英語聽書《白鯨記》第563期

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Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways purporting to be the whale's, is to be found in the famous cavern-pagoda of Elephants, in India. The Brahmins maintain that in the almost endless sculptures of that immemorial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits, every conceivable avocation of man, were prefigured ages before any of them actually came into being. No wonder then, that in some sort our noble profession of whaling should have been there shadowed forth. The Hindoo whale referred to, occurs in a separate department of the wall, depicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly known as the Matse Avatar. But though this sculpture is half man and half whale, so as only to give the tail of the latter, yet that small section of him is all wrong. It looks more like the tapering tail of an anaconda, than the broad palms of the true whale's majestic flukes.

總之，迄今尚存的最古的稱為鯨的畫像，還可以在印度象島的著名穴塔里找到。那些婆羅門僧都認(rèn)為，在那個古塔的無數(shù)的雕刻物中，差不多早在各行各業(yè)，在人間一切所想得到的職業(yè)出現(xiàn)之前，就已把它們預(yù)先表現(xiàn)出來了。那么，毫不足奇地，我們這種高尚的捕鯨職業(yè)，也一定被多多少少預(yù)先表現(xiàn)出來了。在一塊單獨的內(nèi)壁上，有一條以大海獸的形體來描繪毗濕奴(印度神話中三大神之一。)的化身的印度鯨，學(xué)者們稱之為馬茲·亞瓦達(即毗濕奴的第十化身。)。雖則這個雕刻品是半人半鯨的形體，只有尾巴有點象鯨的，可是，這一點點相象的地方還是個三不象。它看上去倒更象是大蟒蛇的尖細的尾巴，而不象一只真正的鯨的堂皇而闊平的尾巴。

But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian painter's portrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better than the antediluvian Hindoo. It is Guido's picture of Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the sea-monster or whale. Where did Guido get the model of such a strange creature as that?

可是，你現(xiàn)在不妨到一些古老的畫廊去看一看一位基督教徒大畫家所畫的這種魚吧，他的成就也不見得比上古的印度畫家高明多少。這就是基多(累尼·基多(1575—1642)——意大利畫家。)那幅珀修斯從大海獸或者鯨那里救出了安德羅墨達的名畫?；鄰哪睦锱竭@樣一種怪物作模特兒呢？