“啸”的历史与字义变迁

History of “Howling” and Evolution of Literal Meaning

唐代孙广所著《啸旨》一书,实为口哨的十二种吹法与对秘曲十二章源流的解说。《诗经》中有三处"啸",皆为因过度感伤而发出的声音,但发此声者皆为女性。进而啸被用于招魂,发挥另一种功能。《楚辞·招魂》的"啸"因为可以感鬼神,故道教用之,其因缘持续到唐朝。魏晋之后,具有音乐美的啸似乎开始流行,如阮籍就善于啸。从《啸赋》看,啸开始带有神仙家与道家的气息,"啸"由原来的吹口哨转为歌唱的意思,进而意味着神仙家、道教人士即使不吹口哨、不唱歌也怀有的那种超然于尘世之外的心境。因此,"啸"这个词中即包含着有声之啸与无声之啸两种含义。

The book Xiaozhi written by SUN Guang in the Tang Dynasty is a book interpreting the 12 ways of whistle blowing and the sources of 12 secretive songs. The word “howling” appears three times in The Book of Songs. The howling is a sound out of excessive sadness, made by females. Howling is also used for evocation which is another function of it. The word “howling” in Evocation, The Songs of Chu, means it touches ghosts and immortals. For this purpose, it is used by Taoism until the Tang Dynasty. After the Wei and Jin Dynasties, howling with the musical beauty began to get popular, for example, Ruan Ji is good at howling. The book Howling Prose tells us that howling begins to couple with immortals and Taoists and the meaning of howling evolves from the original whistle blowing to singing and further means immortals and Taoists are higher than the earthly world even without blowing whistle or singing. Therefore, the word “howling” has two meanings： howling with sound, and the soundless howling.