Sleep out of season · bu shi wo

At a glance

Pinyin

bù shí wò

Simplified

不时卧

Literal

不 is not, 時 is season — but also time, the proper hour — and 卧 is to lie down. The phrase says that sleep no longer comes at its hour. Chapter 29 puts it among the signs of evil that has entered the six palaces, alongside fever and panting, and the reading matters: the point is not that the patient cannot sleep at all but that the rhythm has gone. Sleep belongs to the order of the day, and a body whose yang side has been taken by an evil from without has lost that order. Later commentaries tend to read the phrase as simple sleeplessness; the graph says something more specific.

Shuowen

《說文解字》：臥，休也，从人臣，取其伏也；時，四時也，从日寺聲。**「卧」讀 wò，底本作「卧」，不作「臥」**，與第二十三篇同例；「不」讀 bù；「時」讀 shí，本篇六見。「不時」二字本篇一見，與下文「起居不時」之「不時」同詞而所指不同——彼言起居違其時，此言臥起失其度。