魚目讀經：以英譯《山海經》佐解「有魚偏枯」段落

《共和萬歲》，當中可見十九星旗（左）、
五色旗（中）及青天白日滿地紅旗（右）。
資圖片來源：維基共享資源

好友子軒的論文功課將分析《山海經．大荒西經》中一段，其文為：

「有魚偏枯，名曰魚婦。顓頊死即復蘇。風道北來，天乃大水泉，蛇乃化為魚，是謂魚婦。顓頊死即復蘇。」

這段文字不好解（其實整本《山海經》根本就不好解），我試用手頭上的英譯本去對讀，再加上自己的臆測，所發揮的想像力，大抵不會亞於《山海經》的作者吧……

下文所採用的譯本為白安妮（Anne Birrell）所譯的The Classic of Mountains and Seas，企鵝出版社出版。

"There is a fish here which is withered down one side. Its name is the Fishwife. This is none other than great god Fond Care. When Fond Care died, he immediately came back to life in this form. Whenever the wind comes from the north, the sky will release a huge flow of water into the springs and then snakes will turn into fish. Such is the Fishwife; she is none other than Fond Care who died and then came back to life in this form."

「偏枯」一詞譯作"withered down one side"，這裏的"withered down"既指枯乾，亦有塌下的意思，而"one side"即譯出了「偏」字，但這亦暗示了另一邊處於完好狀態。Birrell翻譯地物名稱時多用意譯，把魚婦譯成"Fishwife"，可見她將魚婦理解為「魚（的）婦人」。

（又，《說文》：「偏」字作「頗」解，似可聊備一說。如作「頗枯」，則可否解為屍身？又「魚婦」會否其實是「魚腐（腐爛）」？！）

註釋中「魚婦」一條如下：

Fishwife (Yü-fu): The name given to the metamorphosed form of the great god Fond Care. Note the gender transformation in this myth; the idea of fecundity in the fish motif; and the paradox of a withered creature as an emblem of regeneration.

譯者提醒讀者留意神話中「性別轉換」、魚所代表的豐富繁殖力以及以枯朽物作為重生象徵的弔詭意味。

"This is none other than great god Fond Care."為引文所無，不知其所據何本。Birrell把「顓頊」譯為"Fond Care"，Fond一般解作熱愛，置於名詞前則解作「慈愛」（kind and loving），而Care一字有多個意思，如關心、謹慎、在意等。其實，「顓頊」一詞本身也是難解。「顓」既可解「專」（專注、專橫），亦可解作「善良」、「頑愚」，前解略帶貶義，後解則帶出了「純良」、「樸拙」性質。

「顓頊死即復蘇」，譯文雖然用了“immediately”，即是說譯者將此句的「即」理解為「隨即」，但「即」一詞可否解作「即是」？另外，"in this form"這裏該是指「魚婦」魚的模樣，可見譯者將「顓頊」等同「魚婦」。

"Whenever the wind comes from the north"，這是用了一般性描述（每當風從北方來的時候），事實上，原文有可能指的其實是單一事件。"the sky will release a huge flow of water into the springs"即是「天放大水以成泉／到泉水中」（留意譯文作眾數）。原文「天乃大水泉，蛇乃化為魚」，這平衡結構似乎與「風道北來」構成因果關係，那麼「大水泉」的「大」則作動詞解，這麼一來譯文"release a huge flow of water"就表達不到壯大之意了。英譯「蛇乃化為魚」一句，除了用了"and then"表示了與前句有時間前後之序外，沒其他大問題。

"Such is the Fishwife"，「是謂魚婦」。原文譯文該皆指「蛇乃化為魚」的魚是「魚婦」；而"she is none other than Fond Care…"即是「她不是別人，正正是（以此形式死而復生的）顓頊」。「是謂魚婦。顓頊死即復蘇。」原文二句的因果關係未明，單看原文似乎亦難明為何此段文字兩次出現「顓頊死即復蘇」。

註釋中「顓頊」一條如下：

Fond Care, a benign sky god, and one of the most frequently mentioned deities in this text. He was said to have been raised as a child by another sky god, Young Brightsky, and – a rare tradition – to be the grandson of a virtually unknown god, Fence Flow, whose descent ultimately derives from the great god Yellow. This tradition is suspect. Fond Care is the subject of numerous divine genealogy and foundation myths. He gave birth, through parthenogenesis, to numerous deities, and to metamorphosed into a fish in a myth containing the motif of gender transposition. Fond Care’s two names of loving kindness might be termed feminine attributes. His two burial places are guarded by wild animals and snakes. Links to his function as a sky god is the myth of the separation of the sky and the earth, in which his divine descendant Layers has the function of pushing the sky upwards away from the earth. One of the most important myths associated with Fond Care, and also with the god Common Work, is that of their cosmic battle for the godhead, in which the cosmos is damaged by the latter. Although Fond Care is given prominence in this text, he is not among the two or three major deities in the deities in the divine pantheons given in other classical texts. Note the deformity motif.

註釋中的"Young Brightsky"即少昊、"Fence Flow"即韓流。歸納上文，重點大致如下：

• 顓頊的家譜複雜
• 「顓頊」的名字帶女性化
• 顓頊與共工之關係
• 顓頊的「畸態」

讀後妄測：

• 顓頊二字均有「頁」字旁，顓頊會否半邊面畸形？（有指這條可能是古代醫治半身不遂之藥方？）
• 魚（魚婦）→顓頊（？）→蛇→魚（魚婦）→顓頊（？）：此段文字涉及三物，會否是「變形的循環」。顓頊會否為魚蛇之間的過渡？
• 魚蛇皆為「水」象；顓頊為炎帝之後，屬火象？又，炎帝一說為「神農」，顓頊為「植物神／農業首領」？不過，此段文字中顓頊「火」之屬性質並不明顯，陰陽雙性之說似不可能（最少於此段文字如是）。

行文至此，仍發現「顓頊死即復蘇」一句與上文下理關係不明……這難道會是咒語來的……？