英語聽書《白鯨記》 第280期

She was a ship of the old school, rather small ifanything; with an old-fashioned claw-footed lookabout her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in thetyphoons and calms of all four oceans, her old hull'scomplexion was darkened like a French grenadier's,who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Hervenerable bows looked bearded. Her masts--cutsomewhere on the coast of Japan, where heroriginal ones were lost overboard in a gale--hermasts stood stiffly up like the spines of the three oldkings of Cologne. Her ancient decks were worn andwrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped flag-stone in Canterbury Cathedral where Beckett bled.But to all these her old antiquities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining to thewild business that for more than half a century she had followed. Old Captain Peleg, many yearsher chief-mate, before he commanded another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman,and one of the principal owners of the Pequod,--this old Peleg, during the term of his chief-mateship, had built upon her original grotesqueness, and inlaid it, all over, with a quaintnessboth of material and device, unmatched by anything except it be Thorkill-Hake's carvedbuckler or bedstead. She was apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavywith pendants of polished ivory. She was a thing of trophies. A cannibal of a craft, trickingherself forth in the chased bones of her enemies. All round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks weregarnished like one continuous jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale, insertedthere for pins, to fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to. Those thews ran not throughbase blocks of land wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of sea-ivory.

它是一種老派的船只,如果有什么不同的地方,那就是比較小一些;那樣子就象是一只古色古香的有爪的腳。它經(jīng)歷過了四大洋的臺風(fēng)和靜浪,長期的風(fēng)吹日曬,它那古舊的船身就象是在埃及和西伯利亞作過戰(zhàn)的法國擲彈兵似的墨黑。它那船頭的尊容好象是滿面胡須。它的桅桿是從日本海岸的什么地方砍來的,因為原來那一根就在日本海岸的一次大風(fēng)中折落到海里去的。它的桅桿挺直高矗,宛如古代科龍三王的三根背脊骨。它那古老的甲板已損壞和起皺了,就跟坎特伯雷大教堂里在貝克特托馬斯。貝克特被刺的地方立下的一塊供朝圣者膜拜的石板一樣。但是,除了所有這些古老的遺物而外,它還有許多新奇的特點,說明著它五十多年來所從事的那種艱險的工作。老船長法勒,原來就是這只船的多年的大副,以后又去指揮他自己的另一條船,現(xiàn)在是個退休的水手,也是"裴廓德號"的主要股東之一,這個法勒老頭,在他擔(dān)任大副期間,曾在它那原來的奇形怪狀上花過不少功夫,用一種奇特的材料和設(shè)計,把船身嵌嵌鑲鑲,弄得只有索基爾-黑克的雕刻的圓盾和床架才能與之媲美。這條船給打扮得跟任何一個脖子沉甸甸地掛著光亮的象牙垂飾的。野蠻的埃塞俄比亞皇帝一模一樣。這條船真是集各種戰(zhàn)利品的大成。這是一種吃人生番似的。用它獵逐到的敵人的骸骨來打扮自己的船只。它那沒裝嵌板的。開曠的舷墻四周都被裝飾得象個連綿的下頜,用長而尖的抹香鯨齒嵌在那里當(dāng)作縛住它那些舊麻繩的栓子。這些筋肋并不是穿過陸地樹木的低劣木頭,而是巧妙地穿過海里的象牙做出來的滑車輪。