英語聽書《白鯨記》第368期

Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored harborless immensities.

我們已經(jīng)勇猛地奔駛在大海上;而且我們就要消失在大海的無依無傍的一望無垠中。

Ere that come to pass; ere the Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of the leviathan;

在這以前,趁裴廓德號(hào)那長(zhǎng)滿雜草的船殼跟大海獸的藤壺似的身體并駕齊驅(qū)之前,先來做好一件可說是必不可少的事:

at the outset it is but well to attend to a matter almost indispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding of the more special leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts which are to follow.

徹底了解我們就要研究的各種有關(guān)大海獸的比較特殊的材料與典故,這是再好也沒有的了。

It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad genera, that I would now fain put before you.

我現(xiàn)在所樂于告訴你們的,就是按照鯨的大類,把它有系統(tǒng)地羅列出來。

Yet is it no easy task.

然而,這可不是一樁輕而易舉的工作。

The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here essayed. Listen to what the best and latest authorities have laid down.

這里所提出的分類,其中有不少混亂之處。請(qǐng)聽近代那些最優(yōu)秀的權(quán)威者是怎樣說的。

No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is entitled Cetology, says Captain Scoresby, A.D. 1820.

在動(dòng)物學(xué)的分科中,牽涉之廣,應(yīng)該算是鯨類學(xué)這一名稱了,公元一八二○年斯哥斯比船長(zhǎng)這樣說。

It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the inquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups and families....

我如果力所能及的話,那我就不想研究關(guān)于鯨類分成群和族的這種方法...

Utter confusion exists among the historians of this animal (sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A.D. 1839.

在研究這種動(dòng)物(抹香鯨)的考據(jù)家中,存在有極大的混亂。公元一八三九年外科醫(yī)生比爾這樣說。

Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable waters. Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea.

在無底的大海中從事我們的研究工作是不適當(dāng)?shù)?。難以穿透的帷幕把我們對(duì)于鯨類的知識(shí)都給遮住了。

A field strewn with thorns. All these incomplete indications but serve to torture us naturalists.

一個(gè)滿布荊棘的園地。所有這些不完全的跡象只是徒增我們博物學(xué)家的苦惱而已。