As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perch at the fore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight so remarkable to a tyro in the far ocean fisheries-- a whaler at sea, and long absent from home
當它慢慢地駛近時,我從前桅頂那高高的望處,就一個遠洋的捕魚業(yè)的新手看來——一個久離家鄉(xiāng)的捕鯨人說來,我清清楚楚地看到了如此希奇的情行
As if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached like the skeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this spectral appearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust, while all her spars and her rigging were like the thick branches of trees furred over with hoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set.A wild sight it was to see her long-bearded look-outs at those three mast-heads. They seemed clad in the skins of beasts, so torn and bepatched the raiment that had survived nearly four years of cruising. Standing iniron hoops nailed to the mast, they swayed and swung over a fathomless sea; and though, when the ship slowlyglided close under our stern, we six men in the air came so nigh to each other that we might almost have leaped from the mast-heads of one ship to those of the other; yet, those forlorn-looking fishermen, mildly eyeing us as they passed, said not one word to our own look-outs, while the quarter-deck hail was being heard from below.
波濤仿佛是一些漂布匠,把那條船給漂白得象一只給海浪沖到岸上來的海象骨架。這艘外形好似鬼怪的船只,四周都刻著一道道長長的銹紅色,它那些桅桁和索具都象是結(jié)了白霜的粗樹枝。它只扯著低帆??吹剿侨晃斏夏切┖娱L長的?望者,真是教人心煩意亂。他們似乎都穿著獸皮,那么破舊,綴滿補丁,看來就象是經(jīng)歷了將近四年的巡游生活。他們站在鑲牢在桅桿上的鐵箍里,在無底的海洋上晃來蕩去。這時,雖然那艘船正在我們后邊緩慢攏來,我們這六個站在空中的人,卻彼此貼近得幾乎可以從這艘船的桅頂跳到那艘船的桅頂去??墒?,那三個愁眉苦臉的捕鯨者,在掠過我們旁邊時,只是眼色柔和地瞟著我們,對我們這邊幾個?望人一句話都沒有說,我們卻聽到下面的后甲板上,發(fā)出了一陣招呼聲。
"Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale?"
“船呵,喂!你們可看到白鯨么?”
But as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks, was in the act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell from his hand into the sea; and the wind now rising amain, he in vain strove to make himself heard without it. Meantime his ship was still increasing the distance between us.
可是,當那個倚在灰白色的舷墻上的陌生船長,正要拿他的號筒湊到嘴邊的時候,不知怎么一來,它卻從他手里掉下來,落到海里去了,這時候,風刮得更急,他雖然費盡了力氣,不用號筒說話,可一點也聽不到他的話語。這時,他那艘船跟我們的距離已經(jīng)越來越遠了。