評論
打印
But this critical act is not always unattended with the saddest and most fatal casualties.
不過，這種臨急慌忙的動作也并不是始終沒有發生過最慘重的禍難的。
Furthermore: you must know that when the second iron is thrown overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror, skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines, or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions. Nor, in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale is fairly captured and a corpse.
而且，必須知道，二槍被拋到海里后，它又變成一種威脅了，它晃來晃去的蕩在水里，刀鋒那么銳利，在小艇和大鯨的左右輕佻地翻騰著，不是把捕鯨索弄得亂七八糟，就會割斷繩索，弄得大家神經十分緊張。同時，一般說來，那支標槍還得等到那條鯨被順利地捉到手，成為一架死尸后，才收得回來。
Consider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats all engaging one unusually strong, active, and knowing whale; when owing to these qualities in him, as well as to the thousand concurring accidents of such an audacious enterprise, eight or ten loose second irons may be simultaneously dangling about him. For, of course, each boat is supplied with several harpoons to bend on to the line should the first one be ineffectually darted without recovery. All these particulars are faithfully narrated here, as they will not fail to elucidate several most important however intricate passages, in scenes hereafter to be painted.
那么，請想想看，當這四只小艇全都集中精力在對付一條非凡的強壯、活躍和狡猾的大鯨時，那該是怎樣一種場面。這時，一方面是大鯨天生的這種特性，一方面是這樣一種大膽的行業，隨時都會發生無數的事故，此外，它身邊又同時有八支到十支二槍在晃蕩著。因為每一只小艇自然都配備有幾支掛在捕鯨索上的標槍，以備萬一在頭槍投不準又找不到時，可以隨時拿來抵用。我所以要在這里對這種細節加以如實的敘述，是因為這些細節可以解釋明白以后將要描述的幾個雖然比較曲折。卻是極其重要的場面。
