英語聽書《白鯨記》第570期

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For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last. True, one portrait may hit the mark much nearer than another, but none can hit it with any very considerable degree of exactness. So there is no earthly way of finding out precisely what the whale really looks like. And the only mode in which you can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is by going a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small risk of being eternally stove and sunk by him. Wherefore, it seems to me you had best not be too fastidious in your curiosity touching this Leviathan.

不過，盡管有這些理由，隨你怎樣想法，可還得下這樣的結論：大鯨是世界上一種始終無法繪畫的動物。不錯，也許這張畫會比另一張畫更成功些，可是，要畫得維妙維肖卻不容易。因此，要正確地找出鯨究竟象個什么，可說是毫無辦法。甚至于要對它那活生生的輪廓獲得相當的印象，唯一的辦法，只有親自去捕鯨；可是，這樣做，卻須冒著被它弄得永無完身和沉淪失身的不小的危險。因此，我覺得，對于這種大海鯨的好奇心，還是別太挑剔為好。

Chapter 56 Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes

第五十六章 錯誤較少的大鯨圖像和捕鯨寫生

In connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am strongly tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous stories of them which are to be found in certain books, both ancient and modern, especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, etc. But I pass that matter by.

關于大鯨的驚人圖像，我很想在這里著手講一些關于它們的更為驚人的故事，這些故事都可以在古今一些書本中，特別是在普利尼，珀切斯（塞繆爾·珀切斯（1575—1626）——英國作家。），哈克魯特（理查·哈克魯特（1552—1616）——英國地理學家，著有幾本游記。），哈里斯，居維埃等人的作品中找到。但是，我對此都置之不理。

I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale; Colnett's, Huggins's, Frederick Cuvier's, and Beale's.

我只知道有四本已經出版的關于大抹香鯨書的概要；那就是科爾內特、哈金斯（威廉·哈金斯（1824—1910）——英國天文學家。）、弗里德里克、居維埃和比爾等四人的作品。