英語聽書《白鯨記》第462期
First: The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign lands, if by night he hear the roar of breakers, starts to vigilance, and feels just enough of trepidation to sharpen all his faculties;
第一,在船只逐漸駛近異鄉(xiāng)口岸時(shí),如果當(dāng)時(shí)正是夜間,有個(gè)水手聽到激浪的號(hào)嘯而驚醒過來,他會(huì)覺得那種恐懼剛好把他的精神都激發(fā)起來;
but under precisely similar circumstances, let him be called from his hammock to view his ship sailing through a midnight sea of milky whiteness-as if from encircling headlands shoals of combed white bears were swimming round him, then he feels a silent, superstitious dread;
不過,如果是在同樣的情況下,人們把他從吊床上叫醒起來,讓他去看看船只穿過午夜的乳白色的大海時(shí)。。。。。。仿佛正有一群白熊打從崎岬里沖了出來,在他四周起伏漫游,那他就會(huì)感到一陣悄然而來的。非常迷信的恐怖了;
the shrouded phantom of the whitened waters is horrible to him as a real ghost;
那種幽靈似的白浪滔滔的洋面,在他看來,可跟碰上一個(gè)真正的魔鬼一樣可怖;
in vain the lead assures him he is still off soundings; heart and helm they both go down; he never rests till blue water is under him again.
任憑那個(gè)叫醒他的人怎樣對(duì)他說,他還是不放心,他們既定不下心,又掌不來舵,要等到他又看到蔚藍(lán)的海面,這才能安定下來。
Yet where is the mariner who will tell thee, Sir, it was not so much the fear of striking hidden rocks, as the fear of that hideous whiteness that so stirred me?
然而,有哪一個(gè)水手會(huì)對(duì)你說:老哥,觸礁的可怕,比起那使我如此激動(dòng)的討厭的白色來簡直算不上什么可怕。
Second: To the native Indian of Peru, the continual sight of the snowhowdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except, perhaps, in the mere fancying of the eternal frosted desolateness reigning at such vast altitudes, and the natural conceit of what a fearfulness it would be to lose oneself in such inhuman solitudes.
第二,在秘魯?shù)挠〉诎餐林磥?雪轎似的安第斯山那連綿不絕的景色,一點(diǎn)也看不出有什么恐怖,不過,當(dāng)他稍微想到那種籠罩在這種高峰上的永恒的冰凍凄涼景象時(shí),他也許會(huì)自然而然地想到,如果一旦迷失在這樣渺無人煙的荒地里,該有多么可怖。
Much the same is it with the backwoodsman of the West, who with comparative indifference views an unbounded prairie sheeted with driven snow, no shadow of tree or twig to break the fixed trance of whiteness.
同樣的,如果有一個(gè)西部的偏遠(yuǎn)林區(qū)居民,看到一望無際的大草原,覆著紛飛的白雪,連打破這個(gè)入定了似的白色境界的一棵樹。
Not so the sailor, beholding the scenery of the Antarctic seas;
一枝樹影都看不見,他也是相當(dāng)冷淡的。
where at times, by some infernal trick of legerdemain in the powers of frost and air, he, shivering and half shipwrecked, instead of rainbows speaking hope and solace to his misery, views what seems a boundless churchyard grinning upon him with its lean ice monuments and splintered crosses.
可是,水手在看到南極海的景色時(shí),卻就不是這樣了;在那里,他好象時(shí)時(shí)感到霜雪和空中有鬼神在?？刹赖难?教他盡抖索著,有如船只已給撞破了,而看不到滿露希望的虹彩,可以安慰他的慘境,看到的似乎就是一片遼闊的墓地,和它那冰封的細(xì)長墓碑以及破碎的十字架在對(duì)他獰笑。
But thou sayest, methinks this white-lead chapter about whiteness is but a white flag hung out from a craven soul; thou surrenderest to a hypo, Ishmael.
但是,你所說的這番關(guān)于白色的涂鉛粉似的插話,我卻認(rèn)為就正是從懦夫心里扯出來的一面白旗;以實(shí)瑪利呀,我看你就干脆向憂郁癥投降吧。
