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To sailors, oaths are household words; they will swear in the trance of the calm, and in the teeth of the tempest; they will imprecate curses from the topsail-yard-arms, when most they teeter over to a seething sea; but in all my voyagings, seldom have I heard a common oath when God's burning finger has been laid on the ship; when His "Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin" has been woven into the shrouds and the cordage.
對水手們說來，賭神發誓本來就是家常便飯的事；他們在靜得出神的時候，要咒罵，碰到暴風雨時，要咒罵；碰到他們在翻卷過來的海浪中，張弄著中帆桁的時候，也要大加咒罵一頓。不過，在我所有的航程中，可難得碰上這樣的情況，就是說，當上帝的熾熱的手指已經按在船上的時候；當上帝的"彌尼，彌尼，提客勒，烏法珥新"（"彌尼，彌尼，提客勒，烏法珥新"——典出《舊約·但以理書》第五章二十五節，但以理對伯沙撒王的解釋文字。這里的意思是說，上帝已經算好你的"劫數已到，你有陰虧，應該完蛋。"）已跟護桅索和索具交織在一塊兒的時候，竟會聽到這么一種咒罵。
While this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were heard from the enchanted crew; who in one thick cluster stood on the forecastle, all their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence, like a faraway constellation of stars. Relieved against the ghostly light, the gigantic jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his real stature, and seemed the black cloud from which the thunder had come. The parted mouth of Tashtego revealed his shark-white teeth, which strangely gleamed as if they too had been tipped by corpusants; while lit up by the preternatural light, Queequeg's tattooing burned like Satanic blue flames on his body.
這種青白色的火光正在高高地燒著的當兒，那些著迷似的水手們話也不多了；他們都緊擠在一起，站在船頭樓上，在那股灰白的磷光的照射下，大家的眼睛都亮閃閃的，象是遠遠的群星。那個烏黑發亮的魁梧黑人大個兒，襯著那鬼火，更其輪廓鮮明，他的身材赫然顯得比他原來的身軀大了三倍，似乎巨雷就是發自那團黑云。塔斯蒂哥那只張開的嘴巴，露出了他那副雪白的鯊魚牙齒，牙齒發出的閃光，煞是奇特，仿佛在那上面也有一層電光似的；魁魁格身上的刺花，給這股不可思議的亮光一照，好象也燃得身上發出了惡魔似的藍光。
The tableau all waned at last with the pallidness aloft; and once more the Pequod and every soul on her decks were wrapped in a pall. A moment or two passed, when Starbuck, going forward, pushed against some one. It was Stubb. "What thinkest thou now, man; I heard thy cry; it was not the same in the song."
后來隨著那股青白色的火光的上升，這個戲劇性的場面也就完全消逝了；"裴廓德號"和甲板上的全部船員又再次給籠罩在黑色的帷幕里。隔不多久，斯達巴克向前走去時，撞上了個什么人。原來是斯塔布。"喂，你現在覺得怎樣，老朋友；我聽到你在哭呢，那聲音可跟歌聲不同呀。"
