《诗经》中的女性美与昆虫——生态美学管窥

Feminine Beauty and Insects in The Book Of Songs: An Eco-esthetical Interpretation

《诗经》中有很多描写女性美的作品,其中最引人、最新奇的并非以鲜花等植物或以星月等天体来比喻女性美,而是以蛾、蝉和蝎子等昆虫来比喻、赞扬女性美。先秦时代以农业生产为主,下至平民百姓,上至高官贵族乃至天子,都会定期参加农业劳动,所以人们熟悉自然生态环境,并产生感情,哪怕在蝎子身上,人们都能找到"闪光点",自然界中的事物由于熟悉而变得美丽,昆虫也堪与贵族美女相比。时代、环境决定了《诗经》中天然富含生态美学思想。在农业社会,由于生产、生活和家族发展的需要,男性对女性的看法,是以劳动能力和生育能力为评价标准,而非美貌。这也是《诗经》爱以昆虫来比喻、赞扬女性美的原因之一。

Many poems in the Book of Songs describe feminine beauty, of which the most attractive and original ones are not those that describe a woman in terms of flowers, plants and even the moon, but those that use the moth, the cicada and the scorpion to depict feminine beauty. In the Pre-Qin Dynasties, agriculture was predominant and everybody, from the masses to the emperors, regularly took part in agricultural activities with the result that people grew so familiar with and so fond of the environment that to them even the scorpion had commendable attributes. Familiarity put a cloak of beauty over things in nature and insects were compared to aristocratic women. The times and the environment filled the Book of Songs with rich ecological ideas. In an agricultural society where the needs of production, life and tribal development reigned supreme, it was a woman＇s capacity for work and child-bearing, not her beauty, that determined a man＇s view of her. This is another reason why insects are frequently used in this great collection of songs to convey feminine beauty.