英语听书《白鲸记》 第272期

　　For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors ownempires; other seamen having but a right of waythrough it. Merchant ships are but extensionbridges; armed ones but floating forts; even piratesand privateers, though following the sea ashighwaymen the road. they but plunder other ships,other fragments of the land like themselves, withoutseeking to draw their living from the bottomlessdeep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone resides andriots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goesdown to it in ships; to and fro ploughing it as hisown special plantation. There is his home; there lies his business which a Noah's flood would notinterrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in China. He lives on the sea, as prairie cocksin the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps.For years he knows not the land; so that when he comes to it at last, it smells like anotherworld, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. With the landless gull, that atsunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer,out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rushherds of walruses and whales.

　　因为海洋是属于他们的;他们拥有海洋,犹如皇帝之拥有他自己的皇土;别国的水手不过有一种通行权而已。商船不过是桥梁的延伸;兵舰不过是浮动炮台;甚至在海上游弋的海盗船和私掠船,虽然象拦路大盗在大道上打劫一样,在海上打劫,它们只劫掠别的船只,拦路大盗也象海盗船和私掠船那样只在别的地段上劫掠,决不妄图到这无底的深渊里来谋生计。于是,单独住在海上,在海上骚扰的便只有南塔开特人了;按照《圣经》上的说法,他们是单独坐船下海的;把海洋当作他们的特有的农场往复地耕耘着。那里是他们的家;他们的事业就在那里,这种事业不是挪亚的大洪水所妨碍得了的,虽然大水会淹没中国的无数生灵。他们住在海上,犹如野雉之生活于大草原中;他们隐伏在惊涛骇浪中,他们攀登巨浪,一如羚羊猎户之攀登阿尔卑斯山。多少年来,他们不知道有陆地;因此,等到他们终于来到陆地,它就象是另一个世界的味道,比穴居人看到月亮还要觉得希奇。象无地可容的海鸥,每当夕阳西下就卷起两翼,躺在浪涛中晃来晃去地睡着了;南塔开特人也是这样地在薄暮时分,远离陆地,卷起风帆,躺下来休息了,而在他们的枕头底下,却正是川流不息的海象群和鲸群。