Earthly Branch · 7 of 12
Horse午
Horse is the seventh of the twelve Earthly Branches. It is yang Fire, due south, and the double hour from 11 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon.
- 子Rat23–1
- 丑Ox1–3
- 寅Tiger3–5
- 卯Rabbit5–7
- 辰Dragon7–9
- 巳Snake9–11
- 午Horse11–13
- 未Goat13–15
- 申Monkey15–17
- 酉Rooster17–19
- 戌Dog19–21
- 亥Pig21–23
Term details
| Chinese | 午、胜光 |
|---|---|
| Pinyin | wǔ |
| Standard name | Horse |
| First mention | Horse (Wu 午) |
| Order | 7 of 12 |
| Element | Fire |
| Yin or yang | yang |
|---|---|
| Double hour | 11:00 to 13:00 |
| Direction | south |
| As Monthly General | Leo, from Major Heat |
| Clashes with | Rat 子 |
| Stems lodged here | None |
Etymology
In oracle-bone script 午 pictures a pestle for pounding grain, the original form of 杵. Later the character came to mean midday above all.
The Shuowen Jiezi, the Han dynasty dictionary, assigns it to the fifth month: "to go against; yin breath goes against yang and pushes up out of the earth", taking the sense of 忤 "to defy". The Horse hour and the fifth month are where yang peaks and the first yin is born.
The Old Chinese pronunciation is reconstructed as *m-qʰˤaʔ (Baxter and Sagart). Middle Chinese was nguX, with an initial ng far from today's wǔ. Horse is pronounced exactly like the stem 戊, and both are written wu in English; on this site Wu in running text always means the stem, and the branch is always Horse.
Significations
- people
- a middle-aged woman, a middle daughter, a young wife, a consort, worthies, scholars, envoys, travellers
- matters
- writing, documents, essays, news, civilisation, ceremony, banquets, celebrations
- things
- banners, court dress, formal dress, silk, embroidery, lamplight, paintings, bright and colourful things
- body
- the heart, the eyes, the head and face, blood, the mind, high blood pressure, heart disease, vomiting and diarrhoea
- animals
- the horse, the deer, the roe, the mule, the donkey
- places
- halls, living rooms, meeting halls, offices, palaces, government offices, roads, tall buildings
- direction and time
- the south, the Horse hour
- weather
- fair skies, rosy clouds, thunder and lightning, wind, rain, frost, dew, rainbows
As the Monthly General
Horse is the Monthly General from Major Heat 大暑, when the Sun enters Leo, until the next solar term of the same kind. In the chart it is written as the Horse general. Its classical name is 胜光, which the classical texts use far less often than the name of the branch itself.
Source text
Shengguang: fire, strangeness, silk and cotton. Horse governs light and strange events, and also silk, cotton and cloth.
勝光火怪絲棉。○午主光明怪異，又主絲棉布帛。
Sources: 大六壬指南 卷一、卷二、卷三仕宦章与行人章与孕产章; 六壬直指 己巳日午将、甲子日戌将、丙子日亥将; 六壬课经 三交、间传、轩盖、游子; 毕法赋注解 十九; 类神释义表 胜光午