished and its energy lost. If the heat is too great, the water evaporates. These elements brought into relation are by nature hostile to each other. Only the most extreme caution can prevent damage. In life too there are junctures when all forces are in balance and everything seems in the best of order. In such times only the sage recognizes the moments that bode danger and knows how to banish it by means of timely precautions.
「水在火上，既濟。」水在鍋裡，掛在火上——兩個元素相互作用，產生能量。但這種張力需要謹慎。水滾過頭，火會被澆滅；火太旺，水會蒸發。這兩者本性相剋，只有極度的小心才能防止損害。人生也有這樣的時刻，一切力量平衡，看似完美。只有有智慧的人能認出潛藏的危險，並提前採取措施。
The Six Lines
He brakes his wheels. He gets his tail in the water. No blame. In times following a great transition, everything is pressing forward in the direction of development and progress. But this pressing forward at the beginning is not good; it overshoots the mark and leads with certainty to loss and collapse. Therefore a person of strong character does not allow themselves to be infected by the general intoxication but checks their course in time. He may not remain altogether untouched by disastrous consequences, like a fox that at the last minute gets its tail wet, but will not suffer any real harm because behavior has been correct.
The woman loses the curtain of her carriage. Do not run after it; on the seventh day you will get it. Especially in times 'after completion,' those who have come to power grow arrogant and conceited and no longer trouble themselves about fostering new talent. We are warned: do not seek it. Do not throw yourself away on the world, but wait tranquilly and develop your personal worth by your own efforts. Times change. That which is your own cannot be permanently lost. It comes to you of its own accord. You need only be able to wait.
The Illustrious Ancestor disciplines the Devil's Country. After three years he conquers it. Inferior people must not be employed. After times of completion, when a new power has arisen and everything within the country has been set in order, a period of colonial expansion almost inevitably follows. Long-drawn-out struggles must be reckoned with. A correct colonial policy is especially important. The territory won at such bitter cost must not be regarded as an almshouse for people who have made themselves impossible at home.
The finest clothes turn to rags. Be careful all day long. In a time of flowering culture, an occasional convulsion is bound to occur, uncovering hidden evil within society. Since the situation is favorable on the whole, such evils can easily be glossed over and concealed from the public. Then everything is forgotten and peace apparently reigns complacently. However, to the thoughtful person, such occurrences are grave omens that should not be neglected. This is the only way of averting evil consequences.
The neighbor in the east who slaughters an ox does not attain as much real happiness as the neighbor in the west with his small offering. In divine worship, the simple old forms are replaced by ever more elaborate ritual and ever greater outward display. But inner seriousness is lacking in this show of magnificence; human caprice takes the place of conscientious obedience to the divine will. Man sees what is before his eyes; God looks into the heart. Therefore a simple sacrifice offered with real piety holds a greater blessing than an impressive service without warmth.
He gets his head in the water. Danger. After crossing a stream, your head can get into the water only if you are so imprudent as to turn back. As long as you go forward and do not look back, you escape this danger. But there is a fascination in standing still and looking back on a peril overcome. Such vain self-admiration brings misfortune. It leads only to danger, and unless you finally resolve to go forward without pausing, you fall victim to this danger.
Artwork & Treatise
The Apotheosis of Homer
Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres
Homer sits enthroned on temple steps, crowned with laurels, surrounded by history's great artists arranged in perfect symmetry. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres painted this in 1827 for a ceiling in the Louvre, creating an idealized hierarchy of cultural achievement. On Homer's right stand the Greek tragedians, on his left the philosophers; below, painters and poets occupy precisely balanced positions. Every element finds its proper place in Ingres' neoclassical vision—order achieved, the cultural canon established, perfection of arrangement realized through careful composition.
Ingres captures Ji Ji (既濟), After Completion—Water above Fire, Kan over Li. This is one of only two hexagrams where all lines occupy ideal positions: yang in odd-numbered places, yin in even-numbered places. The configuration represents achieved order, every element standing in proper relation to every other. Fire rises while water descends, their opposing movements creating temporary equilibrium. The character 既濟 means "already across," suggesting a river successfully forded, a threshold passed, completion attained. Yet ancient diviners noted the paradox: when all yang lines have risen to proper positions and all yin lines have settled, the dynamic maintaining this balance begins reversing. Ingres' perfect arrangement suggests the same tension—when the canon is complete, what remains?
{artwork_reasoning}
The Judgment speaks to Ingres' neoclassical achievement: "After Completion. Success in small matters. Perseverance furthers. At the beginning good fortune, at the end disorder." The painting celebrates cultural order at its zenith, yet the text warns that completion itself contains disorder's seeds. Zhou Dynasty texts counsel vigilance precisely at success's moment. In divination, Ji Ji appeared at crossings completed, projects finished, order established—and always with the reminder that perfection cannot be maintained, only carefully tended.
The Image Text addresses the painting's historical moment: "Water over fire: the image of the condition After Completion. Thus the superior one takes thought of misfortune and arms himself against it in advance." Ingres painted his apotheosis during political upheaval—the Bourbon Restoration following Napoleon's fall. His perfectly ordered cultural hierarchy represents an ideal already threatened by Romanticism's emergence. In the I-Ching sequence, Ji Ji occupies the penultimate position, followed immediately by hexagram 64's Before Completion—suggesting that all achieved order already contains the next threshold, all completion already pregnant with new beginning.
Yilin Verse
玄兔指掌，與足相恃。謹訊詰問，誣情自直。冤死誰告，口為身禍。
Jiao Yanshou's Forest of Changes (焦氏易林) — Unchanging verse for 既濟 (Ji Ji)
Character-by-Character Breakdown
Classical Chinese text with pinyin and English meanings