評論
打印
You have her thought out to the last ring, block, and halyard, Humphrey would say,
漢弗萊說到，你把最后一個船環，最后一塊，最后一條帆繩都想得細致入微，
and you never even knew if you could build her. What a dreamer you are!
但你不知道是否能夠建造完成，你真是個夢想家。
It takes dreaming to keep a man at his work, Jonathan would answer. How do you think I would have had the patience, all these years,
喬納森回答道是夢想讓我工作，要不然這么多年我哪來的耐心，
to drive wooden pins into cross timbers, or to mend the riggings of slow-going coastwise vessels
將木釘變成十字木，或是修補沿海慢船的索具，
if I had not been thinking of just such a ship as this, and seen her, in my mind's eye, putting to sea under full sail,
如果我沒有思考過這樣的艦船，或者看見它，在我的腦海里，讓它滿帆而行，
to smash every sailing record that has been known?
讓它打破各項遠航紀錄？
The day of the launching came, then the stepping of the giant masts, the completing of the rigging, and the bending of the new sails.
首發的日子來了，巨型桅桿正在走來，索具將要完成，彎曲船帆。
It began to come to Humphrey's ears that sailors and wharfmen and even some naval officers
漢弗萊的耳朵里出現了這樣的話，水手和碼頭人員，甚至是許多海軍軍官
were all saying that the new ship, the West Wind, would never stand a storm.
都在說新船“西風”號沒法乘風破浪。
They are the kind of men, Humphrey scoffed, who would be sailing vessels like Noah's Ark,
漢弗萊嘲笑到，他們就是這種人，他們乘坐的船就像諾亞方舟，
if such people as Jonathan Adams did not have the courage, sometimes, to build something new.
如果像喬納森·亞當斯這種人沒有勇氣建造新式艦船。
No, the West Wind is going to teach all the shipmasters something they never knew before, once she clears the harbor for Gibraltar.
不，“西風”號將教給所有船長一些他們從不知道的東西，一旦它前往了直布羅陀。
It is probably only a short paragraph in your history book that tells you how, a little more than a hundred years ago,
在你的歷史書上，它或許只有一小段話，在一百多年前，
the seas swarmed with pirates whose home ports were the North African cities of Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis.
海盜橫行大海，他們的港口是北非城市阿爾及爾，黎波里和突尼斯。
The great nations of Europe and, with them, the young United States,
歐洲各大強國和年輕的美國
used to buy safety from these lawless Barbary States by sending them gifts and tribute.
此前都會給北非國家寄送禮物和貢品，從而換取安全。
But when, finally, the ruler of Tripoli sent word to our President that his last gift was not large enough and that more gold must be sent,
但當黎波里的統治者給我們的總統帶話，說他最后的禮物不夠大，一定要送更多的金子，
the answer was a fleet of American warships that bombarded the astonished monarch's seaports.
答案就是美國艦船轟炸帝王的港口。
