Poor man’s big game
窮人的大游戲
Mr Mundus cared so much about Quint because he had helped Benchley with material, taking him out in Cricket II for weeks, and because a proper “Jaws” connection-though he thought the film “the funniest and stupidest movie I’ve ever seen”-would have brought in business. His charter-fishing enterprise, run for 40 years out of Montauk in Long Island, had started the sport of baiting and running sharks. They had been considered garbage before, but he promoted them as “fun”: a poor man’s big game at $400 a time, wily, beautiful and dangerous.
蒙杜斯很在乎昆特船長這個人物，因為他曾向本切利提供過素材，帶本切利在Cricket II號上過了幾個星期，因為和”大白鯊”電影相關聯將帶來商機，盡管他認為”這是我看過的最好笑、最愚蠢的電影”。他的包船捕魚公司在長島的 Montauk運營了四十年，開展引誘并追逐鯊魚的業務。以前人們認為鯊魚是垃圾，但是他把他們稱作”樂趣”：400美元就可以玩一次巧妙、有趣、刺激的游戲，窮人的大游戲。

He knew their ways. They would haunt any place in the open ocean, but it was impossible to hunt one specific shark: “They don’t stay in the same place, they move. They got tails.” A 50-pound rod, his usual, would “just about handle anything that comes along”. It was nonsense to think that any fish could pull a heavy boat of the Cricket II’s size either forwards or backwards, as happened in the film of “Jaws”, though you needed a lot of line, double the depth of the water, when a baited shark dived to the bottom. Each fish he caught he said he felt sorry for, even though it was his opponent, and even though he had his own handicap, a left arm withered since childhood, which ached with the effort of keeping a taut （拉緊的）drag on a line.
他了解鯊魚的習性。他們會在海洋里任何地方出沒，但不可能捕獲某一條特定的鯊魚：”他們不在同一個地方逗留，他們會游來游去，他們有尾巴。”他常用的工具是一根50鎊的釣竿，能”應對一切。”任何魚也不可能把像Cricket II這樣的大船拖動（如電影”大白鯊”里的鏡頭），但是，當上鉤的鯊魚向水底潛游時，需把水加深一倍。蒙杜斯說他為捕到的每條魚都感到難過，雖然這些魚都是他的對手，雖然他的身體障礙（自童年起左臂就萎縮了）在每次控制緊繃的探海鉤時都會疼痛。

His critics, and he had many, doubted that he felt much regret. For years, before environmentalism made it illegal, he ground up small whales and basking sharks to make the best bait. Sometimes he shot sharks to finish them off. His boat would come into Montauk braying with victory and strung with the corpses of huge fish. But when the sharks themselves became endangered he began to use circle hooks, which caught in the jaw and let the fish be released, rather than gut-hooks which slowly killed it. And though his haul of dead sea beasts was immense, only seven great whites fell victim to him.
他的批評者（數量很多）質疑他有多少難過。有好多年，他都會圈捕小鯨魚和姥鯊來做最好的魚餌，有時還會射殺鯊魚，環保主義后來把這些行為定為違法行為。他的船來到Montauk時會滿載著條條死去的大魚。當鯊魚這個種類瀕危時，他用了嘴鉤（鉤在嘴里，魚可以被放掉），不再用腸鉤（這會把魚慢慢殺死）。盡管他捕獲了大量的海洋生物，但是只捕獲了七條大白鯊。

He survived his life almost uninjured, pesky and abrasive, full of advice about ways of fishing that were no longer allowed. And he could count himself lucky to die at 82 of heart trouble in his bed, not, like the Quint of the book, trailed behind a shark underwater, arms out and mouth open “in mute protest”; or, like the Quint of the film, chomped in half at the trouser-line, spouting scarlet blood like a whale.
經過了這一切，他竟然幾乎毫發未傷，只是性格粗暴惱人。他知道捕魚的各種方法，這些方法現在都被禁止了。在82歲的時候因心臟病逝于病床上，他應該稱自己是幸運之人，因為書中的昆特船長去逝時，正在水下追獵一條鯊魚，胳膊伸開，嘴張著，似乎在”無言的抗議”；或者電影里的昆特船長被燙褲機攔腰截斷，鮮血噴涌而出，如鯨魚一般。

[NOTES](英漢大詞典 陸谷孫; Google)
1 stern n.船尾
2 swivel n.（常做定語）轉體
3 harpoon n.魚叉
4 gaff n.手鉤
5 hook n.魚鉤
6 chum n.魚餌
7 drag n.打撈器，探海鉤
8 pail n.桶
9 make a splash 引起轟動，惹人注意
10 legion adj.眾多的，大量的
11 frenzy n.發狂
12 foam v. 吐白沫，（發怒時）唾沫四濺
13 thresher n.長尾鯊
14 dorsal n.背鰭
15 serrated adj.鋸齒的
16 rod n.釣竿
17 reel n.釣絲螺旋輪
18 iron n.魚叉
19 tail-rope n.尾繩
20 bandanna n.印花大手帕
21 centrepiece n.最引人注目的部分
22 taut adj.拉緊的
23 basking sharks n.姥鯊（一種不傷害人的大鯊魚，常浮出水面曬太陽）
24 trouser-line n.燙褲機