英语听书《白鲸记》 第337期

Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but colonial, scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on between Europe and the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific coast. It was the whalemen who first broke through the jealous policy of the Spanish crown, touching those colonies; and, if space permitted, it might be distinctly shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated the liberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain, and the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts.

在合恩角的捕鲸业发达之前,欧洲与丰饶连绵的西班牙各地间在太平洋沿线的交往,还不是什么商业行为而只是殖民事业,除了殖民事业,可说没有什么其它的交往。首先打破了西班牙王朝的妒忌政策,接触这些殖民地的就正是捕鲸者;如果不是篇幅所限,我还可以明白地举出怎样通过这些捕鲸者,才终于把秘鲁。智利和玻利维亚从旧西班牙的羁轭下解放了出来,并在这些国家里建立了永远的民主政体种种事实。

That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia, was given to the enlightened world by the whaleman. After its first blunder-born discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships, long shunned those shores as pestiferously barbarous; but the whale-ship touched there. The whale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony. Moreover, in the infancy of the first Australian settlement, the emigrants were several times saved from starvation by the benevolent biscuit of the whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor in their waters. The uncounted isles of all Polynesia confess the same truth, and do commercial homage to the whale-ship, that cleared the way for the missionary and the merchant, and in many cases carried the primitive missionaries to their first destinations. If that double-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become hospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due; for already she is on the threshold.

澳大利亚,等于是在地球的另一边的美洲,它是由捕鲸人给带到文明世界来的。在一个荷兰人初次出于错误而发现了澳洲后,所有其它船只都把那些海岸当作有传染病的蛮荒之地而长久对之远避;可是,捕鲸船却开到那里去了。捕鲸船才是现在那大块殖民地的真正的母亲。而且,在澳洲殖民地的摇篮时代,那些移民者数度由于幸遇捕鲸船停泊在他们的海面上,施舍给他们硬面包,才得免于饥馑。玻利尼西亚的无数岛屿都承认这一事实,并向捕鲸船致以商业上的敬意;它们为牧师和商人开了路,还有把原始的传教事业带到他们初到的地方去的事例。如果那个闭关自守的日本会成为一个好客的地方,那完全得归功于捕鲸船;因为捕鲸船已经驶到它的大门口了。

But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has no aesthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I ready to shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a split helmet every time.

在所有这些事实面前,如果你还是认为捕鲸业在审美观念上说来,跟这些事情毫无什么了不起的联系,那么,我就要跟你决斗个五十回合,每回都把你打得人仰马翻。丢盔弃甲。