In the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient books you will at times meet with very curious touches at the whale, where all manner of spouts, jets d'eau, hot springs and cold, Saratoga and Baden-Baden, come bubbling up from his unexhausted brain. In the title-page of the original edition of the "Advancement of Learning" you will find some curious whales.
在若干古书的卷首章末各种小花饰中,人们有时还可以碰到许多有关鲸的希奇古怪的画法,在那里,有各式各样的喷水,喷泉,有温泉也有冷气,有萨拉托加(萨拉托加——美国纽约州的一个避暑胜地。)也有巴登—巴登(巴登—巴登——德国巴登的一个休养地方。),都从它那源源不竭的脑袋里泡沫飞腾地迸射出来。在初版的《学术进步论》(《学术进步论》——英国唯物主义哲学家弗兰西斯。培根的哲学作品,出版于一六零五年。)的里封上,还可以找到一些奇异的鲸。
But quitting all these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at those pictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific delineations, by those who know. In old Harris's collection of voyages there are some plates of whales extracted from a Dutch book of voyages, A.D. 1671, entitled "A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the Whale, Peter Peterson of Friesland, master." In one of those plates the whales, like great rafts of logs, are represented lying among ice-isles, with white bears running over their living backs. In another plate, the prodigious blunder is made of representing the whale with perpendicular flukes.
但是,我们不妨撇开所有这些外行的尝试,看一看那些出自行家称为严肃的、科学的图解的那种大海兽的画像吧。在哈里斯(约翰·哈里斯(1666—1719)——英国的神学家,地志学者。)的《航行集》中,就有几张鲸的图版,它们是从一本写于公元一六七一年,题为《乘佛里斯兰(佛里斯兰——在荷兰北部。)的彼得·彼得逊老板的捕鲸船"鲸肚里的约拿号"到斯匹兹卑尔根(斯匹兹卑尔根——在挪威北部。)捕鲸记》中选出来的。在这些图版中,其中有一幅把那些鲸画得象大木排躺在冰岛中,还有许多白熊在它们的背上奔来跑去。在另外一个图版上,铸成大错的是把鲸的尾巴画成垂直的了。
Then again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one Captain Colnett, a Post Captain in the English navy, entitled "A Voyage round Cape Horn into the South Seas, for the purpose of extending the Spermaceti Whale Fisheries."
其次,有一本由一个名叫科尔内特(即詹姆斯·科尔内特——生卒年代不详。)的英国海军的小舰长写的、富丽堂皇的四开本,那本书题为《为发展捕抹香鲸业,绕合恩角入南海航行记》。