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Ripplingly withdrawing from his prey, Moby Dick now lay at a little distance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head up and down in the billows; and at the same time slowly revolving his whole spindled body; so that when his vast wrinkled forehead rose — some twenty or more feet out of the water — the now rising swells, with all their confluent waves, dazzlingly broke against it; vindictively tossing their shivered spray still higher into the air. So, in a gale, the but half baffled Channel billows only recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to overleap its summit with their scud.
莫比－迪克晃來晃去地離開了它的獵物后，就躺在不遠(yuǎn)的地方，它那長方形的白頭筆直地矗立在波濤中，時(shí)隱時(shí)現(xiàn)；同時(shí)慢慢地轉(zhuǎn)動(dòng)著他那紡錘般的整個(gè)軀體。所以，等它那滿是皺紋的巨額再次冒起時(shí)——高出水面約有二十多英尺——那正在往上直騰的浪潮，就象一大股洪流似的，炫眼地向它的額頭沖去；它復(fù)仇似地把它那搖搖晃晃的噴水更高地朝空噴去。這就象在狂風(fēng)里，那些阻塞了半個(gè)海峽的波濤之所以要從埃提斯同下面反沖過來，不過是想用它那些泡沫飛濺的浪花一舉而穿過塔巔一樣。
This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale. It receives its designation (pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary up-and-down poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called pitchpoling, previously described. By this motion the whale must best and most comprehensively view whatever objects may be encircling him.
（原注：這是抹香鯨的特有的動(dòng)作。這種動(dòng)作也叫做投槍，因?yàn)樗笪覀円郧八f的在投捕鯨槍前的預(yù)備姿勢——一起一伏一樣。大鯨靠了這一動(dòng)作，就能夠把它周圍的隨便什么東西都一目了然地觀察到了。）
But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam swiftly round and round the wrecked crew; sideways churning the water in his vengeful wake, as if lashing himself up to still another and more deadly assault. The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the blood of grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus's elephants in the book of Maccabees.
可是，不一會(huì)，莫比－迪克又恢復(fù)它那露出水面的平游姿態(tài)，在那些狼狽的水手四周迅疾地游來游去，用它那惡毒的尾巴斜攪著浪潮，仿佛想再進(jìn)行一次更為厲害的攻擊。這只粉碎的小艇，有如《馬卡比父子書》中，那些拋在安泰奧卡斯的象群面前的血紅的葡萄和桑莓子（偽經(jīng)《馬卡比父子書》第一卷第六章三十四節(jié)載：安泰奧卡斯跟馬卡比和猶太人作戰(zhàn)時(shí)，最后為了刺激象群出來，把血紅的葡萄汁和桑葚汁撒在馬前。），所以它一看到這般情景，頓時(shí)發(fā)起狂來。
