本文以傅柯的 Histoire de la Sexualité 中的性言說為基礎，藉由比較日本和西方性言說的差異，以求了解明治後期、大正初期日本透過森鷗外所譯之王爾德《莎樂美》一劇在閱讀上的差距。在傅柯理論和王爾德的《莎樂美》同樣都提到幾個主題：一、對於女體的歇斯底里化。二、死亡的權力。三、真愛、肉體與精神的愛。四、性早熟的兒童、亂倫、變態性行為。本文會詳述，這樣的一致處並非源於意外，而是因為兩人創作時同樣閱讀過19世紀性心理病態書籍，讓兩人的書寫脈絡相似。但也正因為相同的書寫脈絡，讓莎樂美在傳播到日本以後，因為當時的日本尚未接受過這種起源於19世紀維多利亞時代的性言說，因此逕自以日本明治後期、大正初期的性言說理解劇中情節和人物，進而產生了不同的日本式解讀，而這樣的解讀，如本文所要闡述的，是源自於兩個社會所不同的性言說。這形成了一種在文字翻譯層面以外、透過意識形態對於劇本的廣義翻譯，肇因於接受方因不同文化而產生的理解。

This article tries to look inside the general attitudes of Japanese readers towards Oscar Wilde’s Salomé through Mori Ogai’s translation in the 1920s by incorporating Michel Foucault’s sexual discourse as used in his History of Sexuality. There are certain themes shared between Foucault’s book and Wilde’s Salomé that readers of them can hardly ignore: the hysterization of women’s body, powers of death and over life, true love, spiritual and physical love, precocious sexuality, incest, perverse sexuality. Such shared interests of two authors should not nonetheless be understood as sheer coincident, instead, they attest to a deeply entrenched mindset governed by the sexual discourse, namely books on sexual pathology both have read, which predominates the Christian West since the Victorian era. And it is exactly this mentality defined as sexual discourse by Foucault that sets apart how Salomé is interpreted in late Meiji era Japan and its Western counterpart, which is a form of translation in a broader sense that results from cultural differences.