蠶女故事中的生態鬼魅與絲路物質文化下的人類世寓言

The Silkworm Girl, Sericultural EcoGothic, and the Anthropocene

本文從人類與非人類之間親密的生態角度，探究中國古代奇幻神話中蠶女故事的演變，如何與當前人類世危機之間產生對話。蠶女故事提及了人類、動物、植物與物質的四角共生關係，體現出古代桑蠶發展透過人類馴化自然資源的過程，與亞洲、歐洲與地中海之商業交流著名之「絲綢之路」，以及其象徵亞洲蠶絲文明的文化意義作聯繫。本文以生態物質與生態志異的角度，探究神話中人、馬、桑、蠶跨物種的多元共生與共／互食之間的關係，如何過鬼魅式、超自然的人類、後人類、反人類和非人類等各類身體的融合與轉變，突顯出人類與非人類間之衝突、犧牲和背離。本文比較兩個蠶女故事版本之不同：晉代干寶編撰之《搜神記》中的〈女化蠶〉，以及唐朝杜光庭編纂之《墉城集仙錄》中之〈蠶女〉。這兩個蠶女故事之演化，鮮明勾勒出人類界與非人類界之間緊密卻又相互糾纏的詭譎關係。藉由比較蠶女兩種文本，本文重新思考早期中國桑蠶神話在人類危機時代的生態意義。

The essay looks at the connection between Chinese folklores and the Anthropocene, examining the tale of the silkworm girl in ancient Chinese mythologies and folklores from an Eco-Gothic perspective of human-nonhuman alliance (as well as its betrayal). The process of sericultural development in Asia works in tandem with the formation of the renowned “silk road,” an international commercial route for the exchange of goods and materials from East Asia, Central Asia to Europe and the Mediterranean region. The myth of the silkworm girl encapsulates such an eco-economic co-existence among human beings, animals, plants and matter in its most rudimentary form. My discussion focuses on the two versions of the story of the silkworm girl, one from an earlier collection of folklores The Sou shen ji (In Search of the Supernatural: The Written Record) by a Jin Dynasty historian Gan Bao in China, and the other one from Du Guan Ting’s Yong Cheng Ji Sian Lu (Records of the Assembled Transcents of the Fortified Walled City), a later collection of stories compiled in the Tang dynasty. The essay will compare the two representations of the silkworm girl, reconsidering the ecological significance of Chinese mythology in the age of our Anthropocene crisis.