評論
打印
Far above all other hunted whales, his is an unwritten life.
抹香鯨的情況遠比不上一切已被捕獲的大鯨,關于它的生活情形仍是一片空白。
Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the present, hereafter to be filled in all-outward its departments by subsequent laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter in hand, I hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete must for that very reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical description of the various species, or--in this space at least-to much of any description. My object here is simply to project the draught of a systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder.
現在對各種大鯨必須作出一種通俗易懂的分類來,如果暫時能夠做出一個簡便的綱要,讓以后的勞作者去分門別類地進行補充也就不錯了。既然沒有高明人士來做這種事情,那我就不揣冒昧地嘗試一番。我一點也不敢說能做得完滿,因為任何一個自以為會做得完滿的人,一定會由此而招致錯誤。我也不想從解剖學角度詳細記述各種大鯨,也不想...至少在這里...做出任何過多的記述。我的目的只想勾勒出一幅鯨類學的有系統的草圖來。我是工程師,而不是營造者。
But it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the Post-Office is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the sea after them; to have one's hands among the unspeakable foundations, ribs, and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing. What am I that I should essay to hook the nose of this leviathan! The awful tauntings in Job might well appal me. "Will he (the leviathan) make a covenant with thee? Behold the hope of him is vain! But I have swam through libraries and sailed through oceans; I have had to do with whales with these visible hands; I am in earnest; and I will try. There are some preliminaries to settle.
不過,這可是一件煩重的工作,決不是通常的郵政局檢信員所能勝任的。得鉆到海底里跟蹤摸索,得把雙手去探索世間所無法描摹的噴泉。肋骨和骨盆;這是一件可怕的事情。我是什么人,竟敢企圖去鉤住這種大海獸的鼻子!約伯遭到的那種可怕的奚落就足以把我嚇壞了。"他(大海獸)豈肯與你立約?人們指望捉拿他,是徒然的!"但是,我已經跑遍了許多圖書館,航遍了各大洋;我只得用我這雙看得見的手來處置這些大鯨;我是認認真真的,因此,我要試一試。這里得把一些準備工作安排一下。
