英語聽書《白鯨記》第566期

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In this book is an outline purporting to be a "Picture of a Physeter or Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale from one killed on the coast of Mexico, August, 1793, and hoisted on deck." I doubt not the captain had this veracious picture taken for the benefit of his marines. To mention but one thing about it, let me say that it has an eye which applied, according to the accompanying scale, to a full grown sperm whale, would make the eye of that whale a bow-window some five feet long. Ah, my gallant captain, why did ye not give us Jonah looking out of that eye!

這本書寫明是“根據(jù)一七九三年八月在墨西哥沿海所捕殺。后來被吊上甲板的一條抹香鯨的實體，按比例尺所畫的寫真圖”的一個略圖。我肯定這個艦長所以要畫這個畫，純?nèi)皇菫樗拇瑒?wù)打算的。對此只消指出這一點就夠了，我不妨說，根據(jù)所附的比例尺看來，畫在那條大抹香鯨身上的一只眼睛，就使得那只鯨眼睛成了一扇五英尺來長的弓形窗。我的勇敢的艦長啊，你為什么不讓我們看到約拿打那只眼睛探出頭來向外張望呢！

Nor are the most conscientious compilations of Natural History for the benefit of the young and tender, free from the same heinousness of mistake. Look at that popular work "Goldsmith's Animated Nature." In the abridged London edition of 1807, there are plates of an alleged "whale" and a "narwhale." I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this unsightly whale looks much like an amputated sow; and, as for the narwhale, one glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this nineteenth century such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon any intelligent public of schoolboys.

就是那些為青少年打算，極其煞費(fèi)苦心編撰出來的《博物史》也擺脫不了同樣重大的錯誤。請看那本通俗作品《戈德史密斯的活自然界》（奧利弗·戈德史密斯（1728—1774）——愛爾蘭作家，《維克斐牧師傳》的作者，初期作品中有《博物史》一類著作。這里所指的是《地球和活自然界史》一書。）吧。在這本一八零七年出版于倫敦的節(jié)本中，有幾幅所謂"鯨"和"獨角鯨"的圖版。我不想顯得很不文雅，可是，這種見所未見的鯨，看看卻真象一只給砍斷了四腳的母豬；至于說到那條獨角鯨，只消一瞥就夠叫人發(fā)楞，在十九世紀(jì)的今天，這樣一種半馬半鷹的怪物，居然還能以假亂真地誆騙任何聰明小學(xué)。

Then, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Count de Lacepede, a great naturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book, wherein are several pictures of the different species of the Leviathan.

那么，再看一看一八二五年，一個大博物學(xué)家貝爾納·熱爾曼，即拉塞佩德伯爵所著的一本科學(xué)分析的有關(guān)鯨的書吧，在那本書里，有幾張種類不同的大海獸的圖畫。