Look! here, far water-locked; beyond all hum of human weal or woe; in these most candid and impartial seas; where to traditions no rocks furnish tablets; where for long Chinese ages, the billows have still rolled on speechless and unspoken to, as stars that shine upon the Niger's unknown source; here, too, life dies sunwards full of faith, but see! no sooner dead, than death whirls round the corpse, and it heads some other way.
瞧!老遠(yuǎn)的那個大水閘閘住了;聽不到人間禍福的營營聲;在這個最公正無私的海洋上;根據(jù)傳說,那里沒有可以立紀(jì)念碑的石塊,那里的波濤跟中國的開國年代一般久遠(yuǎn),依然在不聲不響地滾滾起伏,一如那些照耀著尼加(尼加——非洲中西部的河名。)那條人所未知的河流的星星;在這里,生命也是充滿忠誠地面向太陽而逝;可是,看呀,一完了蛋,死神就在死尸周圍打了一轉(zhuǎn),然后向著其它方向轉(zhuǎn)去——。
Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who of drowned bones hast builded thy separate throne somewhere in the heart of these unverdured seas; thou art an infidel, thou queen, and too truly speakest to me in the wide-slaughtering Typhoon, and the hushed burial of its after calm. Nor has this thy whale sunwards turned his dying head, and then gone round again, without a lesson to me.
你這個難解畸形的印度神呀,你用淹死了的骸骨,在這個光禿禿的大海中心的什么地方建起你那單獨的寶座;你是個異教徒,你的皇后在兇殘的颶風(fēng)里老老實實地告訴過我了,颶風(fēng)平息后也就寂然無聲了。你這大鯨呀,以行將要死的頭向著太陽,倒是給了我一個教訓(xùn)。
Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed jet! — that one strivest, this one jettest all in vain! In vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again.
啊,深溝高壘披堅執(zhí)銳的強者!啊,巍然高聳、虹彩似的噴水!——那一個在拚命掙扎,這一個卻在徒勞地噴水!枉費的呀,鯨啊,你想跟那個能夠喚起生命、非常富有生氣的太陽求情討?zhàn)?,它現(xiàn)在卻再也起不了作用了。