And now, while both elastic gunwales were springing in and out, as the whale dallied with the doomed craft in this devilish way; and from his body being submerged beneath the boat, he could not be darted at from the bows, for the bows were almost inside of him, as it were; and while the other boats involuntarily paused, as before a quick crisis impossible to withstand, then it was that monomaniac Ahab, furious with this tantalizing vicinity of his foe, which placed him all alive and helpless in the very jaws he hated; frenzied with all this, he seized the long bone with his naked hands, and wildly strove to wrench it from its gripe. As now he thus vainly strove, the jaw slipped from him; the frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain, and locked themselves fast again in the sea, midway between the two floating wrecks. These floated aside, the broken ends drooping, the crew at the stern-wreck clinging to the gunwales, and striving to hold fast to the oars to lash them across.
且說(shuō)在大鯨這樣可怕地逗弄這只命數(shù)已定的小艇的同時(shí),那有彈性的艇舷便不住地彈進(jìn)彈出;可是,因?yàn)榇篥L的身體還在艇底下,無(wú)法在艇頭用標(biāo)槍刺它,因?yàn)橥ь^可說(shuō)是差不多都在它嘴巴里,而其它小艇則因突然碰上一種無(wú)法對(duì)付的巨變,都不期而然地停了下來(lái)。正是這個(gè)偏熱狂的亞哈,眼看如此迫近自己的宿仇,卻硬是無(wú)可奈何地身陷在他所痛恨的這個(gè)仇敵的嘴巴里,不禁憤怒萬(wàn)分。這一切使他一陣狂亂,光著雙手,抓住那只長(zhǎng)長(zhǎng)的下顎,發(fā)狂似地想把它揪住,免得被它卡在里面。正當(dāng)他此時(shí)在這樣自負(fù)地奮斗時(shí),那下顎打他手里一滑,滑脫了,那只嘴巴象一把巨剪似的,往后一閃,把這只小艇咬成兩段,脆薄的船舷頓時(shí)彎卷起來(lái),豁地一聲斷了,那只鯨卻把嘴巴一閉,閉得緊緊地打兩片漂浮的殘艇中間游去了。殘板在旁邊漂,殘破的零星東西也下沉了,在破艇梢上的水手,都緊扳著艇舷,設(shè)法抓住槳子,用繩子把槳子橫縛在艇舷上。
At that preluding moment, ere the boat was yet snapped, Ahab, the first to perceive the whale's intent, by the crafty upraising of his head, a movement that loosed his hold for the time; at that moment his hand had made one final effort to push the boat out of the bite. But only slipping further into the whale's mouth, and tilting over sideways as it slipped, the boat had shaken off his hold on the jaw; spilled him out of it, as he leaned to the push; and so he fell flat-faced upon the sea.
就在這只小艇將斷未斷、眼看就要出事的時(shí)分,亞哈第一個(gè)看出了這條大鯨的意圖,他靈巧地把頭往上一騰,這個(gè)動(dòng)作使他暫時(shí)把手一松;就在這時(shí),他一只手使起最后一把勁,想把小艇從它口里給推出來(lái)。不料卻使小艇更往鯨嘴滑了進(jìn)去,而且這一滑,小艇也斜倒了,小艇把他揪著鯨嘴的手給震脫了;他連忙俯身想再推一下,卻一下子教他從那嘴里給噴了出來(lái),仰面跌在海上。