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Nevertheless, so potent an influence did this thing have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never transpired abaft the Pequod's main-mast. Interweaving in its proper place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting record. Footnote：Town-Ho—The ancient whale-cry upon first sighting a whalefrom the mast-head, still used by whalemen in hunting the famous Gallipagos terrapin. End of footnote.
雖然這事情對于那些終于完全知道得清清楚楚的“裴廓德號”的水手說來，的確有了非常重大的影響，可是，他們控制這件事情卻可以說是巧妙得出奇，而且他們之間都能保守秘密，所以從來沒有傳到“裴廓德號”的主桅以后的地方去。等到這個故事在船上公開出來的時候，人們把一些隱秘的線索給織進原來的故事里，我現在打算把這整個奇特的故事弄成一種垂之久遠的記錄。（原注：這是古代捕鯨者在桅頂上一看到大鯨就叫出來的呼號，迄今仍為那些捕著名的卡利巴哥斯鱉的捕鯨船所應用。）
For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once narrated it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one saint's eve, smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn. Of those fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and Sebastian, were on the closer terms with me; and hence the interluding questions they occasionally put, and which are duly answered at the time.
為了我的幽默，我還是保持我某回在利馬所講的那種方式，當時是在某一圣節的前夕，在幸福客店那重鑲金色瓦片的。煙霧繚繞的走廊上，對我那些懶洋洋的坐在一圈的西班牙朋友講的。在這些漂亮的騎士中，有兩個青年紳士，佩德羅和塞瓦斯蒂安，是我的至交；因此，他們偶爾插進一些問題來，我也隨時給以適當的答復。
Qoute: Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I am about rehearsing to you, gentlemen, theTown-Ho, Sperm Whaler of Nantucket, was cruising in your Pacific here, not very many days' sail eastward from the eaves of this good Golden Inn.
“各位先生，在我初次得知這故事——也就是我現在要向你們講的這個故事——約兩年前左右，那時候，那艘叫做‘大鯨出來了號’的南塔開特捕抹香鯨船，正在你們這里的太平洋巡游，也就是從這個討人喜歡的幸?？偷甑拈T口，坐船向西駛上不消幾天就可到達的地方。
