評論
打印
I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird chiefly lurks the secret of the spell;
于是,我堅稱,在這種渾身白色的奇妙的鳥身上,主要地就隱存有一種符咒的秘密;
a truth the more evinced in this, that by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey albatrosses;
這見之于一種由于用詞不當(dāng)而被稱為灰信天翁的鳥,便更見確實了;
and these I have frequently seen, but never with such emotions as when I beheld the Antarctic fowl.
雖然我常常見到這種鳥,卻從來沒有象我看到這只南極鳥時這樣的激動。
But how had the mystic thing been caught?
可是,這只神秘的東西是怎樣被捉到的呢?
Whisper it not, and I will tell; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated on the sea.
請別作聲,容我道來;它在海上漂的時候,只消用只詭詐的鉤子和一根繩子就行。
At last the Captain made a postman of it; tying a lettered, leathern tally round its neck, with the ship's time and place; and then letting it escape.
最后,船長叫它當(dāng)一下信差,在它的頸上縛著一件似皮制的。有字的符印,上面寫著船只的時間和地點;然后,就讓它飛走。
But I doubt not, that leathern tally, meant for man, was taken off in Heaven, when the white fowl flew to join the wing-folding, the invoking, and adoring cherubim!
但是,我確定,那塊似皮制的符印,按照人類的本意,是要它飛到那合著翅膀,有祈求力,受人崇拜的小天使群里,去交給天國的。
Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that of the White Steed of the Prairies;
山脈和阿利根尼山脈一帶。當(dāng)它昂起那如火的腦袋向西疾馳的時候,就跟每天晚上那顆誘使群星發(fā)光的神選的明星一樣。
a magnificent milk-white charger, large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the dignity of a thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage.
那滾滾如小瀑布的鬃毛,那弧形如彗星的尾巴,都使它的鞍褥比之銀匠所能給它裝備的更為輝煌燦爛。
He was the elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies.
它是那種不朽的西方世界的最莊嚴(yán)和天使似的幽靈,在古代的設(shè)陷阱者和獵手看來,就是原始時代的光榮的再現(xiàn),當(dāng)時亞當(dāng)就象這匹雄偉的駿馬一樣顯赫,昂首無畏。
At their flaming head he westward trooped it like that chosen star which every evening leads on the hosts of light. The flashing cascade of his mane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him with housings more resplendent than gold and silver-beaters could have furnished him.
步武莊重地走著。不論是置身在它的僚屬和將領(lǐng)之間,率領(lǐng)著那些一望無垠地布滿整個平原(象一個俄亥俄州)的無數(shù)部隊前進,還是置身于遍地的臣民之中,這只白駒總是襯著它那冷冷的乳白色吸溜著熱得發(fā)紅的鼻孔,往前馳騁。
