英語聽書《白鯨記》第463期
Tell me, why this strong young colt, foaled in some peaceful valley of Vermont, far removed from all beasts of prey-why is it that upon the sunniest day, if you but shake a fresh buffalo robe behind him, so that he cannot even see it,
那么,你說,有一種茁壯的小馬,它生長在佛蒙特州的平靜的山谷里,遠離一切猛獸,而為什么在日麗風(fēng)和辰光,如果你拿塊鮮水牛皮在它背后一抖(這樣它甚至連看都看不到,只嗅到野獸的肉香),
but only smells its wild animal muskiness-why will he start, snort, and with bursting eyes paw the ground in phrensies of affright?
它就會砰地一跳,吸溜鼻子,突出眼睛,心慌意亂地盡跺著地呢?在它那種青翠的北方大家庭中,它根本就沒有任何野物的血腥氣的印象,
There is no remembrance in him of any gorings of wild creatures in his green northern home, so that the strange muskiness he smells cannot recall to him anything associated with the experience of former perils; for what knows he, this New England colt, of the black bisons of distant Oregon?
所以,它所聞到的那種奇特肉香,任怎樣也叫它聯(lián)系不起以前的危險的經(jīng)驗來;因為,這種新英格蘭的小馬,怎么會知道遙遠的俄勒岡州的黑野牛呢?
No; but here thou beholdest even in a dumb brute, the instinct of the knowledge of the demonism in the world.
不,在這地方,你甚至在一種不能說話的野獸身上,也看到了認(rèn)識世間惡魔的本能。
Though thousands of miles from Oregon, still when he smells that savage musk, the rending, goring bison herds are as present as to the deserted wild foal of the prairies, which this instant they may be trampling into dust.
這種小馬雖然隔開俄勒岡有幾千英里,但是,它一嗅到那種生肉香,那種狂沖猛抵的野牛群就好象當(dāng)即來到這群落荒而逃的大草原野馬跟前了,也許這些小馬群這時已把大草原踩得塵土飛揚了。
Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleak rustlings of the festooned frosts of mountains;
于是,那種乳白色的海洋的隱隱翻騰聲,那結(jié)著冰花的群山的凄惻颯颯聲,大草原上風(fēng)干了的雪花的孤寂飄動聲;
the desolate shiftings of the windrowed snows of prairies;
所有這些東西,在以實瑪利看來,可就跟那張使小馬嚇慌了的抖動的鮮水牛皮一樣呵!
all these, to Ishmael, are as the shaking of that buffalo robe to the frightened colt!
小馬也不知道產(chǎn)生這種暗示的神秘癥兆的不知名的東西是在哪里,我也跟那小馬一樣,總認(rèn)為這些東西一定是存在于什么地方。
Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which the mystic sign gives forth such hints.
雖然在許多方面看來,這個眼所能見的世界似乎是由愛所構(gòu)成的,但是,那個眼不能見的天體卻又是恐懼所構(gòu)成的。
