《金枝》：古老的地方習俗與巫術都是與當時生存有關的合理存在

英國作家弗雷澤的《金枝》是一部在世界範圍內研究古老習俗、原始信仰、巫術活動及其有關信仰、觀念的科學鉅著，由於該書蒐集了豐富的人類學資料，被稱為人類學的百科全書。

“金枝”緣起於一個古老的地方習俗：一座神廟的祭司被稱為“森林之王”，卻又能由逃奴擔任，然而其他任何一個逃奴只要能夠折取他日夜守護的一棵樹上的一節樹枝，就有資格與他決鬥，就能殺死他則可取而代之。

這個古老習俗的緣起與存在疑點重重，為此，作者目光遍及世界各地，收集了世界各民族的原始信仰的豐富資料，運用歷史比較法對之進行了系統的梳理，從中抽繹出一套嚴整的體系，並對巫術的由來與發展作出了令人信服的說明和展望。

Frazer attempted to define the shared elements of religious belief and scientific thought, discussing fertility rites, human sacrifice, the dying god, the scapegoat, and many other symbols and practices whose influences had extended into 20th-century culture. His thesis is that old religions were fertility cults that revolved around the worship and periodic sacrifice of a sacred king. Frazer proposed that mankind progresses from magic through religious belief to scientific thought.

Frazer's thesis was developed in relation to J. M. W. Turner's painting of The Golden Bough, a sacred grove where a certain tree grew day and night. It was a transfigured landscape in a dream-like vision of the woodland lake of Nemi, "Diana's Mirror", where religious ceremonies and the "fulfillment of vows" of priests and kings were held.

The king was the incarnation of a dying and reviving god, a solar deity who underwent a mystic marriage to a goddess of the Earth. He died at the harvest and was reincarnated in the spring. Frazer claims that this legend of rebirth is central to almost all of the world's mythologies.

……

Why had the priest of Aricia to slay his predecessor And why, before doing so, had he to pluck the Golden Bough Of these two questions the first has now been answered. The priest of Aricia, if I am right, was one of those sacred kings or human divinities on whose life the welfare of the community and even the course of nature in general are believed to be intimately dependent. It does not appear that the subjects or worshippers of such a spiritual potentate form to themselves any very clear notion of the exact relationship in which they stand to him; probably their ideas on the point are vague and fluctuating, and we should err if we attempted to define the relationship with logical precision. All that the people know, or rather imagine, is that somehow they themselves, their cattle, and their crops are mysteriously bound up with their divine king, so that according as he is well or ill the community is healthy or sickly, the flocks and herds thrive or languish with disease, and the fields yield an abundant or a scanty harvest. The worst evil which they can conceive of is the natural death of their ruler, whether he succumb to sickness or old age, for in the opinion of his followers such a death would entail the most disastrous consequences on themselves and their possessions; fatal epidemics would sweep away man and beast, the earth would refuse her increase, nay, the very frame of nature itself might be dissolved. To guard against these catastrophes it is necessary to put the king to death while he is still in the full bloom of his divine manhood, in order that his sacred life, transmitted in unabated force to his successor, may renew its youth, and thus by successive transmissions through a perpetual line of vigorous incarnations may remain eternally fresh and young, a pledge and security that men and animals shall in like manner renew their youth by a perpetual succession of generations, and that seedtime and harvest, and summer and winter, and rain and sunshine shall never fail. That, if my conjecture is right, was why the priest of Aricia, the King of the Wood at Nemi, had regularly to perish by the sword of his successor.

阿里奇亞的祭司為什麼要殺掉他的前任？殺之前，他為什麼又必須折一根金枝？現在這兩個問題的第一個已經有了答案。如果我沒有弄錯，阿里奇亞祭司就是那些神王或人神之一，人們認為社會福利乃至總的自然現象的推移都密切地依賴於他的生存。這樣一個精神的統治者，他的臣民或信徒對於他們自己和他之間的準確關係並沒有任何很清晰的觀念；他們對這一點的看法也許是模糊不定的，如果我們想用精確的邏輯解釋這種關係，我們就會犯錯誤。那些人們只知道，或是隻感覺到，他們自己以及他們的牲口和莊稼像是有些神秘地與他們的神王聯繫在一起，集體是健康，還是多病，羊群牛群是興旺，還是病弱，地裡的收成是豐富，還是微薄，這些都要看他是健康還是生病。他們能想像到的最大的災禍就是他們的統治者的正常死去——無論是病死，或是老死。因為在那些信徒看來，這種正常死亡會給他們自己和他們的財產帶來最嚴重的後果，譬如，致命的瘟疫會使人畜會亡，土地不再增產，甚至自然本身的結構都要瓦解。為了預防這些大災難，就必須趁王還年富力強的時候就將他處死，以求他的神靈生命，在精力未衰時傳給他的繼承者，以恢復他的青春。這樣，通過強壯的替身連續地一脈相承，神靈生命就可以永葆青春年少；這樣也就保證了人畜一代一代地傳下去，保持青春；播種和收穫、春天和夏天、雨水和陽光，也永遠不會失調。如果我的推測不錯，這就是內米的森林之王、阿里奇亞的祭司之所以必須照例死於他繼承者的寶劍之下的緣故。

……

The priest of the Arician grove—the King of the Wood—personified the tree on which grew the Golden Bough. Hence if that tree was the oak, the King of the Wood must have been a personification of the oakspirit. It is, therefore, easy to understand why, before he could be slain, it was necessary to break the Golden Bough. As an oak-spirit, his life or death was in the mistletoe on the oak, and so long as the mistletoe remained intact, he, like Balder, could not die. To slay him, therefore, it was necessary to break the mistletoe, and probably, as in the case of Balder, to throw it at him.

阿里奇亞叢林中的祭司——森林之王——就是金枝所生長的那棵樹的化身。因此，如果那棵樹就是橡樹的話，林中之王就一定是橡樹精靈的化身。於是，不難理解，為什麼必須折下金枝才能把它殺死。作為橡樹的精靈，他的生或死都寄託在生長於橡樹上的槲寄生之內，只要槲寄生完好無恙，他就像巴爾德爾一樣，也不會死亡。因此，要想殺死他，就必須折斷槲寄生，並且很可能要像殺死巴爾德爾那樣，用折下的槲寄生為器械才能把他殺死。

槲寄生，寄生植物，四季常青

……It only remains to ask, Why was the mistletoe called the Golden Bough? The whitish-yellow of the mistletoe berries is hardly enough to account for the name, for Virgil says that the bough was altogether golden, stems as well as leaves. Perhaps the name may be derived from the rich golden yellow which a bough of mistletoe assumes when it has been cut and kept for some months; the bright tint is not confined to the leaves, but spreads to the stalks as well, so that the whole branch appears to be indeed a Golden Bough. Breton peasants hang up great bunches of mistletoe in front of their cottages, and in the month of June these bunches are conspicuous for the bright golden tinge of their foliage. In some parts of Brittany, especially about Morbihan, branches of mistletoe are hung over the doors of stables and byres to protect the horses and cattle, probably against witchcraft.

最後一點須要提問的是：為什麼把槲寄生叫做金枝呢？它那微白帶黃色的果實是不足以體現這個名稱的，因為，維吉爾說過，這金枝連枝帶葉都是金黃色的。也許這名稱的得來是由於槲寄生的樹枝折下來存放幾個月以後變得十足的金黃色的緣故。那鮮豔的金色光澤，不僅在葉上，而是遍佈枝莖，整個樹枝看來確實像是一根金枝。布列塔尼的農民在自己茅屋前掛著大捆大捆的槲寄生樹枝，每年6月間它們呈現的金黃色澤確實引人注目。布列塔尼有些地區，特別在莫爾比昂一帶，農民還把槲寄生的樹枝掛在牛欄馬廄的門上，防禦魔邪、保護牛群和馬匹。

……

But while science has this much in common with magic that both rest on a faith in order as the underlying principle of all things, readers of this work will hardly need to be reminded that the order presupposed by magic differs widely from that which forms the basis of science. The difference flows naturally from the different modes in which the two orders have been reached. For whereas the order on which magic reckons is merely an extension, by false analogy, of the order in which ideas present themselves to our minds, the order laid down by science is derived from patient and exact observation of the phenomena themselves. The abundance, the solidity, and the splendour of the results already achieved by science are well fitted to inspire us with a cheerful confidence in the soundness of its method. Here at last, after groping about in the dark for countless ages, man has hit upon a clue to the labyrinth, a golden key that opens many locks in the treasury of nature. It is probably not too much to say that the hope of progress—moral and intellectual as well as material—in the future is bound up with the fortunes of science, and that every obstacle placed in the way of scientific discovery is a wrong to humanity.

科學與巫術的共同之處只在於兩者都相信一切事物都有其內在規律。讀者當然知道巫術所假定的事物規律與科學以之為基礎的那種事物規律，兩者是有很大差異的。這種差異自然地來自兩種不同規律所抵及的各色各樣的模式。巫術所認為的規律純粹是事物規律呈現於人的頭腦、經過不正確的類比、延伸而得出的；

Yet the history of thought should warn us against concluding that because the scientific theory of the world is the best that has yet been formulated, it is necessarily complete and final. We must remember that at bottom the generalisations of science or, in common parlance, the laws of nature are merely hypotheses devised to explain that ever-shifting phantasmagoria of thought which we dignify with the high-sounding names of the world and the universe. In the last analysis magic, religion, and science are nothing but theories of thought; and as science has supplanted its predecessors, so it may hereafter be itself superseded by some more perfect hypothesis, perhaps by some totally different way of looking at the phenomena—of registering the shadows on the screen—of which we in this generation can form no idea. The advance of knowledge is an infinite progression towards a goal that for ever recedes. We need not murmur at the endless pursuit.

然而思想史告誡我們不要作出這樣的結論：因為科學理論是最好的，尚有待於系統地闡述，因此它就必須是十全十美的終極的科學理論。應該記住：科學的概括，或者用一般的說法，自然的法則，只是一些假說用來說明我們以世界和宇宙這類響亮名詞予以誇大了的思想不斷變化的情況。說到底，巫術、宗教和科學都不過是思想的論說。科學取代了在它之前的巫術與宗教，今後它本身也可能被更加圓滿的假說所更替，也許被我們這一代人想像不出的、與記錄宇宙這一屏幕上的影像、看待自然界一切現象的完全不同的方式所更替。知識總是朝著一個明確的目標永遠地不停地前進的。所以，對於這種無窮無盡的追求我們無須怨誹。

For however vast the increase of knowledge and of power which the future may have in store for man, he can scarcely hope to stay the sweep of those great forces which seem to be making silently but relentlessly for the destruction of all this starry universe in which our earth swims as a speck or mote. In the ages to come man may be able to predict, perhaps even to control, the wayward courses of the winds and clouds, but hardly will his puny hands have strength to speed afresh our slackening planet in its orbit or rekindle the dying fire of the sun. Yet the philosopher who trembles at the idea of such distant catastrophes may console himself by reflecting that these gloomy apprehensions, like the earth and the sun themselves, are only parts of that unsubstantial world which thought has conjured up out of the void, and that the phantoms which the subtle enchantress has evoked to-day she may ban to-morrow. They too, like so much that to common eyes seems solid, may melt into air, into thin air.

無論將來會給人類準備著增加多少知識和力量，人類也不能制止那些偉大力量的掃蕩。看來那些偉大力量正在無聲地然而卻非常堅韌地形成之中，將毀滅我們這個地球像一顆微粒或塵埃似的浮游其間的燦爛宇宙。在未來若干世紀後人可能能夠預告甚至探測風雲的變幻，但是他的纖弱的雙手仍將無力加快天體在其軌道中緩慢下來的運行速度，也不能重新燃起太陽快要熄滅的火焰。有關地球和太陽之類的憂慮不安都不過是人的思想從子虛烏有中虛構出來的一些想法，今天巧偽的女巫製造的種種幻象，明天她自己就會予以廢棄。它們在常人眼裡似乎像是真實的，但必將化為一陣雲煙，轉眼就煙消雲散了。對於一想到那遙遠未來的災難就嚇得發抖的哲學家來說，想想這些也就可以得到慰藉了。

Without dipping so far into the future, we may illustrate the course which thought has hitherto run by likening it to a web woven of three different threads—the black thread of magic, the red thread of religion, and the white thread of science, if under science we may include those simple truths, drawn from observation of nature, of which men in all ages have possessed a store. Could we then survey the web of thought from the beginning, we should probably perceive it to be at first a chequer of black and white, a patchwork of true and false notions, hardly tinged as yet by the red thread of religion. But carry your eye farther along the fabric and you will remark that, while the black and white chequer still runs through it, there rests on the middle portion of the web, where religion has entered most deeply into its texture, a dark crimson stain, which shades off insensibly into a lighter tint as the white thread of science is woven more and more into the tissue. To a web thus chequered and stained, thus shot with threads of diverse hues, but gradually changing colour the farther it is unrolled, the state of modern thought, with all its divergent aims and conflicting tendencies, may be compared. Will the great movement which for centuries has been slowly altering the complexion of thought be continued in the near future or will a reaction set in which may arrest progress and even undo much that has been done To keep up our parable, what will be the colour of the web which the Fates are now weaving on the humming loom of time will it be white or red We cannot tell. A faint glimmering light illumines the backward portion of the web. Clouds and thick darkness hide the other end.

深入探究未來之前，我們可以把迄今為止人類思想的發展比作用三種不同的紡線：黑線——巫術；紅線——宗教；白線——科學——交織起來的網。在科學研究中，我們可以包括人類多少世紀以來通過觀察自然而掌握並積累的那些簡單真理。如果我們能夠從頭考察這一人類思想發展的網織物，我們就會看出它首先是黑白交織的格子花似的圖案，是正確與錯誤觀念的拼綴品，這時候還沒有染上宗教紅線的顏色。順著這拼綴品再往前看，就會發現它上面雖然還是黑白交織的格子圖案，而在這織物的中心、宗教已經深深進入，有著赫然一片殷紅色素。可是，隨著科學白線愈來愈多地編織進來，它已逐漸黯然失色。這樣編織和著色、隨著織物的進一步展開，畫面的顏色與逐漸變化。這同具有各種不同旨趣、相互矛盾趨向的現代思想的狀況正好相似。多少世紀以來一直在緩慢地改變著思想顏色的偉大運動在不遠的將來仍將繼續麼？是否會出現倒退、阻礙進步，甚至譭棄已經取得的成就呢？按我們剛才的比喻來說，在時間的十分活躍的織布機上，命運之神將在這塊織品上織出何等顏色呢？是白的還是紅的？——我們還說不上來。一片淡淡的微光已經照亮著這張思想織物的背景，它的另一端則還深鎖在濃雲密霧之中。

Our long voyage of discovery is over and our bark has drooped her weary sails in port at last. Once more we take the road to Nemi. It is evening, and as we climb the long slope of the Appian Way up to the Alban Hills, we look back and see the sky aflame with sunset, its golden glory resting like the aureole of a dying saint over Rome and touching with a crest of fire the dome of St. Peter's. The sight once seen can never be forgotten, but we turn from it and pursue our way darkling along the mountain side, till we come to Nemi and look down on the lake in its deep hollow, now fast disappearing in the evening shadows. The place has changed but little since Diana received the homage of her worshippers in the sacred grove. The temple of the sylvan goddess, indeed, has vanished and the King of the Wood no longer stands sentinel over the Golden Bough. But Nemi's woods are still green, and as the sunset fades above them in the west, there comes to us, borne on the swell of the wind, the sound of the church bells of Aricia ringing the Angelus.Ave Maria!Sweet and solemn they chime out from the distant town and die lingeringly away across the wide Campagnan marshes.

我們漫長的探索航程已經結束，我們所乘的一葉扁舟終於進入港口，收起了滿載征塵的風帆。我們又一次出發去往內米。正是黃昏時候，我們沿著阿庇烏大道^{[這是古羅馬皂帝阿庇烏所建的軍用大道，從羅馬經加普利亞通往布朗迪西恩(今布林迪西)，全長350英里。]}長長的斜坡直爬上阿爾巴山峰，回頭看西天晚霞燦然，落日餘暉像臨終聖徒頭上的光環，映照在羅馬上空，給聖彼得大教堂的尖頂憑添一層耀眼的金輝。如此景色，一見難忘。為了趕路，我們依依離開峰頂，沿峰側小徑在蒼茫暮色中直奔內米。到達目的地後，俯視谷底，鏡湖隱約可見，風景依稀，仍似當年狄安娜在此神林中接受敬奉者禮拜時的模樣。誠然，林中女神的殿宇已蕩然無存，森林之王也不再守衛在金枝之旁。但內米的叢林依舊鬱鬱蔥蔥，西天落日這時已在它上空隱去，清風拂面，傳來遠處鎮上阿里奇亞教堂的晚禱鐘聲，Ave Maria！^{(萬福，瑪利亞！)}甜美肅穆，餘音嫋嫋，越過羅馬四郊廣闊的平原沼澤，逐漸消逝。

J．G.弗雷澤（1854-1941）英國著名的民族學家，宗教史學家，享有世界聲譽的文化人類學家，早期進化學派人類學的代表人物之一，認為“巫術先於宗教”的第一人，一生至為勤奮，著述甚豐。

弗雷澤將巫術歸結為兩種類型，順勢巫術和接觸巫術：“如果我們分析巫術賴以建立的思想原則，便會發現它們可以歸結為兩個方面：第一是‘同類相生’或果必同因；第二是‘物體一經互相接觸，在中斷實體接觸後還會繼續遠距離的互相作用’。前者可稱為‘相似律’，後者可稱為‘接觸律’或‘觸染律’。巫師根據第一原則即‘相似律’引申出，他能夠僅僅通過模仿就實現任何他想做的事；從第二個原則出發，他斷定他能通過一個物體來對一個人施加影響，只要該物體曾被那個人接觸過，不論該物體是否為該人身體之一部分。基於相似律的法術叫做‘順勢巫術’或‘模擬巫術’。基於接觸律或觸染律的法術叫做接觸巫術。”

－End－

閱讀更多 小智雅匯 的文章

關鍵字: 金枝 狄安娜 英國