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Chapter 54 The Town-Ho's Story
第五十四章“大鯨出來了號”的故事
(As told at the Golden Inn)
（根據在幸?？偷晁f的藍本）
The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round about there, is much like some noted four corners of a great highway, where you meet more travellers than in any other part.
好望角和它周圍一帶的海洋，真象是一條大公路的著名十字路口，在那里，可以比在任何其它地方碰到更多的旅客。
It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho, was encountered. She was manned almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White Whale was now wildly heightened by a circumstance of theTown-Ho's story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain wondrous, inverted visitation ofone of those so called judgments of God which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears of Captain Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of the story was unknown to the captain of the Town-Ho himself. It was the private property of three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it seems, communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of secrecy, but thefollowing night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and revealed so much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could not well withhold the rest.
在招呼過“信天翁號”后不多久，又碰到了另一艘回航的捕鯨船“大鯨出來了號”。船上的水手，幾乎全是些玻利尼西亞人。在后來舉行的小小聯歡會中，船上的人把有莫比－迪克的極其可靠的消息告訴了我們。對于若干本來對白鯨只具泛泛的興趣的人，現在卻給“大鯨出來了號”的故事細節弄得興致勃勃，如瘋如狂了。因為這個故事似乎還隱約地把大鯨說成是一種奇妙的、時常會突然打擊什么人的所謂天罰的化身。這種說法再加上故事本身種種特殊的細節，可說就構成了即將講述出來的悲劇的秘密部分，而且，始終沒有傳到亞哈船長和他的大二三副的耳朵里去。因為這個故事的秘密部分，連“大鯨出來了號”的船長本人也都不知道。這是那艘船上三個結盟的白種水手的私產，其中有一個在跟塔斯蒂哥說這故事的時候，就好象是在偷偷地講天主教的禁令那樣，可是，隔天晚上，塔斯蒂哥卻在夢里無頭無尾地吐露出了不少來，因此等他醒來，連他原來沒有說出的部分也藏不住了。
