As for the men, though some of them lowly rumbled, their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate. But as ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost wholly unimpressed; or if impressed, it was only with a certain magnetism shot into their congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab's.
至于那些水手,雖然其中有些人在低聲嘀咕,可是;他們害怕亞哈遠遠超過于害怕他們自己的命運。但是,那些異教徒標槍手,卻還象從前一樣,幾乎毫無所動;如果說是有所動的話,那就是他們那意氣相投的心,中了頑強的亞哈一發(fā)富有磁力的子彈了。
For a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries. But chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed copper sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed to the deck.
這個老人搖搖晃晃地在甲板上踱了一番。他那只牙骨腳的后跟突然滑了一下,不想看到他昨天摔在甲板上那只象限儀的破碎了的瞭望銅管子。
Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun's pilot! yesterday I wrecked thee, and to-day the compasses would fain have wrecked me. So, so. But Ahab is lord over the level loadstone yet. Mr. Starbuck — a lance without the pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker's needles. Quick!
你這可憐而高傲的望天的家伙兼太陽的引港人呵!昨天我毀了你,今天羅盤竟會裝模作樣來毀我。唔,唔。不過,亞哈還是這種平面的天然磁石的主宰者。斯達巴克先生——給我拿支沒有棒的魚槍頭,一只大錘子,和一根最小的縫帆針來,快!
Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was now about to do, were certain prudential motives, whose object might have been to revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtile skill, in a matter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses. Besides, the old man well knew that to steer by transpointed needles, though clumsily practicable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious sailors, without some shudderings and evil portents.
他準備要用的這些東西,所以要這么沖動地一一口述出來,也許還有某種深謀遠慮的動機,其目的也許是想靠他一記巧妙的技巧,振作一下他那些船員的精神。再說,這個老人心里十分有數,靠那轉了向的羅盤針來把舵,盡管可以勉強對付,終究會使那些迷信的水手耿耿于懷,他們不免要心驚膽戰(zhàn),覺得兇兆重重。