英語聽書《白鯨記》第436期

Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still the more horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters.

而且,各式各樣喧騰的謠言都沒有不是加油添醬,越發(fā)把這些駭人的遭遇的真相給渲染得格外恐怖。

For not only do fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all surprising terrible events,as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi;

因為一切無稽的謠言不僅是由各種可怖的事件本身自然而然地產(chǎn)生出來的,有知一棵爛樹長出菌子;

but, in maritime life, far more than in that of terra firma, wild rumors abound, wherever there is any adequate reality for them to cling to.

而且,海上生活,遠跟陸上生活不同,只要稍有根據(jù),流言便滿天飛。

And as the sea surpasses the land in this matter, so the whale fishery surpasses every other sort of maritime life, in the wonderfulness and fearfulness of the rumors which sometimes circulate there.

由于海洋在這種事情上是超過陸地上的,因此,在它有時所傳布出來的謠言中,就其離奇性和可怖性說來,捕鯨業(yè)也遠超于其他各種海上生活。

For not only are whalemen as a body unexempt from that ignorance and superstitiousness hereditary to all sailors;

因為,就整個捕鯨者說來,他們不但沒有擺脫一切水手那種愚昧和迷信的傳統(tǒng),

but of all sailors, they are by all odds the most directly brought into contact with whatever is appallingly astonishing in the sea;

而且在一切水手中,數(shù)捕鯨者最會跟海上任何駭人聽聞的事情更有直接的關(guān)系,

face to face they not only eye its greatest marvels, but, hand to jaw, give battle to them.

他們不但親眼看到海上最驚人的奇跡,還親自跟它們作過肉搏。

Alone, in such remotest waters, that though you sailed a thousand miles, and passed a thousand shores, you would not come to any chiselled hearth-stone, or aught hospitable beneath that part of the sun;

更何況在這種最荒僻的海洋上,雖則航駛了一千英里,經(jīng)過了一千個海岸,在那種地方卻碰不到一份人家,得不到任何的招待;

in such latitudes and longitudes, pursuing too such a calling as he does, the whaleman is wrapped by influences all tending to make his fancy pregnant with many a mighty birth.

在那樣的地方,干著他們這種行當,捕鯨者都受到各種勢力的包圍,這種勢力全都存心要使他們的想象孕育著許多重大的新傳說。

No wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere transit over the wildest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did in the end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, and half-formed foetal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which eventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from anything that visibly appears.

于是,難怪這種關(guān)于白鯨的迎風而脹的謠言,只消一掠過茫茫大洋便日長夜大了,而且到頭來還跟各種可怕的暗示結(jié)合起來,教人聯(lián)想到是半脫胎于神力的作用,終于給莫比－迪克加上許多基本是肉眼所不能見的新恐怖了。

So that in many cases such a panic did he finally strike, that few who by those rumors, at least, had heard of the White Whale, few of those hunters were willing to encounter the perils of his jaw.

因此,在許多場合,白鯨的確終于引起了如此這般的恐慌,使得少數(shù)捕鯨者至少聽到過有關(guān)白鯨的這種謠言,又有少數(shù)捕鯨者則甘愿去冒它那張大嘴的險。