評論
打印
The whale no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler? Who wrote the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job?
寫鯨的并沒有產生什么著名的作家,捕鯨業也沒有出過什么著名的編史家么?那么,是誰首先記載我們的大海獸呢?
And who composed the first narrative of a whaling-voyage?
除了偉大的約伯而外還有誰呢?誰編出第一個捕鯨航程的故事呢?
Who, but no less a prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down the words from Other, the Norwegian whale-hunter of those times!
他就正是當時的王子艾爾弗雷德大帝,他提起他的御筆,把鄂大,即當時的挪威捕鯨者的故事記了下來!
And who pronounced our glowing eulogy in Parliament? Who, but Edmund Burke!
誰在議會上宣讀我們那篇熱烈的頌詞呢?還不是埃德蒙。伯克!
True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils; they have no good blood in their veins.
這都說得不錯,不過,捕鯨者本身可都是些可憐蟲呀;他們的血管里沒有好血。
No good blood in their veins? They have something better than royal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel;
他們的血管里沒有好血么?他們可有比皇族的血更好的東西咧。本杰明富蘭克林的祖母就是瑪麗莫雷耳;
afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and harpooneers-
后來嫁給南塔開特一個老殖民者,成為瑪麗。福爾杰,也是一長串福爾杰族和標槍手們的女祖宗,
all kith and kin to noble Benjamin-this day darting the barbed iron from one side of the world to the other.
這些標槍手全都是高貴的本杰明的親戚,在今天,他們那裝上倒鉤的標槍正在世界各方擲來擲去呢。
Good again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is not respectable.
這也說得不錯;不過,大家總認為捕鯨業是并不體面的。
Whaling not respectable? Whaling is imperial! By old English statutory law, the whale is declared a royal fish.
捕鯨業是并不體面的么?捕鯨業是極體面的!英國的古代法規,就把鯨稱為欽定魚呢。
Oh, that's only nominal! The whale himself has never figured in any grand imposing way.
那只是空有其名的啊!大鯨本身從來就沒有被當做什么大了不起的。
