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It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra.
裴廓德號上這塊杜柏侖，想不到竟成為這些東西的一個包羅萬象的標本。它的圓邊上寫有這樣的字句：厄瓜多爾共和國：基多。原來這塊燦亮的金幣是來自一個位于世界中部的，在大赤道的下面、并以赤道為名（厄瓜多爾——是西班牙文，即英文中的赤道的國家；而且這塊金幣還是在安第斯山脈（安第斯山脈——在南美洲西部。）的中部，在那個不知有秋天的永不雕零的地方鑄造出來的。在這些字句的圈圈里，還可以看到有類似安第斯山脈的三個高峰；有一個峰巔冒出了火焰，另一個上面有一只高塔，第三個高峰上有一只昂頸啼叫的公雞；而在三個峰巔上還弓著一彎區分黃道帶的環帶，十二宮宿全都標志著它們的自古以來的玄妙氣息，那只拱心石似的太陽正在走進那天平星座的晝夜分界線。
Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now pausing.
這時，亞哈正在這塊赤道線的金幣前面停了下來，差不多人人都看到他。
There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all other grand and lofty things; look here,— three peaks as proud as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self.
在這些峰巒、高塔和一切富麗崇高的東西中間，好象有種永遠自恃極高的氣息；你瞧，——這三個峰巔就象魔王一樣高傲。那只穩如磐石的高塔，就是亞哈；那座火山，就是亞哈；那只勇敢無畏的、勝利凱旋的公雞也是亞哈，一切都是亞哈，這塊滾圓的金幣就正是比它還圓的地球的形象，它象魔術家的水晶球，輪番照出每個人自己的神秘的形體。
