THE WHALE NO FAMOUS AUTHOR, AND WHALING NO FAMOUS CHRONICLER? Who wrote the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job!
大概没有哪一种东西能像鲸鱼这大海兽那样,被写人《圣经·约伯记》中的了吧1
And who composed the first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who, but no less a prince than Alfred the Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down the words from Other,
鲸座是天上的一个星座,捕鲸者是何等的威风也便可想而知了。
the Norwegian whale-hunter of those times! And who pronounced our glowing eulogy in Parliament? Who, but Edmund Burke!
还有后来英国的艾尔弗雷德大帝所编写的那些关于捕鲸的故事、埃德蒙·伯克对捕鲸者热烈的赞颂!
True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils; they have no good blood in their veins.
有人说捕鲸者不高雅,他们的血管里流淌的不是高贵的血。果真如此吗?非也。
NO GOOD BLOOD IN THEIR VEINS? They have something better than royal blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel;
又有人说,捕鲸业不大体面。 本杰明·弗兰克林的奶奶就是玛丽·莫雷尔,她嫁到南塔开特以后,
afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and harpooneers
从夫姓,叫玛丽·福尔杰,她是以后福尔杰标枪手家族的女祖宗,
all kith and kin to noble Benjamin—this day darting the barbed iron from one side of the world to the other.
这些标枪手都是高贵的弗兰克林的亲戚!他们那种带倒钩的标枪如今正在世界各地的捕鲸船上飞来掷去。