Casting off the clothes and running · qi yi er zou

At a glance

Pinyin

qì yī ér zǒu

Simplified

弃衣而走

Literal

棄 qì is to throw away, 衣 clothes, 走 to run — and 走 in early Chinese means run, not walk. The phrase describes a patient who tears off his clothes and runs, and chapter 30 explains it in one clause: 熱盛於身，故棄衣欲走也. Heat is exuberant in the body, so the clothes come off and the running follows. What later literature would class as mania the chapter explains as thermostatics: a body too hot to bear covering, moving to shed it.

Shuowen

《說文解字》：棄，捐也，从廾推𠦒棄之——**「棄」讀 qì，本篇三見，捨去、脫去也**，底本作「棄」，不作「弃」；「衣」讀 yī，本篇三見；**「走」讀 zǒu，本篇四見，奔跑也，非行走之義**——古書「走」皆訓趨、奔，與今語之緩步者別。四字連言本篇二見：「病甚則棄衣而走」「其棄衣而走者，何也」，一陳其狀、一問其故。