Cast & Chart

Ox and Goat

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

The traditional relations

  • 六沖 Six Clashes

    Two branches that sit opposite each other on the circle of twelve.

  • 三刑 Three Punishments

    Two branches from a punishment group in the old tables. The name is a label, not a forecast.

What tradition says

Two relations apply. 丑 and 未 face each other across the circle, north and south, so they are one of 六沖, the Six Clashes, and because both are earth it is a clash inside one element. They also belong to 三刑, the Three Punishments, where the arrows run 丑 to 戌, 戌 to 未 and 未 to 丑, so here the punishing line goes from the Goat to the Ox only.

Popular zodiac books describe the Goat as tender and the Ox as rigid and expect them to misread one another. Some popular writers call this the hardest pairing for the Ox. Both claims are modern readings of an old diagram.

In this case the arrow has a direction, which suggests asking about one-way pressure. Does one of you tend to absorb the other's moods without ever passing any back? Because both branches are earth, you might also ask whether the two of you are defending the same ground.

Clash and punishment are both names for arrangements of 丑 and 未, and neither name reaches the two people reading this page.

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.