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Originally it was in itself accounted an object of great curiosity. Black Letter tells me that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that voyage, when Queen Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him from a window of Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the Thames; when Sir Martin returned from that voyage, saith Black Letter, on bended knees he presented to her highness a prodigious long horn of the Narwhale, which for a long period after hung in the castle at Windsor. An Irish author avers that the Earl of Leicester, on bended knees, did likewise present to her highness another horn, pertaining to a land beast of the unicorn nature.
它本來還被當成一種富有玩賞價值的東西。書本上還告訴我說,在馬丁。弗羅比歇爵士從那次航程回來,他那條歷盡千難萬險的船駛進泰晤士河的時候,貝斯女王還在格林尼治宮的窗口對他殷勤揮起她那珠光寶氣的手呢。書上說,"馬丁爵士從那次航行回來,屈著雙膝把一只非常長的獨角鯨的角獻給女王,此后,這只角還在溫沙宮里掛了很長一個時期。"某一個愛爾蘭作家還證明出萊斯特伯爵也曾屈著雙膝呈給女王一只角,不過,那是取自陸上的獨角獸的。
The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being of a milk-white ground color, dotted with round and oblong spots of black. His oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there is little of it, and he is seldom hunted. He is mostly found in the circumpolar seas.
獨角鯨有一種十分美麗如畫的,豹子似的樣子,因為它身上呈乳白色,長橢圓的黑點子,星羅棋布。它的油十分上乘而清純;只是油量不多,并且難得捕到。大都要到極地附近的海洋上才找得到它。
BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER IV. (Killer).--Of this whale little is precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the professed naturalists. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I should say that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savage-a sort of Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio whales by the lip, and hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death. The Killer is never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has. Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included.
第二篇(八開型) 第四章(海豚鯨)...關(guān)于這種鯨,南塔開特人也不很弄得清楚,至于職業(yè)的博物學家更是一無所知了。根據(jù)我曾經(jīng)在遠處看到它的經(jīng)驗,我敢說它的身材大小跟逆戟鯨差不多。它生性十分兇猛...可以說是一種菲濟魚。它往往抓著大對開鯨的嘴唇,象只水蛭般吊在那里,直弄得那大野物惱得要死。人們從來沒有捕到過海豚鯨,我也從來沒有聽到它有什么油。由于它的來路不明,我們必須反對給這種鯨取上這個名字。因為我們都是海上陸上的兇手,包括大鯊魚和拿破侖在內(nèi)。
