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Poor man’s big game
穷人的大游戏
Mr Mundus cared so much about Quint because he had helped Benchley with material, taking him out in Cricket II for weeks, and because a proper “Jaws” connection-though he thought the film “the funniest and stupidest movie I’ve ever seen”-would have brought in business. His charter-fishing enterprise, run for 40 years out of Montauk in Long Island, had started the sport of baiting and running sharks. They had been considered garbage before, but he promoted them as “fun”: a poor man’s big game at $400 a time, wily, beautiful and dangerous.
蒙杜斯很在乎昆特船长这个人物，因为他曾向本切利提供过素材，带本切利在Cricket II号上过了几个星期，因为和”大白鲨”电影相关联将带来商机，尽管他认为”这是我看过的最好笑、最愚蠢的电影”。他的包船捕鱼公司在长岛的 Montauk运营了四十年，开展引诱并追逐鲨鱼的业务。以前人们认为鲨鱼是垃圾，但是他把他们称作”乐趣”：400美元就可以玩一次巧妙、有趣、刺激的游戏，穷人的大游戏。
He knew their ways. They would haunt any place in the open ocean, but it was impossible to hunt one specific shark: “They don’t stay in the same place, they move. They got tails.” A 50-pound rod, his usual, would “just about handle anything that comes along”. It was nonsense to think that any fish could pull a heavy boat of the Cricket II’s size either forwards or backwards, as happened in the film of “Jaws”, though you needed a lot of line, double the depth of the water, when a baited shark dived to the bottom. Each fish he caught he said he felt sorry for, even though it was his opponent, and even though he had his own handicap, a left arm withered since childhood, which ached with the effort of keeping a taut （拉紧的）drag on a line.
他了解鲨鱼的习性。他们会在海洋里任何地方出没，但不可能捕获某一条特定的鲨鱼：”他们不在同一个地方逗留，他们会游来游去，他们有尾巴。”他常用的工具是一根50镑的钓竿，能”应对一切。”任何鱼也不可能把像Cricket II这样的大船拖动（如电影”大白鲨”里的镜头），但是，当上钩的鲨鱼向水底潜游时，需把水加深一倍。蒙杜斯说他为捕到的每条鱼都感到难过，虽然这些鱼都是他的对手，虽然他的身体障碍（自童年起左臂就萎缩了）在每次控制紧绷的探海钩时都会疼痛。
His critics, and he had many, doubted that he felt much regret. For years, before environmentalism made it illegal, he ground up small whales and basking sharks to make the best bait. Sometimes he shot sharks to finish them off. His boat would come into Montauk braying with victory and strung with the corpses of huge fish. But when the sharks themselves became endangered he began to use circle hooks, which caught in the jaw and let the fish be released, rather than gut-hooks which slowly killed it. And though his haul of dead sea beasts was immense, only seven great whites fell victim to him.
他的批评者（数量很多）质疑他有多少难过。有好多年，他都会圈捕小鲸鱼和姥鲨来做最好的鱼饵，有时还会射杀鲨鱼，环保主义后来把这些行为定为违法行为。他的船来到Montauk时会满载着条条死去的大鱼。当鲨鱼这个种类濒危时，他用了嘴钩（钩在嘴里，鱼可以被放掉），不再用肠钩（这会把鱼慢慢杀死）。尽管他捕获了大量的海洋生物，但是只捕获了七条大白鲨。
He survived his life almost uninjured, pesky and abrasive, full of advice about ways of fishing that were no longer allowed. And he could count himself lucky to die at 82 of heart trouble in his bed, not, like the Quint of the book, trailed behind a shark underwater, arms out and mouth open “in mute protest”; or, like the Quint of the film, chomped in half at the trouser-line, spouting scarlet blood like a whale.
经过了这一切，他竟然几乎毫发未伤，只是性格粗暴恼人。他知道捕鱼的各种方法，这些方法现在都被禁止了。在82岁的时候因心脏病逝于病床上，他应该称自己是幸运之人，因为书中的昆特船长去逝时，正在水下追猎一条鲨鱼，胳膊伸开，嘴张着，似乎在”无言的抗议”；或者电影里的昆特船长被烫裤机拦腰截断，鲜血喷涌而出，如鲸鱼一般。
[NOTES](英汉大词典 陆谷孙; Google)
1 stern n.船尾
2 swivel n.（常做定语）转体
3 harpoon n.鱼叉
4 gaff n.手钩
5 hook n.鱼钩
6 chum n.鱼饵
7 drag n.打捞器，探海钩
8 pail n.桶
9 make a splash 引起轰动，惹人注意
10 legion adj.众多的，大量的
11 frenzy n.发狂
12 foam v. 吐白沫，（发怒时）唾沫四溅
13 thresher n.长尾鲨
14 dorsal n.背鳍
15 serrated adj.锯齿的
16 rod n.钓竿
17 reel n.钓丝螺旋轮
18 iron n.鱼叉
19 tail-rope n.尾绳
20 bandanna n.印花大手帕
21 centrepiece n.最引人注目的部分
22 taut adj.拉紧的
23 basking sharks n.姥鲨（一种不伤害人的大鲨鱼，常浮出水面晒太阳）
24 trouser-line n.烫裤机
