Chapter 24 on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
"Chapter 24" is a song from
The translation Barrett referenced is not known, but phrases from the lyric can be found in the Richard Wilhelm and
Pink Floyd
Pink Floyd are an English rock band formed in London in 1965. Gaining an early following as one of the first British psychedelic music, psychedelic groups, they were distinguished by their extended compositions, sonic experimentation, philo ...
's 1967 album ''The Piper at the Gates of Dawn
''The Piper at the Gates of Dawn'' is the debut studio album by English rock band Pink Floyd, released on 5 August 1967 by EMI Columbia. It is the only Pink Floyd album made under the leadership of founding member Syd Barrett (lead vocals, gu ...
''. This song was one of several to be considered for the band's "best of" album, '' Echoes: The Best of Pink Floyd''. It was the second song recorded for the album.
Composition
It was written bySyd Barrett
Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett (6 January 1946 – 7 July 2006) was an English singer, songwriter, and musician who co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd in 1965. Barrett was their original frontman and primary songwriter, becoming known for his ...
and its lyrics are inspired by text from chapter 24 of the ancient Chinese tome ''I Ching
The ''I Ching'' or ''Yi Jing'' (, ), usually translated ''Book of Changes'' or ''Classic of Changes'', is an ancient Chinese divination text that is among the oldest of the Chinese classics. Originally a divination manual in the Western Zho ...
'' (''The Book of Changes'').
''I Ching''
The translation Barrett referenced is not known, but phrases from the lyric can be found in the Richard Wilhelm and Cary Baynes Cary Baynes, born Cary Fink (1883-1977) was an American Jungian psychologist and translator.I Ching, chapter 24, Legge translation, 1899, at Internet Sacred Texts Archive
/ref> The former is more poetic, but the latter has greater detail. Chapter 24 explains the significance of the Fû (复, means "returning") hexagram. *"All movement is accomplished in six stages..." – The lyric's opening line appears to be taken from the I Ching's instructions for performing a divination, which is accomplished in six stages, one for each row of the hexagram, and is used to select a hexagram and its corresponding chapter. These are words from the Richard Wilhelm translation into German, rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes. The German text from Wilhelms comment to the judgement is (I Ging. Das Buch der Wandlungen. Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Jena 1924): "Alle Bewegungen vollziehen sich in sechs Stufen. Die siebente Stufe bringt dann die Wiederkehr." and Baynes translates: "All movements are accomplished in six stages, and the seventh brings return." (see also the next line). *"...and the seventh brings return..." – A significant theme of this chapter is that the subject may freely come and go without great trouble, although the last row of the hexagram (the top row) takes the contrary position. A journey lasting six days is implied, and "in seven days comes his return" (Legge translation). *"...for seven is the number of the young light..." – In the German text, Wilhelm writes in his comment to the judgement: "Darum ist die Sieben die Zahl des jungen Lichts, die dadurch entsteht, dass die Sechs, die Zahl des grossen Dunkels, sich um eins steigert." and Baynes translates literally: "Therefore seven is the number of the young light, and it arises when six, the number of the great darkness, is increased by one." "Young light" may also refer to the sun at winter solstice (see below).1 As the lines in the hexagrams of the I Ching are seen ascending from below, the "young light" is the first (unbroken) line at the bottom. In his comments to the judgement of chapter 24 in the third book of the I Ching, Richard Wilhelm explains: "Nachdem die Kraft des Lichten im Zeichen Gou (Nr. 44, das Entgegenkommen) abzunehmen beginnt, kommt sie im Zeichen Fu nach sieben Wandlungen wieder." which corresponds in English to: "After the power of light starts to wane in the sign Kou (No. 44, Coming to Meet) it returns in the sign Fu (No. 24, Return / The Turning Point) after seven changes." *"...change returns success..." – The first line of the Wilhelm and Baynes translation is: "Return. Success." – a summary of the Fû hexagram. *"...going and coming without error..." – This references "going in and coming out without error" (from Wilhelm and Baynes, second line of the translation), and refers to the meaning of the third row of the hexagram, counting from the bottom (from Legge). *"...action brings good fortune..." – The first and second rows (from the bottom) both indicate "good fortune". *"...sunset, sunrise..." (latter word added in repeats of the chorus) – This refers to winter solstice (see next line): the longest night of the year, the greatest length of time between sunset and sunrise. *"The time is with the month of
/ref> The former is more poetic, but the latter has greater detail. Chapter 24 explains the significance of the Fû (复, means "returning") hexagram. *"All movement is accomplished in six stages..." – The lyric's opening line appears to be taken from the I Ching's instructions for performing a divination, which is accomplished in six stages, one for each row of the hexagram, and is used to select a hexagram and its corresponding chapter. These are words from the Richard Wilhelm translation into German, rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes. The German text from Wilhelms comment to the judgement is (I Ging. Das Buch der Wandlungen. Eugen Diederichs Verlag, Jena 1924): "Alle Bewegungen vollziehen sich in sechs Stufen. Die siebente Stufe bringt dann die Wiederkehr." and Baynes translates: "All movements are accomplished in six stages, and the seventh brings return." (see also the next line). *"...and the seventh brings return..." – A significant theme of this chapter is that the subject may freely come and go without great trouble, although the last row of the hexagram (the top row) takes the contrary position. A journey lasting six days is implied, and "in seven days comes his return" (Legge translation). *"...for seven is the number of the young light..." – In the German text, Wilhelm writes in his comment to the judgement: "Darum ist die Sieben die Zahl des jungen Lichts, die dadurch entsteht, dass die Sechs, die Zahl des grossen Dunkels, sich um eins steigert." and Baynes translates literally: "Therefore seven is the number of the young light, and it arises when six, the number of the great darkness, is increased by one." "Young light" may also refer to the sun at winter solstice (see below).1 As the lines in the hexagrams of the I Ching are seen ascending from below, the "young light" is the first (unbroken) line at the bottom. In his comments to the judgement of chapter 24 in the third book of the I Ching, Richard Wilhelm explains: "Nachdem die Kraft des Lichten im Zeichen Gou (Nr. 44, das Entgegenkommen) abzunehmen beginnt, kommt sie im Zeichen Fu nach sieben Wandlungen wieder." which corresponds in English to: "After the power of light starts to wane in the sign Kou (No. 44, Coming to Meet) it returns in the sign Fu (No. 24, Return / The Turning Point) after seven changes." *"...change returns success..." – The first line of the Wilhelm and Baynes translation is: "Return. Success." – a summary of the Fû hexagram. *"...going and coming without error..." – This references "going in and coming out without error" (from Wilhelm and Baynes, second line of the translation), and refers to the meaning of the third row of the hexagram, counting from the bottom (from Legge). *"...action brings good fortune..." – The first and second rows (from the bottom) both indicate "good fortune". *"...sunset, sunrise..." (latter word added in repeats of the chorus) – This refers to winter solstice (see next line): the longest night of the year, the greatest length of time between sunset and sunrise. *"The time is with the month of
winter solstice
The winter solstice, also called the hibernal solstice, occurs when either of Earth's poles reaches its maximum tilt away from the Sun. This happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). For that hemisphere, the winte ...
, when the change is due to come..." – Fû also symbolizes the eleventh month, which contains the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, when the length of daylight changes from becoming shorter each day, to longer each day.
*"...thunder in the other course of heaven..." – Each hexagram can also be viewed as two trigrams
Trigrams are a special case of the ''n''-gram, where ''n'' is 3. They are often used in natural language processing for performing statistical analysis of texts and in cryptography for control and use of ciphers and codes.
Frequency
Context is ...
: the bottom three rows (inner trigram) and top three rows (outer trigram). Fû is composed of trigrams for thunder and earth. The lyric may inadvertently refer to chapter 25's "Wú Wàng" hexagram, composed of the trigrams for thunder and heaven.
Personnel
*Syd Barrett
Roger Keith "Syd" Barrett (6 January 1946 – 7 July 2006) was an English singer, songwriter, and musician who co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd in 1965. Barrett was their original frontman and primary songwriter, becoming known for his ...
– lead vocals, guitar feedback
Audio feedback (also known as acoustic feedback, simply as feedback) is a positive feedback situation which may occur when an acoustic path exists between an audio input (for example, a microphone or guitar pickup) and an audio output (for examp ...
* Richard Wright – Farfisa organ
Farfisa (Fabbriche Riunite di Fisarmoniche) is a manufacturer of electronics based in Osimo, Italy, founded in 1946. The company manufactured a series of compact electronic organs in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Compact, FAST, Professiona ...
, Hohner Pianet
The Hohner Pianet is a type of electric piano, electro-mechanical piano built by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany and designed by Ernst Zacharias. The Pianet was a variant of his earlier reed-based Hohner electric piano, the Cembal ...
, cello
The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...
, harmonium
The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. T ...
, backing vocals
*Roger Waters
George Roger Waters (born 6 September 1943) is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. In 1965, he co-founded the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. Waters initially served as the bassist, but following the departure of singer-so ...
– bass guitar, gong
A gongFrom Indonesian and ms, gong; jv, ꦒꦺꦴꦁ ; zh, c=鑼, p=luó; ja, , dora; km, គង ; th, ฆ้อง ; vi, cồng chiêng; as, কাঁহ is a percussion instrument originating in East Asia and Southeast Asia. Gongs ...
*Nick Mason
Nicholas Berkeley Mason, (born 27 January 1944) is an English drummer and a founder member of the progressive rock band Pink Floyd. He is the only member to feature on every Pink Floyd album, and the only constant member since its formation in ...
– crash cymbal
A crash cymbal is a type of cymbal that produces a loud, sharp "crash" and is used mainly for occasional accents, as opposed to a ride cymbal. It can be mounted on a stand and played with a drum stick, or by hand in pairs. One or two crash cy ...
s, tubular bells
Tubular bells (also known as chimes) are musical instruments in the percussion family. Their sound resembles that of church bells, carillon, or a bell tower; the original tubular bells were made to duplicate the sound of church bells within a ...
References
Footnotes Citations {{authority control 1967 songs Pink Floyd songs Songs written by Syd Barrett