| Chapter 2: | Spirits of the Zhou yi—An Essay on Wine |
|
|
It is easy to define the set of loci constituting the focal object here. Looking for the character 
(Mandarin /jiu3/), all four—only four—instances of its use in the Zhou yi are quickly isolated. They are scattered through the classic at #5.5, #29.4, #47.2, and #64.6. These are the text’s only references to “wine.” This is now the paradigm set. The reader now elucidates its structure, finding its mutual relations within itself, and its positioned setting within the whole.
“#5.5” means the fifth (yang) line in Hexagram #5, translated here (strictly for convenience’s sake and with all options of subsequent philological refinement open to philology enthusiasts) as “Waiting for Nourishment”: “Waiting (for nourishment) from wine and food.” (Rather than vex readers with continuously adverting to the tentative character of the translations, I simply state my concern in this analysis is structure, not philology, and nothing in the systematic analysis hangs on the choice of translated word here or there; this applies to the remainder of the book and will not be repeated, although it regularly needs to be for sinologically oriented readers).
“29.4” means the fourth (yin) line in Hexagram #29, tentatively translated here as “The Pit”: “A goblet of wine, a bowl of grain, making a pair, earthenware vessels simply handed in through the window.”
“47.2” means the second (yang) line in Hexagram #47, “Oppression”: “Oppressed with (difficulties of) drink and food.”
“64.6” means the top (yang) line in Hexagram #64, “Before Completion”: “There is drinking of wine in good faith. No blame. But if one gets one’s head wet, he loses it, in truth.”
Once more, back away from intensifying translation quibbles and take a look at this set’s structure, something internally complex. Its first division runs between textual loci mentioning drink and food in pairs and that mentioning drink singly. Next, there is a division of the former into those mentioning drink and food themselves and that mentioning vessels for drink and vessels for food together. Finally, the former set is further divided into positive and negative drinking and eating episodes. Here is the set’s first structural determination.