評論
打印
Ahab turned.
亞哈回過頭來。
Starbuck!
斯達巴克！
Sir.
先生。
Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such a day — very much such a sweetness as this — I struck my first whale — a boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty — forty — forty years ago! — ago! Forty years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and storm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without — oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command! — when I think of all this; only half-suspected, not so keenly known to me before — and how for forty years I have fed upon dry salted fare — fit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soul! — when the poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and broken the world's fresh bread to my mouldy crusts.
啊，斯達巴克！風多柔和，天色多柔和。在這樣的一天——真象這樣可愛的天氣——我打中了我的第一條鯨——一個十八歲的小標槍手！四十——四十——四十年前！連續不斷的四十年捕鯨生活！四十年的苦難。危險和風暴！在無情的海洋上度過四十年！整整四十年，亞哈丟棄了安謐的陸地，跟可怕的大海斗爭了四十年！說老實話，斯達巴克，在這四十年里頭，我在岸上還待不上三年呢。我想到我所過的這種生活，它孤寂凄涼；是用石頭砌起的城墻般的與世隔絕的船長生活，它從外邊的青翠的陸地所能獲得的同情只是那么一點點——煩厭呵。沉重呵！幾內亞海岸的孤君寡人的奴隸主！——我從前想到這一切，半信半疑，不那么理解透徹——我四十年來是怎樣盡吃些腌藏的干東西——正說明我的靈魂干巴巴，缺乏營養——最可憐的陸地人也每天吃得到新鮮的果子，我呢，不吃人間的新鮮的面包，專吃我那發霉的面包屑。
