哥林多柱裝飾植物的考證

Acanthus-The Plant on Corinthian Order

哥林多（科林多）式古典建築，以柱頭上的植物裝飾為最搶眼的特色。這種在外文稱為acanthus的植物，長久以來在華人世界被譯成近十種不同的中文名稱。這些譯名，在文字及發音上或有些許相似處，然而所指植物彼此差異太大，或花葉造形懸殊、或生長條件不一、或其功效迥異。筆者以為之所以有此謬誤，蓋由於在啟始點，誤將此植物公元前一世紀的古代名稱acanthus 當作英文或拉丁文，在大本英漢詞典中找答案，或甚而據此更進入現代植物分類學中的「爵床科」此包含逾兩千種植物的園地中，以致於撲朔迷離，不得正解。因為古羅馬《建築十書》率先記述哥林多柱的源起，筆者知曉作者維特魯維崇拜希臘文化，認為維氏最初所用植物名稱應該是古典希臘文，而非拉丁文，由此作為論文之探索起始點，來得到解答。論文主題有如下三點：一、探究acanthus 究竟是何種植物；二、植物的適當中文譯名；三、此acanthus 是擁有如何的象徵意義，方能在漫長的建築歷程中，屢屢重現，作為裝飾主題。

Acanthus decoration, indeed, is the most obvious feature on the classical Corinthian order. As to acanthus, various Chinese translation terms never reach to congruence: inconsistence appears on plant forms, vegetative conditions, and functions. This vagueness results from the very beginning that everyone deems acanthus as English or Latin term rather than a Classical Greek one. Therefore translators have searched after an answer via big English-Chinese dictionary, or ever gone further to Acanthaceae which covers over 2000 species in modern classificatory botany. Since the first story about Corinthian order came from Vitruvius’ The Ten Books on Architecture , knowing Vitruvius’ Hellenistic bias, I argue that acanthus should be a classical Greek word rather than a Latin, from which I may start my research for the answer of following three questions: 1, what plant the acanthus is 2, which is the correct Chinese translation of acanthus 3, how is its symbolism which lets acanthus motif recur through long span of architectural history