Cast & Chart

Ox and Snake

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

The traditional relations

  • 三合 Three Harmonies

    Two members of a trio of branches that tradition groups together.

What tradition says

Metal's group among the 三合, the Three Harmonies, runs 巳酉丑, and the Snake and the Ox hold its two outer seats. 五行大義 puts living metal at 巳 in the south and dying metal at 丑 in the north. Between them stands 酉, the peak, which this pair lacks, and by the rule in 三命通會 the group needs all three.

According to popular compatibility lists, this is a calm and durable match of Snake discretion and Ox persistence. Those lists are modern. The fixed elements add a smaller point, that fire makes earth, with the Snake's 巳 as fire and the Ox's 丑 as earth.

Beginning and end with the middle missing is an unusual shape. Talk about who brings the first spark of a plan, who sees the last of it through, and who covers the stretch in between when neither of you wants it. That middle stretch is the part specific to this pair's position.

Membership in a metal group belongs to the branches 巳 and 丑, whatever the Snake and the Ox you know may be like.

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.