药发傀儡辨

A Reading of the Term "Yao Fai" Puppetry

傀儡戏是中国戏曲史上极为重要的一种戏剧形式。它在宋代发展到了自己的第一个巅峰期。有据可查的宋代傀儡戏种类有五种:杖头傀儡、悬丝傀儡、水傀儡、肉傀儡、药发傀儡。其中肉傀儡与药发傀儡的具体形态一直存在着较大的争议。尤其是药发傀儡,不但史籍中"记之甚简",而且从它的命名中我们都很难寻找一个想象的出发点。本文通过对有关记载的重新分析辨明:"药发"或为"摇发"之讹,药发傀儡就是宋前典籍中时有出现的机关木偶。

At the culminating point in its development in the Song dynasty, five forms of traditional puppetry are documented： the rod puppet, the marionette, the water puppet, the flesh puppet, and the ＂yao-fa＂ puppet. The exact forms of the flesh puppet and the ＂yao- fa＂ puppet have been points for discussion, and the ＂yao-fa＂ puppet even more so as even its name itself holds practically no clues for any reasonable speculation. This paper re-examines the relevant documentations and reaches the conclusion that ＂ yao-fa ＂（药发） may be misspellings of the homophones 摇发, which in ideograms read ＂wind into motion＂, thus pointing to the machine puppet that is often referred to in pre-Song literature.