There seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyed more of deep helpless sadness than the insane old man had ever before evinced. But turning to the steersman, who thus far had been holding the ship in the wind to diminish her headway, he cried out in his old lion voice, "Up helm! Keep her off round the world!"
话语看来不多,那声气,却表露出这个神经失常的老人有一种前所未有的。无可奈何的深切的伤感。他突然转过身来,对着那个舵手(这舵手一直就在使这艘前进的船减低速度),以他那老狮子般的嗓门大声叫嚷起来,“转舵向风!环球去!”
Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that we leftbehind secure, were all the time before us.
环球去!那声音可真激起人们的自豪感;可是,要环球去干什么呀?只不过是经历过无数的险难后,又回到我们起程的那个地方,在那里,那些我们还未得到的东西,却始终摆在我们前面。
Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in thevoyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of that demon phantom that,some time or other, swims before all human hearts, while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed.
如果这个世界是一片无垠无际的平原,一直往东驶去,我们就能永远到达新的远方,发现比昔加拉第岛(昔加拉第——在爱琴海上的一个希腊的群岛。)或者所罗门王岛(所罗门群岛——在新几内亚东面,作者在这儿故意加上“王”。因所罗门是以色列王故也。)更有趣而希奇的景色,那么,这种航行倒是前途无量的。可是,为了追逐我们梦想的这许多神秘缥缈的东西,或者为了苦痛地追击那种迟早要泛上一切人类心头的魔影,这样环球地追击下去,那它们不是把我们引向徒劳的迷宫,就是教我们中途覆没。
Chapter 53 The Gam
第五十三章 联欢会
The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler we had spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But even had this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have boarded her--judging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasions--if so it had been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained a negative answer to the question he put.
亚哈所以不上我们上边提到的那艘捕鲸船,表面上的理由是这样的:风势和海浪都有起大风暴的征兆。不过,即使没有这种情况的话,他毕竟也许还是不会上去的——这是根据他以后在类似场合上的行动判断的——如果确是这样,那就是因为,经过一阵招呼后,他所提出的问题,并没有得到肯定的答复的缘故。