鮯鮯之鱼

The Classic of Eastern Mountains: five hundred li south by water, then shifting sands for five hundred li, and then a mountain: Mount Qizhong, two hundred li across, no grass or trees, with great serpents, much jade on its heights. There is water there, forty li across and boiling up everywhere, called the Deep Marsh, in which are many sea turtles. And a fish, shaped like a carp but with six legs and a bird's tail, named Gege; its call is its own name. Look at the water first. "Forty li across, boiling up everywhere." Forty li is roughly sixteen kilometres under the Zhou system. A sheet of water sixteen kilometres wide that is not still, but turning over from below. What is that? One possibility: submarine springs. The East China Sea shelf has freshwater vents and hydrothermal activity in several places. Off southwestern Taiwan there are the famous mud volcanoes; near Japan, hot springs. Another: upwelling. In some shallow seas, tidal flow through constricted topography produces large areas of rising water that look like a pot coming to the boil. Another: gas. Organic matter in the seabed decomposes and releases methane, which seeps out of the sediment, and the whole surface bubbles. "Deep Marsh," with "boiling everywhere," reads very much like a persistently bubbling surface. Then the fish. "Shaped like a carp, but six legs and a bird's tail." Six legs. Count: pectoral fins, a pair; pelvic fins, a pair; anal fin, one. Three pairs of appendages. Six. On a fish, all six sit along the lower body, close together, similar in form, membrane stretched over rays. Seen from above, or from the side when the fish is moving slowly, all six are in motion at once. Someone unfamiliar with fish anatomy, seeing six moving flaps, reaches for the first available word: six legs. And "bird's tail" — a fish's caudal fin is forked, two lobes, spreading like tail feathers. A carp's tail is deeply forked; opened, it looks like a swallow's tail. So "six legs and a bird's tail" is not fantasy. It is fins counted as feet, and a tail fin seen as a bird's tail. This kind of observational error is everywhere in the Shanhaijing. "Flies with its back" was the same thing: the observer was right, the noun was wrong. Then: its call is its own name. Gege. The character is fish plus "join," read ge. Gege sounds like "ge-ge," a clucking. Fish make sounds, and not all of them with a throat. Many use the swim bladder: muscles in the bladder wall contract, vibrating the gas inside, and the sound transmits through the body wall. The drums and croakers are the classic case — in a school, the noise carries a long way, and fishermen locate shoals by listening. Carp vocalize too, but quietly. Another possibility: the sound is not the fish. It is the water. A marsh "boiling everywhere" makes a glugging, gulping noise as bubbles break and springs surge. The recorder heard a sound, saw something moving on the surface — six flaps, a bird's tail — and named it by the sound: Gege. So the entry runs: a sheet of water sixteen kilometres across, bubbling over its whole surface; great turtles in it; a fish with six moving fins; and a noise, ge-ge. A sailor, somewhere in the East China Sea, saw all of this. He had no concept of "fin." He had "foot." He had no concept of "sound-producing organ." He had "it is calling." He wrote it down. Two thousand years later we are still reading it.

"กว้างสี่สิบลี้ (ประมาณ 16 กม.) น้ำพุ่งขึ้นทั้งผืน" — นี่ไม่ใช่น้ำนิ่ง แต่พลิกขึ้นจากข้างล่าง อาจเป็น: พุน้ำจืดใต้ทะเล / น้ำพุ่งขึ้นตามกระแสน้ำ / ก๊าซมีเทนจากตะกอนก้นทะเลที่ผุดขึ้นเป็นฟอง "ปลาเหมือนปลาไน แต่หกขา หางนก" — นับดู: ครีบอก 2, ครีบท้อง 2, ครีบก้น 1 = สามคู่ หกชิ้น คนที่ไม่รู้กายวิภาคปลา เห็นหกแผ่นขยับ ก็เรียกว่า "หกขา" ส่วนหางปลาไนแฉกลึก เหมือนหางนกนางแอ่น "ชื่อเกอเกอ" — ปลาหลายชนิดส่งเสียงด้วยถุงลม (เช่น ปลาจวด) หรืออาจเป็นเสียงฟองน้ำ "กุก ๆ" คนจดไว้ตามเสียง

"Seluas empat puluh li (kira-kira 16 km), air memancut di seluruh permukaan" — bukan air tenang, tetapi berputar dari bawah. Mungkin: mata air tawar bawah laut / upwelling arus pasang / gas metana dari sedimen dasar laut yang menggelembung. "Ikan seperti kap, enam kaki, ekor burung" — kira: sirip dada 2, sirip perut 2, sirip dubur 1 = tiga pasang, enam keping. Orang yang tidak tahu anatomi ikan nampak enam keping bergerak, terus kata "enam kaki". Ekor kap bercabang dalam, nampak macam ekor burung. "Namanya Gege" — banyak ikan berbunyi melalui pundi renang (misalnya gelama), atau bunyi gelembung air "gluk-gluk". Perakam catat ikut bunyi.

"Rộng bốn mươi dặm (khoảng 16 km), nước phun khắp mặt" — không phải nước tĩnh, mà trào lên từ dưới. Có thể là: mạch nước ngọt dưới biển / nước trồi theo thủy triều / khí methane từ trầm tích đáy biển sủi bọt. "Cá như cá chép, sáu chân, đuôi chim" — đếm: vây ngực 2, vây bụng 2, vây hậu môn 1 = ba cặp, sáu phiến. Người không biết giải phẫu cá thấy sáu phiến động đậy, gọi ngay là "sáu chân". Đuôi cá chép chẻ sâu, trông như đuôi én. "Tên Cách Cách" — nhiều loài cá phát âm bằng bong bóng (như cá đù), hoặc là tiếng bọt nước "sùng sục". Người ghi chép lấy theo âm.

"Seluas empat puluh li (sekitar 16 km), air memancar di seluruh permukaan" — bukan air tenang, tetapi berputar dari bawah. Mungkin: mata air tawar bawah laut / upwelling arus pasang / gas metana dari sedimen dasar laut yang menggelembung. "Ikan seperti ikan mas, enam kaki, ekor burung" — hitung: sirip dada 2, sirip perut 2, sirip dubur 1 = tiga pasang, enam lembar. Orang yang tidak tahu anatomi ikan melihat enam lembar bergerak, langsung menyebut "enam kaki". Ekor ikan mas bercabang dalam, tampak seperti ekor burung. "Namanya Gege" — banyak ikan berbunyi lewat gelembung renang (misalnya ikan gelama), atau bunyi gelembung air "gluk-gluk". Pencatat mencatat sesuai bunyi.