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It was hardly to be doubted, that several vessels reported to have encountered, at such or such a time, or on such or such a meridian, a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity, which whale, after doing great mischief to his assailants, has completely escaped them;
但是,也有使人难以置疑的传说,说是有若干船只在某时某地,碰到了一种非常之大。非常之凶的抹香鲸,那条鲸在对它的攻击者造成很大伤害后,便逃之夭夭;
to some minds it was not an unfair presumption, I say, that the whale in question must have been no other than Moby Dick.
我认为,有些人认为那条大鲸一定就是莫比－迪克的这种想法,并不是全然无稽的。
Yet as of late the Sperm Whale fishery had been marked by various and not unfrequent instances of great ferocity, cunning, and malice in the monster attacked;
然而,因为近来捕抹香鲸业遭到这只巨兽凶残。刁滑和恶毒的袭击,已经有过各种并非罕见的实例,
therefore it was, that those who by accident ignorantly gave battle to Moby Dick;
因此,凡是向莫比－迪克挑战的人,都是偶然碰到,而且是不知内情的,
such hunters, perhaps, for the most part, were content to ascribe the peculiar terror he bred, more, as it were, to the perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large, than to the individual cause.
这些捕鲸者也许可以说往往就把他们所受到的特殊恐怖,当成是一般捕抹香鲸业的大危险,而不把它看作是个别出现的情况,
In that way, mostly, the disastrous encounter between Ahab and the whale had hitherto been popularly regarded.
于是乎,亚哈跟这大鲸的灾难性的遭遇就此被看成一般的情况。
And as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, by chance caught sight of him;
至于那些先前曾经听到过。或者偶然看到过白鲸的人;
in the beginning of the thing they had every one of them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered for him, as for any other whale of that species.
在刚一碰到这种情况时,他们差不多每一个人都会勇敢无畏地放下小艇去追击它,如同追击任何一条抹香鲸那样。
But at length, such calamities did ensue in these assaults-not restricted to sprained wrists and ankles, broken limbs, or devouring amputations-but fatal to the last degree of fatality;
可是,到了后来,这些攻击都招致了诸如此类的不幸...不仅扭伤了肘腕和膝盖骨,折断了四肢,或者给吞噬了肢体...而且最后还要遭到杀身之祸;
those repeated disastrous repulses, all accumulating and piling their terrors upon Moby Dick;
这样一再遭到灾难性的反击,就使得他们都把亲受的恐怖全都堆积到莫比－迪克身上;
those things had gone far to shake the fortitude of many brave hunters, to whom the story of the White Whale had eventually come.
于是,最后那些勇敢的捕鲸人听到了白鲸的故事,这种情况就难免要动摇他们的刚毅精神。
