英語聽書《白鯨記》第564期

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Nor does Hogarth, in painting the same scene in his own "Perseus Descending," make out one whit better. The huge corpulence of that Hogarthian monster undulates on the surface, scarcely drawing one inch of water. It has a sort of howdah on its back, and its distended tusked mouth into which the billows are rolling, might be taken for the Traitors' Gate leading from the Thames by water into the Tower. Then, there are the Prodromus whales of the old Scotch Sibbald, and Jonah's whale, as depicted in the prints of old Bibles and the cuts of old primers. What shall be said of these? As for the book-binder's whale winding like a vine-stalk round the stock of a descending anchor--as stamped and gilded on the backs and titlepages of many books both old and new--that is a very picturesque but purely fabulous creature, imitated, I take it, from the like figures on antique vases. Though universally denominated a dolphin, I nevertheless call this book-binder's fish an attempt at a whale; because it was so intended when the device was first introduced. It was introduced by an old Italian publisher somewhere about the 15th century, during the Revival of Learning; and in those days, and even down to a comparatively late period, dolphins were popularly supposed to be a species of the Leviathan.

不過，霍加思（威廉·霍加思（1697—1764）——英國畫家和雕刻家。）在他自己那幅畫著同一個場面的"珀修斯降世"中，也并不見得高明些?；艏铀籍嫷哪侵痪瞢F，在水面上起伏的碩大形體，露出水面還不及一英寸。它背上有一種象背椅的東西，而那只波濤滾滾流入的張得大大的嘴巴，也許會被當(dāng)做是從泰晤士河通向倫敦塔的"叛徒之門"（叛徒之門——從前送政治犯進(jìn)倫敦塔朝泰晤士河那一面的門。）呢。接著便是從前蘇格蘭的西鮑爾德發(fā)現(xiàn)的那條先驅(qū)鯨，和描刻在舊版《圣經(jīng)》上跟從前的小禱告書（小禱告書——宗教改革前所用的小禱告書。）上的那種所謂約拿鯨的插圖了。對這些畫又該怎么看呢？至于那種釘書工人所裝飾的鯨，盤繞得象葡萄藤盤著一個下垂的錨叉一般——印鑲在古今那許多書本的書脊和里封上——那倒是一種十分富有詩情畫意，而又純是神話式的動物，我認(rèn)為，那是模仿古代許多瓶飾上的形象的。雖則一般都把它稱為海豚，然而，我卻認(rèn)為這種釘書工人的魚是企圖畫鯨的一種嘗試：因為初次采用這種圖樣的時候，就有這樣的意圖。那是在十五世紀(jì)左右，在文藝復(fù)興時代，由意大利一個老出版商初次采用的，而且在當(dāng)時，甚至直至以后相當(dāng)長的期間內(nèi)，大家都認(rèn)為海豚就是這種大海獸的一種。