英語聽書《白鯨記》第189期

But what most puzzled and confounded you was along, limber, portentous, black mass of somethinghovering in the centre of the picture over three blue,dim, perpendicular lines floating in a namelessyeast.

但是最使人大惑不解的是:在那張畫的中央,有一團又長又黑又軟的.其兆不祥的什么東西,翱翔在三根暗藍色的直線上,而這三根直線又在一種形容不出的氣泡似的東西中晃蕩著。

A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough todrive a nervous man distracted.

這張泥濘.濡濕.又擺動不息的圖畫,真夠教一個膽小鬼精神錯亂。

Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairlyfroze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellouspainting meant.

然而,它可又有一種無限的.半青半黃的,難以想象的崇高性,足以使人對它依依不舍,直教你不由自主地立起誓來:非把這幅不可思議的油畫的含義給找出來不可。

Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you through.

雖然不時會冒出一種似乎豁然開朗,然而可惜是靠不住的想象來

It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale.

是午夜風暴的黑海

It's the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.It's a blasted heath.

是四行的鬩墻之爭...

It's a Hyperborean winter scene.It's the breaking-up of the icebound stream of Time.

是一種枯萎的石南灌木...是一種北方樂土的冬景....是時代之冰封溪流在解凍。

But at last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous something in the picture's midst.

可是,這種種想象最終都在這張圖畫中間那種可怖的什么東西上碰了壁。

That once found out, and all the rest were plain.

要是一旦發(fā)現(xiàn)那東西,其余就都了如指掌。

But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathanhimself?

不過,且慢,它不是隱約有點象一尾大魚么?甚至就是那種大海獸么?