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It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine chance for promotion, it seems-aye, a stove boat will make me an immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling-a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.
我在启程赴南塔开特的前夕,在那一个昏暗而阴森的日子里,靠着朦胧的光线念着那些先我而去的捕鲸者的命运,看着那些石碑时究竟怀着什么心情,那是不必多说了。不错,以实玛利呀,这可能也正是你的命运。但是,不知怎地,我竟又快活起来了.快活的起因也许是要出发了,要有高升的好机会了,它似乎是是一只将使我飞黄腾达而永垂不朽的破艇。不错,在捕鲸这种行业中是会死人的...这是个一下子便会把人带往来世的深渊似的行业。但是,这又怎样呢?我 认为我们真是对生死这桩大事产生了大大的误会。我认为人们在现世称做我的影子的,却正是我的真正的本体。我认为我们在观察一些神灵的事物时,实在太象从水里看太阳的牡蛎,总认为混水就是最稀薄的空气。我认为我的身躯不过是我的本体的残渣。事实上,谁要我的躯体,我就说:请拿去吧,它并不是我的。因此,应该为南塔开特三呼万岁;随它破船也好,残躯也好,因为我善于拚命,是丘必特本人也办不到的。
