The Clam and the Snipe
The snipe stabs the clam, the clam clamps the snipe, neither lets go — and the fisherman picks up both. Su Dai, talking Zhao out of eating Yan.
Nobody in the lock wins. Read who isn't struggling.
The quarrel in the gateway had been going long enough to draw a crowd, which is the one thing a quarrel can always be trusted to make.
Two grain-carters had wedged their wheels in the narrow of the gate, each having come the way the other meant to go, and now neither would back his ox — because backing the ox meant granting the road was the other man's, and a man will pay more not to grant that than the grain is worth. They had left off trading curses and begun trading the names of each other's fathers. The crowd took sides and was glad of the morning.
"Watch the fight if you like," the Wu said, not slowing. "I'd sooner watch the gate-clerk."
Dog found him: in the shade of the wall with his tablet, not hurrying, not parting them, only waiting — and every little while, writing. A cart blocking a king's gate past the noon bell was a fine. Two carts were two fines. The longer the two fools held their lock, the fatter the clerk's morning grew, and his was the only hand in the gateway pulling on nothing.
"He started it," Dog said slowly, reading it off the man's easy shoulders. "Or near enough. Told the first one the gate was clear."
"Told them both, more likely." The Wu bought her thread and turned back to the road. "The snipe has the clam, the clam has the snipe, and the man who carries them both home never wets his feet. When you find two creatures that will not let go of each other, boy, the question is never which of them is winning. It's who is standing dry on the bank with a basket — and whether you're about to walk through his gate while he's still hungry."
The history. From the Zhanguoce. Zhao was preparing to attack Yan. The envoy Su Dai told the King of Zhao a fable: a snipe stabbed at an open clam, the clam clamped the snipe's beak, and neither would let go — so a passing fisherman simply picked up both. Yan and Zhao are the snipe and the clam, he said, and Qin is the fisherman waiting on the bank. Zhao called off the attack. 鹬蚌相争, “snipe and clam at war,” is the proverb for a fight that only profits a watching third.
The figure. ䷅ Conflict (Song) · line 6 — Even if you win the belt, you'll lose it three times before morning. Victory in conflict that's pushed too far becomes hollow. The prize doesn't stay.
The reading. Nobody in the lock wins. Read who isn't struggling. In the scene two carters jam a gate while the clerk quietly fines them both — and the Wu turns it on the pair's own survival: when two parties are locked, find the dry man with the basket, and know whether you're about to walk through his gate.
Source: Zhanguoce · State of Yan (燕) · Hexagram ䷅ Conflict · line 6
Illustrated & divined by Digital Rain Studios.