先秦的儒家有将旧有的神话改造为“历史”的习惯,在传统的儒家典籍中,往往会留下一些“旧瓶装新酒”的词汇或语言形式,它们来源于神话,但已经失去了神话的内容,被赋予了新的意义。这种词汇或语言形式,可以称作神话的“语言化石”。找出这种“化石”,不但可以让我们发现早期神话,而且还可以解决一些语源上的问题。本文从这个角度,检验了清代学术史上著名的关于“光充也”之训的争论,指出《尧典》的“光被四表,格于上下”这个表述,是来源于一个关于尧的神话,“光”应训为“光耀”,《尧典》的叙述,可以看作是以修辞的手法将神话现实化。

The Confucian Scholars in early China had a tradition of converting the mythology into historicalstories. This made it possible for us today to find some "fossil words which has lost their initial mythologicameanings. Such words can be called “Language Fossils” of mythology. We can not only find the lost myths, butalso solve some etymological problems if we manage to identify such language fossils. From this perspective, thisarticle proves that the explanation of Guangbeisibiao (光被四表)in Yao Dian (典), which was proposed by manyscholars of the Oing dynasty, is not correct. It should be corrected with a related note from Zheng Xuan (多么). Thatis, the word Guang(光) means light, and is a noun; and it is not fill (横), which is a verb.