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Three foxes in the field

S

sooo

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Yes, I noted the use of it in the movie but I was aware of the term long before the movie release. I did miss the association with "catch" however. Very clever, Svenrus :). I was also surprised that such a scholarly translator as Brad couldn't simply Google it to understand what it means. I'm sure he could have but then his attempt at sarcasm would have gone un-seized. That fox's folly is so easily foiled. But playing along may inform others what it means, though I'd imagine most already knew.
 

anemos

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I guess Brad is playing with another movie of R William and the sexual aspects of Charly's translation.
 

charly

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I guess Brad is playing with another movie of R William and the sexual aspects of Charly's translation.
Hi, Maria:

Of course that Brad is being a litle sarcastic. But nothing is casual...

I can't figure out if Carpe Diem means "seize the carp" or "the carp is God."
Either way, it sounds pretty deep.
Brad

There is a connection with 48.2 where somebody unknown is shooting carps, or maybe more than one are doing the same.

The short line says more or less:


WELL VALLEY, SHOOTING CARPS.
BROKEN JAR LEAKS.

I believe that the carps, like the well (or inner source), are inexhaustible. The same happens with foxes and commoners, they are always coming back, trying again.

All the best,


Charly

P.D.:

Carpe diem means F_CK THEM, isn't it?
Ch.
 

bradford

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I was also surprised that such a scholarly translator as Brad couldn't simply Google it to understand what it means. I'm sure he could have but then his attempt at sarcasm would have gone un-seized.

You're not THAT slow, are you?
 
S

svenrus

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In this quest about the signature I'm the one that shall apologize as I brought it up in the first place when referring to the dead of Robin Williams and the opening of one of his movies: Carpe Diem asking for if Sooo had his signature inspired from there.
Sorry.
 
S

sooo

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In this quest about the signature I'm the one that shall apologize as I brought it up in the first place when referring to the dead of Robin Williams and the opening of one of his movies: Carpe Diem asking for if Sooo had his signature inspired from there.
Sorry.

I appreciate your intent, Sven. It's cool.
 
S

svenrus

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About the second nine in hex. 40 James Legge got this explanation:

" Kû Hsî says he does not understand the symbolism under line 2.
The place is even, but the line itself is strong; the strength therefore
is modified or tempered. And 2 is the correlate of the ruler
in 5. We are to look to its subject therefore for a minister striving
to realise the idea of the hexagram, and pacify the subdued kingdom.
He becomes a hunter, and disposes of unworthy men,
represented by 'the three foxes.' He also gets the yellow arrows,
the instruments used in war or in hunting, whose colour is 'correct,'
and whose form is 'straight' His firm correctness will be good.
"
[I Ching . The book of China, footnote to hex. 40, sect. II, Tynron Press, Scotland]
Online: http://www.public-domain-content.com/books/i_ching/ic40.shtml

And Alfred Huang:
" (2) Second Nine. Relitfalternates to Delight (16) -
T h e second line is a yang element at a yin place. The position is not correct,
but it is central. It responds to the yin element at the fifth place, and
is able to obtain support from this element at the king's place. Three foxes
represent the other yin elements. Foxes are considered crafty and tricky.
One at this place is firm and strong, able to banish those who try to trick
the king. The Yao Text says, "In the field three foxes are caught.'' The
firmness of this line is represented by the golden arrow. With its resolve,
the three foxes are caught. The color of gold, yellow, in the system of the
five elements is the color of Earth, which is in the central place. This
brings good fortune.
"
[The complete I Ching, Inner Traditions]
Online: http://www.labirintoermetico.com/09IChing/Huang_A_The_complete_I_Ching.pdf (p. 159 in the pdf version/p. 331 in this printed ed.)
 
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bradford

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It is not a wonder that they didn't understand these lines by using these algorithms. The idea of correctness, that a yang line is strongest in an odd place, the idea of centrality lending positive force to the auspice, and even the ideas of yin, yang, firmness and flexibility, were all ideas invented much later in the Han Dynasty. None of them hold up as valid explanations of the auspice in a statistical analysis. Nor do they help us with the metaphors, except accidentally via pareidolia. They were simply not a part of the thinking of the Zhou authors. They did use some dimensions involving line positions (yao wei), but this is a different matter.
 

heylise

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I think it means to really really (three!) go to the bottom of the matter, or really dig up everything which interferes, or helps, or every possibility. Whatever matter it is. It changes to 16, the hex of enthusiasm and foresight. Having insight in everything which is part of what you want to achieve, makes it easy to reach any goal you set yourself. Foxes are cunning and elusive, like details you overlook, or possibilities which hide from sight.
 
S

sooo

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Funny, I just threw a reading on the current scuffle afield in moderation, and received 40. lines 2 and 4 changing to 2. Now, first let me assure everyone interested, I did not literally kill three foxes, but hopefully, despite a bit of 16 involved there, re-examining slippery details served to refresh my understanding of a number of things involved with letting go of what's unimportant, and welcoming fresh air after a bit of thunder and rain. It's easy to literally relate to, given this is monsoon season here in the southwest.
 
S

svenrus

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I think it means to really really (three!) go to the bottom of the matter, or really dig up everything which interferes, or helps, or every possibility. Whatever matter it is. It changes to 16, the hex of enthusiasm and foresight. Having insight in everything which is part of what you want to achieve, makes it easy to reach any goal you set yourself. Foxes are cunning and elusive, like details you overlook, or possibilities which hide from sight.

Very strange ! You answer like if You knew the reason for my consultation on the I that day....
I have been googling on fox + china, three foxes + I Ching and so on and the closest I came there, on the www, was that in japaneese folklore three foxes means disaster (1), very close alike to others interpretaion that it means mean people.

I wouldn't start explaining my situation or question as it was much to comprehensive and if doing so would lead to more misunderstanding than clarity. Yet it was a daily, kind of pitty matter.

I have the suspicion that "You BAG THREE FOXES in the FIELD" was a colloquialism at the time written and that the underlying meaning can be found in folklores, fairytales, folktales, myths in China. Googling haven't lead me to any answers except for a lot of fox-stuff.

--------

(1) "The fox (kitsune) is frequently a subject in Netsuke figurines. Many strange and uncanny qualities are attributed to the fox. The‘kitsune’ have the ability to change their shape, but their faces remain fox-like. In folklore, foxes pretend to be humans in order to lead men astray.

A black fox is good luck, a white fox calamity; three foxes together portend disaster. Buddhist legend tells of 'kitsune’ who disguise themselves as nuns, and wear traditional robes (depicted in Netsuke figurines). Fables tell how the fox likes to appear as women. Stories tell that while the ‘kitsune’ is in such a guise, he goes about tricking and misleading men into seduction. When the seduced come to the realisation of the true identity of their supposed love, the fox disappears. Legends tell of how ‘Kitsune’ can hypnotize people and lead them into perilous situations. To do this, according to the tales, they illuminate the path leading to such disasters, and this illumination is known as a ‘foxflare’ (kitsune bi).
"

Source: http://www.asianart.com/articles/rubin/
 
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charly

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I think it means to really really (three!) go to the bottom of the matter, or really dig up everything which interferes, or helps, or every possibility. Whatever matter it is. It changes to 16, the hex of enthusiasm and foresight. Having insight in everything which is part of what you want to achieve, makes it easy to reach any goal you set yourself. Foxes are cunning and elusive, like details you overlook, or possibilities which hide from sight.

Hi, LiSe:

I love it too much! Release means to get rid of impediments and being ready to catch opportunities.

Maybe 40.2 FOXES = OPPORTUNITIES, don´t kill them, better catch them.

Maybe 40.4 RELEASE THE BIG TOE = GET RID OF IMPEDIMENTS, consistent with the idea that H.40 comes to solve H.39 impediments. The character for H.39's name depicted a foot with his big toe sourrounded by straw all inside a cover maybe a foot in a clog, impediment to walk freely or a foot cought in a trap for bears.

The sequence of the friends allows, I believe, the following literal translation:


朋至斯孚
peng2 zhi4 si1 fu2

FRIENDS WILL ARRIVE, THEN TRUST
Be confident that friends will arrive in your rescue.

or ...

FRIENDLY WILL ARRIVE SUCH CAPTIVES
What captives? The FOXES of 40.2, of course, that were cought and released.

The condition for being rescued is to have got rid of impediments like prejudices or conventional morality.

Don´t you believe so?


All the best,


Charly
 
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P

peterg

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I was just talking to somebody about a faith healer from the locality of Foxfield. The treatment requires three visits.They got feedback from friends and relatives who said the treatment was very effective, in cases as diverse as back pain, vertigo, panic attacks and skin rash.
Another local healer specialises in sore throats and ''catches'' the ailment of the patient. She told my friend that her sore throat was the worst one she ever caught.
 
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S

svenrus

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The number three, I guess, is common all over the world from ancient time. The question is: Why ? One of Albert Einsteins favorite authors, Tobias Dantzig, in his book 'Number, the language of Science' mentions the number ten as one of the oldest favourite as this is the number of our fingers *).... And this, the number ten, is as well the foundation of numerology in ancient China; quote: one is heaven, two is earth, three is heaven, four is earth..... until ten; and counting those numbers toghether made the magical number 55 ie 25 being the Heaven plus 30, being the Earth.

But it all starts with the number three: "The gateway to the ten thousands of things" or "The trigrams" of Pao Tzi/ Fuxi or most known as Fu Chi, the legendary inventor of agriculture and vice versa....

Then again: what do I know about all of that ? I've been reading, believing in this stuff and yet hopefully still wondering, hoping it all somehow to be true. Or ?

*) Cop. Macmillian Company, N.Y. 1930

Note: I'm not sure about the spellings for Fuxi....
 
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peterg

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I read somewhere that the atom is the fundamental concept of the material universe and the Trinity is the fundamental concept of the spiritual universe.If you deconstruct the atom everything falls apart.The structure of the atom is reflected in the solar system, galaxy, universe.The same applies for the Trinity which like the flame, heat and light of fire is in essence One.
The faith healer likes the number three too.I think my friend said he invokes the name of the Divine Trinity during the healing.
 
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S

sooo

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Three is a significant number within our psyche, and most religions have their own type of holy trinity. In Hinduism it/they-is/are known as The Trimūrti, consisting of The Creator, the Maintainer, and the Destroyer of the Universes: Brahma-Vishnu-Maheshwara. The Christian trinity is, of course, The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the third of these often depicted as a feminine principle. Beethoven considered music (and himself) as the mediator between heaven and earth, assuming the same role as The Christ or Buddha: all God, all Man, all Earth. Indigenous tribes designated Father Sky, Mother Earth, and the Shaman was the intermediary, one foot in heaven, one on earth and him or herself in-between. Some also viewed the intermediary as having one foot in death, one in life, and he/she in-between. The First born son of Heaven and Earth is the dragon, Chen/Zhen, who is the likeness of Lightening and Thunder. The First Born Son of Heaven in Christianity is considered the first Word spoken: thunder. If we place ourselves back in primitive times, this is more than mythology. Today it has degraded past mythology to literal theology, just as the masses of every culture has done, including the less mindful Buddhist, who pray to the Buddha. There are three main schools of Buddhism. The triune deity is hardwired in our psyche. Psychologists call it our Conscious, Subconscious and Unconscious.

Two is too symmetrical, as is four. One is too abstract. Three are beyond symmetry, as a scalene triangle, unless lines are folded inward, and that goes beyond man's conscious mind. The mind of man is a mind of rectangles, as demonstrated by the very room you are now seated in. The windows, doors, shelves, walls, appliances, are typically rectangular. But step outside the door to the natural world, and there are no more rectangles, everything is asymmetrical. Look through the branches of the trees and you'll see triangles everywhere, and curves; look to the heavens and the sun appears as a circle.

Whether or not there was intended a conscious association with all this to the three foxes, or whether three only referred to meaning a random few, the number 3 is embedded in the mind of man in a way which exceeds linear logic, yet does not contradict it.

The number 3 is fun to play with in these ways, but I don't think it has conscious symbolic significance in this instance of 3 foxes, though perhaps on a deeper conscious level, it may. As I lightly said early in this thread, we use three coins, a trigram consists of three lines, and we toss three times, twice. If these are a connection, it may not have been a conscious one.
 
S

svenrus

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Hmmm, I think I got something terrible wrong in my previous posting: One of Albert Einsteins favorite authors, Tobias Dantzig, in his book 'Number, the language of Science' Frankly, whether this author were or were not his favorite I don't know, but this particular book was it that Einstein recommended warmly.

:duh:
 
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peterg

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There is a 'thrice' and fox in the Zuozhuan:
Duke Xi, 15th Year—644 B.C. (Legge, p.164, col. 11 & p. 167, col. 2)
The Zhou Yi (Yi Jing, I Ching) is consulted.
''Tu Fu, the diviner, consulted the milfoil about the expedition [of the earl of Qin to invade Jin], and said, "A lucky response: cross the He; the prince’s chariots are defeated." The earl asked to have the thing more fully explained, and the diviner said, "It is very lucky. Thrice shall you defeat his troops and finally capture the marquis of Jin. The diagram found is Gu, of which it is said, ‘The thousand chariots thrice are put to flight. What then remains you catch, the one fox wight.’ That fox in Gu must be the marquis of Jin. Moreover, the inner symbol of Gu [Xun - the lower trigram] represents wind, the outer [Gen - the upper trigram] represents hills. The season of the year is now the autumn. We blow down the fruits on the hill, and we take the trees. It is plain we are to overcome. The fruit blown down and the trees taken: what can this be but defeat to Jin?"

The three may have been just a number as in the oracle bone inscriptions:
https://htmlcdn.scribd.com/6rzze3h3k02czuqe/images/34-6d7849c7db.jpg
The Zhouyi does have a curious predilection for the number which occurs about 21 times.

There are references in Chinese literature to the Shang tyrant Zhou Xin's favourite concubine Da Ji being a fox sprite and possessed of the spirit of a fox.
 
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svenrus

Guest
Thank's for links. Peterg and Charly. I couldn't read the picture You linked Peterg so it's very helpfull for me to get Charly's sourcelinks.
Btw, but thats in the other end of the spectre: just lended Kerson Huang, I Ching - The oracle, where Nine in second line hex 40 reads: "Getting three foxes ind the hunt, Finding a yellow arrowhead. Good omen." ( also to be read in this newer ed.: http://www.scribd.com/doc/215289323/Kerson-Huang-Ching ).
The translation finding I haven't seen in any other translations and in mr. Hatchers Word by Word, II, it also did not appear in the translation....

I will study Your links when time is given to me for that. Thanks, one more time !
 

charly

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Svenrus:

Maybe your didn´t se the pictures for not being logged in. I only did a look to Fiskesjö, I have to read it more deeply.

But I have the feeling that the hexagram is closely attached to hunting, maybe royal or not, one of which senses is fetching wives. Hunting as the exhibition of power over wild animals, wild people (foreighners, barbarians, bandits = fei ren, non-persons, dehumanized persons not like us) and wild women.

To release the foxes might be an exhibition of power over magic and to keep captive a bird of prey means that the own duke is a bird of prey for whon the falcon will work.

Another: I don't believe that the arrow be found. I believe that it was granted by the foxes or by another related spirit or divinity.

Charly
 
S

svenrus

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.................................

Whether or not there was intended a conscious association with all this to the three foxes, or whether three only referred to meaning a random few, the number 3 is embedded in the mind of man in a way which exceeds linear logic, yet does not contradict it.

The number 3 is fun to play with in these ways, but I don't think it has conscious symbolic significance in this instance of 3 foxes, though perhaps on a deeper conscious level, it may. As I lightly said early in this thread, we use three coins, a trigram consists of three lines, and we toss three times, twice. If these are a connection, it may not have been a conscious one.

I guess You are right; the number three in it's own meaning doesn't play a part here. I've been searching for analogies in vane except for this, that in japaneese folklore three foxes portends disaster which I cited in this thread #44.

I also found the idea that the foxes weren't killed but caught for release and that they showed up as the friends in the fourth line in gratitude for the releasement, interesting.

And HeyLise's remark that three could be seen like "to realy, realy [and third] realy try" as meaningfull in the context.

If the japaneese tradition also counts for China back in time, ie. three foxes meaning disaster, the line could interestingly enough be read like: avoiding disaster on the field.... As I understood it the japaneese tradition should have been brought with buddism (?) and if this been understood right this tradition possibly wasn't only in use in Japan but in a much greater area.
 
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heylise

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The beginning of counting seems to be "one, two, many", and there are still peoples who count like this.
In old texts 3 is often used for "many".
I cannot give sources, I never think of making a note where I find something. Sorry.
 
S

svenrus

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In this thread #8 I mentioned it, and just googling found something:

http://numberwarrior.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/is-one-two-many-a-myth/

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/aug/20/highereducation.research

.... and so on. I'll try to search for the source I once found about some folks in the pacifics (Polynesia ??); I've read some of Thor Heyerdahls books (the Norwegian with the theories about Southamericans crossing the Pacific to Eastern Island and also making research with ancient egyptian boat "Ra" crossing the Atlantic ocean) and maybe it's from there I got it....
 
S

svenrus

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Actually, Tobias Dantzig, in his book 'Number, the language of science' - mentions that the bushmenn in Southafrica didn't (at earlier times supposely) had any numbers beyond two: One, two and then... many. He further points out that the english word thrice like the latin word ter have a doubble meaning, three times and many. and possibly that there is a connection between the latin word tres, three, and trans, beyond. In this section on his book [First part, I, "Fingerprints"] he referrs to Edward Micklethwaite Curr who suggests that only a very few of the aboriginals in Australia can manage counting four and in no matter seven. [Tobias Dantzig, Number, the language of science, The Macmillan Company, N.Y. 1930]
 

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