Cast & Chart

Dragon and Rooster

These are traditional rules about the twelve signs. No chart decides a relationship.

The traditional relations

  • 六合 Six Harmonies

    One of six pairs of branches that tradition treats as natural allies.

What tradition says

辰 and 酉 are paired in 六合, the Six Harmonies. In the third month, says the Wuxing Dayi, the sun and moon meet at 大梁, which is 酉, as the Dipper points to 辰, and the eighth month gives the same link from the other side. The elements cooperate too, because 辰 is earth and earth bears the metal of 酉.

In popular zodiac books the showy Dragon meets the well-groomed, plain-speaking Rooster, and the match is written up as two proud signs enjoying each other's confidence. One passage quoted in the Sanming Tonghui does grade this bond, more favorably from 酉 than from 辰. It is rating positions in a birth chart, and no couple is in view.

Pride can be pleasant when it is shared and sharp when it is bruised. What kind of compliment do you each actually believe, and what kind of criticism can you each hear without bristling?

A Six Harmonies entry joins two signs by the old reckoning of sun, moon and Dipper, and it cannot vouch for a particular Dragon and Rooster.

Where this text comes from

The relation tables follow 五行大義 volume 2 and 三命通會 volumes 2 and 3 on Wikisource. The popular readings are modern and come from neither.

The English here is our own plain wording, not a translation of a single source.