Cast & Chart

Ox and Dragon

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

The traditional relations

  • 相破 Mutual Breaking

    A pair of branches the old tables list as breaking each other. The name is a label, not a forecast.

What tradition says

Both of these branches are earth, and 三命通會 lists 丑 and 辰 among the four pairs of 相破, Mutual Breaking, with three steps between them. It is the only witness we have for this list, and to break here means that each is held to undo the other. The branches share a job as well: each is the last stage of a group, where 五行大義 says metal dies at 丑 and water dies at 辰.

Modern popular zodiac sets the cautious Ox beside the flamboyant Dragon and imagines disputes about style and spending. Popular writers often add that the two admire each other's strength. No older source in our files talks about temperament for this pair.

Two branches that close things out might each be sure they know how a project ought to finish. Pick something unfinished and describe the ending each of you has in mind. The places where those endings differ are what this conversation is for.

相破 sorts 丑 and 辰 on a list from one old book, and two people can read that list without being on it.

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.