Opening
the fourth branch; the hour the gate is thrown open
The character pictures a door split down the middle, both leaves swung back. As the fourth of the twelve earthly branches it marks the hours of dawn, five to seven, when the day is unlatched — and the branches carry directions as well as hours, which sets 卯 due east, where the light actually arrives. Its opposite across the cycle is 酉, the west and the shutting of the day. Xu Shen declines the door altogether and glosses the graph by 冒, to push through or emerge, so the two oldest readings agree about the motion and disagree about the picture. To name the early morning Opening is to treat sunrise not as an arrival but as an act — something the world does to itself, swinging wide. The hour is named for a verb.
Sources · 4
- documented Xu Shen, Shuowen Jiezi, c. 100 CE — 卯 glossed as 冒, to push out or emerge.
- documented The duodecimal hour system: 卯 as the double-hour 05:00–07:00.
- documented The earthly branches as compass directions: 卯 east, 酉 west, the pair opposed across the twelve-point cycle.
- traditional The graph read as two door-leaves swung back. It is the standard gloss and it fits the oracle-bone form, but graphic etymologies of this age are reconstructions, not records — the reading this entry is built on is the one carrying the weaker marker.