「萬語莫奈何」：莎翁《冬天的故事》中的女性醫者與女性療癒語言

＂There is no tongue that moves＂ - Female Healers and the Therapeutic Female Tongue in The Winter's Tale

本文援用西方十六世紀醫者派帕拉賽爾塞思之醫學理論，探討莎翁《冬天的故事》中的女性醫者角色，並對比在此時期歷史文化背景下真實女性醫者。本文分析劇中女主角寶琳娜為女性醫者之典範，期以呈現女性的語言為一療癒砭石。寶琳娜透過適當的語言運用，巧妙地化解了存在於國王與皇后間的誤解紛爭，重新恢復皇室健康秩序。寶琳娜如醫藥般的話語，神奇地轉化國王盛怒之語為懺悔柔語。而被認定死去已久的皇后，她如石塊般的雕像身軀，竟能在寶琳娜的話語指導下被喚醒而「重生」。這象徵性的重生，乃鍊金醫學的最高境界：賤金屬／死亡轉化為黃金／生命。

This reading of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale focuses on the theme of female healers or medical practitioners, both as we see them in the play itself and as their history contributes to the cultural background of the play. While the female healer, Pauline, may be said to stand squarely within this tradition, Queen Hermione is less directly representative of it. More precisely, the reading focuses on the central role played by the voices, tongues, and forceful speeches of these two women. Empowered by their words and wits, these two wise women, in particular Paulina, the play's central female figure and my main focus, transform their traditional gender roles, acting as female healers whose wits and tongues remove blockages within the public order and the minds of the men who control it, restoring circulation in both to a state of health. On the one hand, Paulina's words, which operate both magically and therapeutically, turn King Leontes's diseased speech into what sounds like repentance. On the other hand, the marble-like statue of his queen, Hermione, who has supposedly been dead ever since the trial at which her husband accused her of adultery, is ＂reanimated＂ by Paulina's magical utterance. Here we have the traditional midwife enabling a symbolic rebirth in the final scene of the play, which again suggests the restoration of a healthy public order, or in alchemical and Paracelsian terms, the refinement or transmutation of lead/death into gold/life.