LiSe YiJing

Loan characters

Or the poetry of a nation

浚

The character at left is the first character of the bottom line of hexagram 32. Its meanings are "dredge, dig, excavate, develop, extract, deep, many, unblock the waterway; digging wells and pools".

Jùn héng: unrelenting steadiness, or deep-digging steadiness.

氵夋

This same character pronounced as xùn is a place-name: Xùn. A place which is known for its deep waters.
At left 'water', at right an old character with the meaning 'move slowly'.

夂允
Which in turn consists of 'move' and 'permit, consent, fair, just right'

A scientific approach is to choose between those two meanings. Either 'deep', or Xun, but not both at once.

Poets (and Chinese) have a different approach: both. Because the two meanings enhance each other.

If you want to make clear how deep and exhaustingly something is being done, wouldn't it make the picture more complete to compare it to the place Xun? Everyone knows that the waters there are so deep and dangerous! In Rutt (Zhouyi, 1996): "...the place-name had oracular force because of its danger". It is the same force poets make use of. Oracles and poets both use imagery to convey their message. Both speak to your heart, not so much to your mind.

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