Root Before Branch
An envoy of Qi greets the Queen Dowager of Zhao, who asks first after the harvest, then the people, then the king; affronted, he is told — without the harvest there are no people, and without the people, no king.
Ask after the harvest before the king. There is no crown without the field under it.
A guest of rank was coming, and the whole house had been put to gilding the gate.
The master stood in the lane directing it — fresh lacquer on the posts, the carved beam scrubbed bright, a banner fetched from the next town. Behind the handsome gate the well stood ringed with green water no one would drink, and his field hands, unpaid since the spring planting, watched from the wall with the flat eyes of men deciding whether to stay.
"He's afraid of the guest," Dog said, "and not afraid of the well." He could not have told you why the order was wrong — only that the master kept touching the gate and never once turned to look behind it.
"A king's envoy carried a sealed letter to the old queen of Zhao once," the Wu said. "Before she would break the seal she asked after the harvest, then the people, then last the king. The man took offence. She told him: without the harvest there are no people, and without the people no king — would you have me ask after the branch before the root?"
"The gate's the branch." Dog worked it slow. "The well's the root."
"The well, and the men on the wall." One of them climbed down as she said it and did not come back. "Gild what's looked at and let what feeds you go foul, and you keep the finest gate in a dead village."
She set her own house in order in her head as they walked, the way she did most days now without deciding to, and never once had to move the answer, and did not say it aloud, because a thing said aloud can be taken from you.
The history. From the Zhanguoce. The King of Qi sent an envoy with a letter to Queen Dowager Wei of Zhao; before she would open it she asked whether the harvest was good, whether the people were well, and only then whether the king was well. The envoy was offended — he had been sent to call upon the king, yet she asked after harvest and commoners first, putting the base before the noble. She answered that without the harvest there could be no people, and without the people no ruler, so who would abandon the root to ask after the branch — then pressed him by name on the worthy men and the filial woman of Qi her king had still failed to raise up. There is no fixed chengyu, only the ordering she insists on — 本末, root and branch: get which is which backward and the whole house follows the mistake down.
The figure. ䷋ Standstill (Pi) · line 5 — Standstill ends. The great person brings good fortune. 'What if it fails? What if it fails?' Tie it to a clump of mulberry shoots. The root holds even when all seems to collapse.
The reading. Root before branch. The scene gives the proverb a man gilding his gate for a guest while his well fouls and his hired men slip away — the ornament fussed, the foundation left to rot. It lands on the Wu and Dog: she sets her own house in the same order and never moves the answer — the boy is the root, tended before any war or crown, and never said aloud, because a thing said aloud can be taken from you.
Source: Zhanguoce · State of Zhao (趙) · Hexagram ䷋ Standstill · line 5
Illustrated & divined by Digital Rain Studios.