英语听书《白鲸记》第389期

Now, the grand distinction drawn between officer and man at sea, is this-the first lives aft, the last forward. Hence, in whale-ships and merchantmen alike, the mates have their quarters with the captain; and so, too, in most of the American whalers the harpooneers are lodged in the after part of the ship. That is to say, they take their meals in the captain's cabin, and sleep in a place indirectly communicating with it.

海上的船上头目和一般水手的主要区别既然是这样...头目住船尾,水手住船头。那么,捕鲸船也跟一般商船一样,大二三副都跟船长住在一起;因此,在大多数的美国捕鲸船上,标枪手们也是住在船尾。这就是说,他们在船长室里吃饭,睡在船长室相近的地方。

Though the long period of a Southern whaling voyage (by far the longest of all voyages now or ever made by man), the peculiar perils of it, and the community of interest prevailing among a company, all of whom, high or low, depend for their profits, not upon fixed wages, but upon their common luck, together with their common vigilance, intrepidity, and hard work; though all these things do in some cases tend to beget a less rigorous discipline than in merchantmen generally; yet, never mind how much like an old Mesopotamian family these whalemen may, in some primitive instances, live together; for all that, the punctilious externals, at least, of the quarter-deck are seldom materially relaxed, and in no instance done away. Indeed, many are the Nantucket ships in which you will see the skipper parading his quarter-deck with an elated grandeur not surpassed in any military navy; nay, extorting almost as much outward homage as if he wore the imperial purple, and not the shabbiest of pilot-cloth.

虽说南方的捕鲸航行时间很长(可以说是古往今来人类最长最远的航程),又特别富有危险性,大家又有共同的利害关系,全体人员,不论地位高低,收入都不是靠固定工资,而是靠他们共同的运气,以及大家一起值夜,勇猛而辛劳的工作得来的;虽说这一切有时会弄得纪律不及一般商船严峻;然而,尽管这些捕鲸者是多么类似于米索不达米亚家族,富有古风地住在一起;至少后甲板那种刻板的形式,实际上是一点也不松弛的,一点也不会有所简免的。事实上,在许多南塔开特的船只中,人们就可以看到船长是以一种不下于任何海军的昂然自得的气势在检阅他的后甲板的;而且外表上简直是装得十分使人肃然起敬,仿佛他穿的并不是那种最蹩脚的蓝色粗呢,而是帝王的紫袍。