英语听书《白鲸记》第409期
"Why, thou monkey," said a harpooneer to one of these lads, "we've been cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale yet. Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever thou art up here." Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; like Crammer's sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over.
"怎么,你这猴子,"一个标枪手对这样一个小伙子说,"我们到现在已经巡游了快三年,你却还没有叫出一只鲸来。只要你在那上面,鲸简直就跟母鸡的牙齿一样稀罕了。"他们也许是这样;也许在老远的地方可能有一群群的鲸;但是,这个心不在焉的小伙子已让浪潮与思潮的混合韵律,催眠得六神无主,想入非非,象吸鸦片似的没精打采,以致终于失去识别力;把他脚下的神秘的海洋,当成一幅明显的画像,其中有渗透了人类与自然的。深蓝无底的灵魂;而每一种把他弄胡涂了的奇特的。半隐半现的。滑滑闪闪的美丽的东西;每一种有闹不清的形体的时隐时现。时升时沉的鳍类,在他看来,只是人的心灵在不断想来想去的那种无从捉摸的思想的化身。在这种受蛊惑的心情中,你的生命就会向着它来的地方逐渐衰退,变成时空不明,象克兰默这个泛神论者撒在海里的骨灰一样,终于弄得到处是岸了。
There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at midday, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!
这时,你已失去了生命,有的只是靠这艘徐徐滚动的船所赐予的摇晃不停的生气,而船只却是靠着海洋;海洋又是靠着上帝那费解的潮汐才有生气的。但是,这个睡魔,这个梦神一经附在你的身上,你的手足只消挪移一英寸,双手完全放松;那么你的本体就在恐怖中回来。你就翱翔在笛卡儿旋风运动的影响下,最初的物质浑沌状态渐次有了秩序的旋风上了。也许正是天气最晴朗的正午,你带着一声半闷半响的尖叫,穿过透明的太空,直落进了夏天的海洋,再也爬不起来了。好好地留心呀,你们这些泛神论者。
