≪列女傳≫, <有虞二妃>의 함축적 의미 (A Study on the connotative meanning of Youyu’erfei in Liu Xiang’s Lienüzhuan)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 동아인문학회
· 수록지 정보 : 동아인문학 / 60호 / 1 ~ 25페이지
· 저자명 : 강현경

초록

<有虞二妃>는 ≪列女傳≫ 제1권에 해당된 <母儀傳>의 첫 번째 전기문이다. 유향은 <有虞二妃>에 표현된 일련의 일화를 통하여, 순임금의 효행은 ‘平天下’의 기틀을 마련한 덕행임을 나타냈고, 두 부인(娥皇과 女英)이 실천한 婦道는 천하 여성들의 귀감이 될 모범적인 여성의 행실임을 강조하면서 순임금의 대업을 완성할 수 있게 만든 원동력이 되었음을 시사하였다. 그런데 아황과 여영의 행적은 <有虞二妃> 중의 중심인물로 수록되었으면서도, 혼인 이후부터 기술되었고, 순의 행적에 비해서 훨씬 간결하였다. 그러한 내용 중에서 두 부인은 순을 평민에서 황제의 지위로 올라가게 했던 ‘지혜롭고 공손한 여성’이었고, 천하의 여성들에게 ‘國母로서의 인격’을 지녔던 인물로 표현되었다.
작자는 이러한 인물 형상을 통하여, <有虞二妃>는 ‘나라의 정치는 반드시 집안에서의 생활 태도에서부터 시작된다.’(“王政必自內始.”)라는 수록 의도를 함축한 것으로 여겨진다. 순임금과 두 부인의 행적이 비교적 단순한 서사적 화소로 이뤄졌어도, 이를 단순한 기록으로 평가할 것이 아니라, ≪열녀전≫ 全篇에 대한 상징적인 의미를 함축한 것으로 이해하여야 할 것이다. 따라서 작자 유향이 황제에게 전달하려는 간언의 의도를 내포하고 있는 전기문 중에서, <有虞二妃>가 그 첫 번째 전기문이라는 사실은 무엇보다도 특별한 의미를 지니고 있다고 판단된다.

영어초록

Youyu’erfei(有虞二妃) is the first chapter of Muyizhuan(母儀傳) in the first volume of Lienüzhuan(列女傳) written by Liu Xiang(劉向) in the Western Han Dynasty. In the first chapter of the first volume, Youyu’erfei has a special meaning. Although Youyu’erfei is mythical, the characters and personalities expressed by the author have left a deep lesson and moved the readers. At this point, I hold that the words and deeds of those characters have a value of the biographical text with strong symbolic meanings, being not the simple records, in order to discuss the intention of the biography included in the first chapter.
Before the compilation of Lienüzhuan, Yaodian(堯典) in Shangshu(尙書), and Wodibenji(五帝本紀) in Shiji(史記) written by Sima Qian(司馬遷) had already recorded the deeds of Emperor Shun and his two wife (Ahuang and Nuying). The deeds of Emperor Shun and his two wife recorded in these two ancient books are slightly different from those recorded in Lienüzhuan.
Liu Xiang recorded the family environment, blood relationship, and life attitude of Emperor Shun in his childhood, marriage problems, employment status, three difficulties in his prime, the process of overcoming it, the inheritance of the emperor's status after middle age, and his death. Those seem to be biological contents of Emperor Shun. However, the deeds of his two wife are the contents of the central character of Youyu’erfei, which is only recorded after the marriage to Shun. In fact, the deeds of the two wife in Lienüzhuan are more specific than those shown in the Shiji, and those are shorter than the records of Emperor Shun in Lienüzhuan. In the short record of the two wife, the author recognizes the two wife as virtuous and wise helpers of Emperor Shun on the one hand, and praises them for their virtues(the rules of proper female behavior). This is the author's point of view on the typical women who commented that the two wife can practice the way of serving her husband and the way of running a family.
Therefore I believe that in Liu Xiang's expression, in order to show the character and virtue of the two wife, he used implicit and symbolic expression techniques. In other words, the author establishes the image of a model woman who is ‘smart and virtuous’ in the praise of the two wife's practice of femininity, and leaves the impression of a fine model to women all over the world. Through Youyu’erfei, the author reveals that Emperor Shun's filial deeds were the foundation of ‘governing the world’, and the ‘intelligent, virtuous and benevolent’ attitudes of the two wife included the way of serving husband and family that the traditional Confucianism values and also was the source of Emperor Shun's ‘governing the world’.
In short, I can say that some of the filial piety and the practical attitudes of female virtues emphasized in Youyu’erfei belong to the symbolic contents emphasizing that “The political affairs of a king's government should start with the attitude of families harmonizing and caring for each other and the practice of moral ethical norms.”

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