評論
打印
A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds.
他是個堅定不移的人,他的生活大多是一種充滿行動的有聲有色的啞劇,而不是一種單調的字面記載。
Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were certain qualities in him which at times affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to overbalance all the rest.
雖然他有吃苦耐勞的謹嚴態度和堅忍不拔的精神,可是在他身上也有一些特質,不時影響,而且在某些場合上,似乎還會超過其它一切的特質。
Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition;
他是個耿直非凡的水手,又有一種根深蒂固的虔誠的心,因此,他那種海上的狂暴而孤寂的生活非常容易使他趨向迷信;
but to that sort of superstition, which in some organizations seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance.
至于那種迷信,就它的構成說來,卻似乎多少有點出之于智慧,而不是出之于愚昧。
Outward portents and inward presentiments were his.
他就是一個外表非凡而內心敏感的人。
And if at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul, much more did his far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child,
如果這些東西會時時使他那焊鐵似的心腸屈服的話,主要是由于他想到了他那遠在家鄉的年輕的妻子和小孩,
tend to bend him still more from the original ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those latent influences which, in some honest-hearted men,
使他越發消失了他那粗獷的本性,使他更趨向于那種潛存的勢力,這種勢力,就心地忠實的人說來,
restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery.
就鼓不起那種勇猛的冒險精神,因為人人都經常可以看到捕魚業的更富危險的變遷情況。
I will have no man in my boat, said Starbuck, who is not afraid of a whale.
在我的小艇上,不怕大鯨的人是沒有的。斯達巴克說。
By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril,
他這句話,似乎不只是說:能對所面臨的危險加以正確估計的,才稱得上所謂切實可靠的勇敢,而且還含有這樣的意思:
but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
跟一個大無畏的人做船伴,比跟一個懦夫做船伴還更危險。
