The lines of hexagram 7

  Line 1. 'Rules' or discipline, or the pitchpipes. 'Denying slaves' or ' no virtue'. The character is a picture of a blinded slave, who had probably no other choice than being virtuous, so the character later became 'virtue'.
  Line 2. 'Confer 3 commands' or: bestows a triple decoration.
  Line 3. or: The legion may be carting corpses. In lines 3 and 5 in the MaWangDui-Yi there is in the place of 'corpse' an obsolete character, composed of corpse + altar. Corpse is a picture of the person who impersonates the deceased at the funeral.
  Line 4. 'Encamps to the left' or 'is deficient at the left side'. Expression for a rest.
  Line 5. Wu: 'profit by catching them is the word'. It is not clear if 'words' (or speak) belongs to the previous or to the following part of the sentence. The sentence can also be: The hunt yields wildfowl. Harvest: holding on to words. About the corpse: dead King Wen was carried into the battle to make allies trust and enemies fear.
  Line 6. A traditional translation is: 'Issues commands, founds states, supports the clans'. But Marshall gives the above translation, which makes more sense in my eyes. He adds: the term dajun, 'great prince', bears a close written resemblance to xianjun, 'my deceased father' (Mathews' dictionary entry 1715-40) So this might also refer to Wen's mandate. Still another possibility: has the command - carries on family(-lineage).

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