英語聽書《白鯨記》第461期

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Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-toppling earthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas;

利馬之所以教人看來會是一個欲哭無淚,最奇特。

nor the tearlessness of arid skies that never rain; nor the sight of her wide field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses all adroop (like canted yards of anchored fleets);

最悲傷的城市,并不僅僅是因為下列這些緣故:把大教堂震垮了的地震(利馬大教堂建于一五三五年,一七四六年遭大地震后又重建。);

and her suburban avenues of house-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack of cards;

瘋狂的海浪的沖擊,從來就不下雨的干涸無淚的天空,遼闊的田野里枝莖傾斜的作物,歪七倒八的冠石,

it is not these things alone which make tearless Lima, the strangest, saddest city thou can'st see.

全都垂掛著的十字架(好象是因船舶碇泊次數(shù)過多而傾斜了的船塢),以及郊外的街道中有著一堆散亂的撲克牌似的。

For Lima has taken the white veil; and there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe.

彼此倚靠著的屋墻。不,完全不是因為這種緣故,而是因為利馬罩有一層白色的帷幕;

Old as Pizarro, this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new; admits not the cheerful greenness of complete decay; spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own distortions.

在它這種悲傷的白色中,有一種更為叫人恐怖的氣氛。這種白色跟皮薩羅一樣古老,把那廢墟罩得永遠如新,毫無滿地草莽的頹廢景象;彌漫在它那殘破的城垣上的,正是那一片跟它本身相稱的害中風癥似的僵硬的蒼白色。

I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of whiteness is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the terror of objects otherwise terrible;

根據(jù)一般人的理解力說來,我知道這種白色現(xiàn)象并不是作為夸張那種本來并不怎樣可怕的恐怖事物的主要原因;

nor to the unimaginative mind is there aught of terror in those appearances whose awfulness to another mind almost solely consists in this one phenomenon, especially when exhibited under any form at all approaching to muteness or universality.

而且在一個缺乏想象力的人看來,那種情景也許一點也沒有什么可怖之處,不過,在另外一種人看來,這種情景之所以可怕,簡直也就正好是包括在這一種現(xiàn)象里面,尤其是當它以一種完全跡近沉默或者渾然一體的形式表現(xiàn)出來的時候。

What I mean by these two statements may perhaps be respectively elucidated by the following examples.

我對這兩種說法的含義,也許可以由下列事例分別加以說明。