神谕与希罗多德式叙事——以吕底亚故事为例

The Oracle and Herodotus Narration

本文试图运用叙事学中的"叙事时间"理论,以《历史》中的吕底亚故事为例,探讨神谕与希罗多德的叙事之间的关系。在与神谕相关的叙述中,希罗多德应用预述、倒述、缓述和重述等多种叙事手法,这些都以神谕的应验为前提。因此,希罗多德在叙述中呈现的是相信神谕的态度。但当今一些学者从历史考证的角度指出,希罗多德所引用的神谕大多是不真实的。然而,如若回到古希腊的语境中,我们就会发现,希罗多德记载的神谕故事是大众所认可的"真实的"过去。需要注意的是,即使希罗多德以神谕及其应验来构筑叙事,这也并不意味着他在提供颂扬神谕的传说。

This paper tries to apply the theory of 'narrative time' in narratology,and takes the Lydia story from 'History' as an instance,in order to investigate the relationship between the Oracle and Herodotus narration.In the narrations about the Oracle,Herodotus adopted various narrative ways,such as anticipation,retro version,slow description,and repetition.All these took the fulfillment of the Oracle as the premise.Therefore,Herodotus presented his belief in the Oracle in the narration.Nonetheless,some scholars nowadays pointed out from the historical questioning perception that most of Herodotus' quoted Oracles were not real.However,if we could go back to the ancient Greek context,we would have found that the Oracle stories recorded by Herodotus were the 'real' past approved by the public.One thing to be noted here is that even though Herodotus based his narrations on the Oracle and its fulfillment,it does not mean that he provided the legend of ode to the Oracle.As a matter of fact,his narrative words included many historical narrations and analysis.