And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker.That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I now regarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its object.
至于一切的小困難,小麻煩,前途會突然發(fā)生不幸,有喪命失肢的危險,所有這一切,以及死亡本身,在他看來,似乎都不過是那個看不見又不可理解的老惡作劇家所賜予的頑皮而溫厚的打擊,腰眼挨到有趣的一拳而已。不過,我所說的這種奇特的剛愎心情,只是發(fā)生在一個人有時碰到極度苦難,又正是在他最熱切的時候,所以也許他以前認(rèn)為最重大的事,如今看來,就不過是大惡作劇的一部分而已。再沒有象捕鯨業(yè)所遭到的種種危險更易于滋長這種自由的、爽快的、無賴的人生觀了;我這里對于以大白鯨為目標(biāo)的這艘“裴廓德號”的整個航程,就是這般看法。
"Queequeg," said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to the deck, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the water; "Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often happen?" Without much emotion, though soaked through just like me, he gave me to understand that such things did often happen.
“魁魁格,”當(dāng)他們最后把我打從海里拖上甲板,我還在晃掉上衣的水滴的時候,我說:“魁魁格,我的好朋友,這樣的事情是經(jīng)常發(fā)生的么?”他雖然跟我一樣渾身濕透,卻很無動于衷地對我說,這種事情的確是經(jīng)常發(fā)生的。
"Mr. Stubb," said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in his oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; "Mr. Stubb, I think I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever met, our chief mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and prudent. I suppose then, that going plump on a flying whale with your sail set in a foggy squall is the height of a whaleman's discretion?"
“斯塔布先生,”我又轉(zhuǎn)過頭去對這個俊杰說,他剛扣好他那件油布上衣的鈕扣,正在雨里恬然地吸著煙斗:“斯塔布先生,我記得我曾聽你說起,在你所碰到過的所有捕鯨人中,我們的大副,斯達(dá)巴克先生是個最最仔細(xì)謹(jǐn)慎的人。那么我想問,在霧蒙蒙的狂風(fēng)里,扯起篷帆去襲擊一條飛奔的鯨,這算是捕鯨人的極慎重的行為么?”