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Great pains, small gains for those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve itself. Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox! and but six months before he wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born in throes, 't is fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So be it, then! Here's stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then.
那些想請求世界給解決大災小利的人，世界卻連它自己也鬧不清。現在，我倒認為這只鑄在金幣上的太陽，面孔紅彤彤；不信，請看呀！喂，它走進那大風暴的信號，那晝夜平分點里去了！它只在六個月前，才從先前的白羊宮的晝夜平分點里滾出來！從風暴到風暴！這真不錯。來自痛苦的深淵，因此，人類必須生于苦痛，死于劇痛！哼，真不錯！這就是悲痛大可活動的陣地呀。哼，真不錯。
No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws must have left their mouldings there since yesterday, murmured Starbuck to himself, leaning against the bulwarks. "The old man seems to read Belshazzar's awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly. He goes below; let me read. A dark valley between three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil; but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer.
仙女的指頭也撳不扁這塊金幣，但是，打昨天起，魔爪一定留下了爪印了，斯達巴克倚在舷墻上，暗自嘀咕道。"這老頭倒象在讀伯沙撒那令人心慌意亂的文字（伯沙撒——《圣經》上巴比倫最后之王，后為瑪代人與波斯人所殺。這里所指的文字，見《舊約·但以理書》第五章二十五節："所寫的文字是彌尼，彌尼，提客勒，烏法珥新。講解是這樣：彌尼就是上帝已經數算你國的年日到此完畢，提客勒就是你被稱在天平里顯出你的虧欠，烏法珥新就是你的國分裂，歸與瑪代人和波斯人。"）。我從來沒有仔細察看過那塊金幣。他下艙里去了，我不妨去看一看。啊，在這三座天長地久的高峰間，還有一道陰森的山谷，簡直有點象塵世的三位一體的符號。所以在這條死谷里，上帝把我們箍住了。可是，那個公正的太陽，仍對著我們這種憂郁的生活，投射出一個警標和一種希望。如果我們低眼一看，就看到暗谷里那發了霉的泥土；可是，如果我們抬起雙眼，那只輝煌的太陽就打半路里跟我們的眼睛相逢，叫我們興奮一番。
