」字」字蔡哲茂
殷卜辭的「
」字，唐蘭對此字字形的結構，指出它象冑形，是正確的。從出土的戰國文字，以及《說文》冑下所附的《司馬法》冑字異體作「
」來看，「由」即是冑，卜辭裡有「
」字作為本義甲冑的例子。卜辭中亦常見在疾病之後占卜「隹ㄓ由」、「不隹ㄓ由」，日本的白川靜曾提出「
是用作和害、
幾乎同義」，本文根據對貞及疾病有關卜辭以為此處「由」當和卜辭常見的「旬亡
（憂）」的「
」字用法相同，「由」可能要讀作「憂」。而卜辭中除人名、地名之外，尚有一種用法是「經由」的意義，裘錫圭先生指出金文
犬尊和卜辭用法相同，本文提出兩條文獻資料作補充。當然卜辭尚有意義不明的用法，有待進一步的探討。
關鍵詞：ㄓ
亡
由 冑
犬尊
On
the Character you in the Oracle Bone Inscriptions
Che-Mao Tsai
Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica
Tang
Lan’s argument that the structure of the character you
(
) is similar to the character zhou
胄 is accurate. From recently unearthed documents of the Warring States period,
as well as from the entry for zhou
in the Shuowen 說文 that,
citing the Sima fa
司馬法, gives geyou
as
an alternative way of writing zhou,
we can conclude that you
由 is equivalent to zhou.
In the oracle bone inscriptions, we can also find examples in which the
character you is used in
place of zhou. In oracle bone inscriptions related to disease, we often see the
expression “Wei you you” 隹ㄓ由 and “Bu wei you you” 不隹ㄓ由.
The Japanese scholar Shirakawa Shizuka 白川靜 once argued that “this usage
of you (
) is virtually identical in
meaning to hai 害
‘harm.’” In this article, I propose that in oracle bones related to
disease, the word you
should be interpreted as similar in usage to the character “
” in the
expression “Xun wang (you)” 旬亡
(憂). Hence you
由 should perhaps be read as you
憂. In the oracle bones, in addition to names of people and places, the word is
at times used to mean “through.” Qiu Xigui has pointed out that in bronze
inscriptions of the Shiue quan
zun (
犬尊)
the usage is similar to that of the oracle bones. In this article, I draw
attention to two passages in support of this argument. There remain, however,
passages in which the meaning of the term remains unclear.
Keywords:
you (由), zhou
(胄), Shiue quan zun (
犬尊)