英語聽書《白鯨記》第581期

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But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at all reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially when they paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms looked more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else. And as in the great hunting countries of India, the stranger at a distance will sometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants without knowing them to be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the soil; even so, often, for him, who for the first time beholds this species of the leviathans on the sea. And even when recognized at last, their immense magnitude renders it very hard really to believe that such bulky masses of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort of life that lives in a dog or a horse.

不過，只在它們吃小魚而發(fā)出聲音來時，才使人想到刈草人。如果從桅頂上一眼望去，尤其是在它們停下來，歇一會兒的時候，它們的巨大的黑身軀，越看越象是一堆呆石塊了。而且，象在印度那種大狩獵區(qū)一樣，外來客在經(jīng)過平原時，雖然有時老遠就看到那些躺著的大象，卻不知道它們原來就是大象，只當(dāng)它們是個光禿禿的黑土堆；同樣的，初次看到這種海里的大海獸的人，也往往是這般情況。即使最后弄明白了，可它們那巨大的身軀還是難以教人置信：這樣長得又笨又大的東西，從各方面說來，究竟能否跟一條狗和一匹馬那樣富有生氣。

Indeed. in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of the deep with the same feelings that you do those of the shore. For though some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of the land are of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad general view of the thing, this may very well be; yet coming to specialties, where, for example, does the ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to the sagacious kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any generic respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him.

不錯，在其它一些方面說來，你可不能用看陸上生物的那種眼光來看海里的任何生物。因為，雖說有若干老博物學(xué)家認為，海陸各種生物都是一樣的；雖說就廣泛的一般見地說來，這說法也許很對；然而，說到特性方面，比如說，在癖性方面說來，海洋中可有一種魚跟狗一樣具有敏銳的感覺嗎？就一般情況說來，只有那種可惡的鯊魚，才可以說是具有跟狗相似的癖性。