写鲸的并没有产生什么著名的作家,捕鲸业也没有出过什么著名的编史家么?那么,是谁首先记载我们的大海兽呢?
And who composed the first narrative of awhaling-voyage?
除了伟大的约伯而外还有谁呢?谁编出第一个捕鲸航程的故事呢?
Who, but no less a prince than Alfred the Great, who,with his own royal pen, took down the words fromOther, the Norwegian whale-hunter of those times!
他就正是当时的王子艾尔弗雷德大帝,他提起他的御笔,把鄂大,即当时的挪威捕鲸者的故事记了下来!
And who pronounced our glowing eulogy in Parliament? Who, but Edmund Burke!
谁在议会上宣读我们那篇热烈的颂词呢?还不是埃德蒙。伯克!
True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils; they have no good blood in theirveins.
这都说得不错,不过,捕鲸者本身可都是些可怜虫呀;他们的血管里没有好血。
No good blood in their veins? They have something better than royal blood there. Thegrandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel;
他们的血管里没有好血么?他们可有比皇族的血更好的东西咧。本杰明富兰克林的祖母就是玛丽莫雷耳;
afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers of Nantucket, and the ancestress toa long line of Folgers and harpooneers-
后来嫁给南塔开特一个老殖民者,成为玛丽。福尔杰,也是一长串福尔杰族和标枪手们的女祖宗,
all kith and kin to noble Benjamin-this day darting the barbed iron from one side of the worldto the other.
这些标枪手全都是高贵的本杰明的亲戚,在今天,他们那装上倒钩的标枪正在世界各方掷来掷去呢。
Good again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is not respectable.
这也说得不错;不过,大家总认为捕鲸业是并不体面的。
Whaling not respectable? Whaling is imperial! By old English statutory law, the whale isdeclared a royal fish.
捕鲸业是并不体面的么?捕鲸业是极体面的!英国的古代法规,就把鲸称为钦定鱼呢。
Oh, that's only nominal! The whale himself has never figured in any grand imposing way.
那只是空有其名的啊!大鲸本身从来就没有被当做什么大了不起的。
