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Convulsively my hands grasped the tiller, but with the crazy conceit that the tiller was, somehow, in some enchanted way, inverted. My God! what is the matter with me? I thought. Lo! in my brief sleep I had turned myself about, and was fronting the ship's stern, with my back to her prow and the compass. In an instant I faced back, just in time to prevent the vessel from flying up into the wind, and very probably capsizing her. How glad and how grateful the relief from this unnatural hallucination of the night, and the fatal contingency of being brought by the lee!
我雙手痙攣地攫住舵柄，可心里卻迷迷糊糊地認為那只舵柄好象已經著了魔法倒了頭了。天啊！我怎么啦？我心思想。哎喲！原來我在一陣小睡中，自己掉了一個轉身，面孔朝著船梢，背脊卻對著船頭和那只羅盤了。我立即轉過身來，剛好撐住了舵，否則，這艘船可就要讓風沖起，很可能把船也翻了身。擺脫了夜里這種不自然的錯覺，沒有發生讓逆風掃走了的性命交關的意外，我可感到多愉快，多幸運呵！
Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp—all others but liars!
人呀，別直盯著火望得太久！千萬別把手放在舵上做夢！別背對著羅盤；舵柄一把你鉤住，可就得警惕起來；別相信那人工的火焰，它那紅紅的火光會使一切東西都顯得鬼影幢幢。明天，在那自然的太陽光里，天空就將燦爛輝煌；凡是在火舌里象鬼魔一般閃爍的，在晨光里可就變得截然不同了，至少會變得柔和些、鮮明些；那個輝煌、燦爛、喜洋洋的太陽，才是真正的燈盞——其它的一切都是騙人的！
Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's Dismal Swamp, nor Rome's accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true—not true, or undeveloped.
而且太陽并不棄置弗吉尼亞（弗吉尼亞——美國州名；沿海地區都是地勢低凹的泥沼地。）的凄涼的泥沼地，也不棄置羅馬的倒霉的坎判納（坎判納——意大利羅馬省的腌?的沿海地區。），遼闊的撒哈拉大沙漠，更不棄置天下無數的荒漠和災難的地方。太陽也不棄置海洋，海洋是地球的難解的部分，是地球的三分之二的地方。因此，凡是樂多于憂的人，那種人就不是可靠的——是不可靠的、或者胸襟狹窄的。
