Cast & Chart

Tiger and Rooster

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

The traditional relations

  • 無 No listed relation

    None of the classical relations apply to this pair.

What tradition says

No classical table in our files relates 寅 and 酉, which sit five steps apart. Two lines of elemental reasoning disagree about them. Taken by fixed element, 酉 is metal and metal cuts wood. Taken by group, 寅 is where fire is born and 酉 is where metal peaks, and fire melts metal.

Popular zodiac writers picture a blunt Rooster and a proud Tiger, both confident and both easily ruffled. Popular charts are lukewarm about them. There is no older claim behind the lukewarm grade.

A pair whose elements point both ways could ask who corrects whom. Think of the last time one of you was told you were wrong, and think about what made that easier or harder to hear. Then try swapping the roles on purpose for a day.

Elemental reasoning about 寅 and 酉 goes in two directions at once, which should discourage anyone from applying it to the people born under those signs.

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.