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It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra.
裴廓德号上这块杜柏仑，想不到竟成为这些东西的一个包罗万象的标本。它的圆边上写有这样的字句：厄瓜多尔共和国：基多。原来这块灿亮的金币是来自一个位于世界中部的，在大赤道的下面、并以赤道为名（厄瓜多尔——是西班牙文，即英文中的赤道的国家；而且这块金币还是在安第斯山脉（安第斯山脉——在南美洲西部。）的中部，在那个不知有秋天的永不雕零的地方铸造出来的。在这些字句的圈圈里，还可以看到有类似安第斯山脉的三个高峰；有一个峰巅冒出了火焰，另一个上面有一只高塔，第三个高峰上有一只昂颈啼叫的公鸡；而在三个峰巅上还弓着一弯区分黄道带的环带，十二宫宿全都标志着它们的自古以来的玄妙气息，那只拱心石似的太阳正在走进那天平星座的昼夜分界线。
Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now pausing.
这时，亚哈正在这块赤道线的金币前面停了下来，差不多人人都看到他。
There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all other grand and lofty things; look here,— three peaks as proud as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self.
在这些峰峦、高塔和一切富丽崇高的东西中间，好象有种永远自恃极高的气息；你瞧，——这三个峰巅就象魔王一样高傲。那只稳如磐石的高塔，就是亚哈；那座火山，就是亚哈；那只勇敢无畏的、胜利凯旋的公鸡也是亚哈，一切都是亚哈，这块滚圆的金币就正是比它还圆的地球的形象，它象魔术家的水晶球，轮番照出每个人自己的神秘的形体。
