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then, ascending by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and were it not that the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we might descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But let us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we are. What a really beautiful and chaste-looking mouth! from floor to ceiling, lined, or rather papered with a glistening white membrane, glossy as bridal satins.
然后，用一架梯子爬到那峰巅去，往下瞧一瞧它的嘴巴。如果它那身体现在不是已跟脑袋分家了的话，我们还可以拿一只灯笼，直跨进它那肯塔基的大钟乳洞（肯塔基的大钟乳洞——在美国肯塔基的埃德蒙逊郡，是世界最大的一个洞穴。）一般的肚皮里去呢。不过，我们就停在它这只牙齿上，看看我们是在什么地方吧！啊，这只嘴巴真是多么漂亮多么雅致呀！从地板到天花板都有镶里，或者不如说是用一层白色薄膜裱褙的，光辉闪烁，宛如新娘穿的缎子。
But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box, with the hinge at one end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to get it overhead, and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific portcullis; and such, alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these spikes fall with impaling force. But far more terrible is it to behold, when fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky whale, floating there suspended, with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long, hanging straight down at right-angles with his body; for all the world like a ship's jibboom. This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited; out of sorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his jaw have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a reproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws upon him.
那么，现在请走出来，看看这只可怕的下巴颏，它似乎很象一只大鼻烟盒的狭长盖子，开关的铰链是装在一端而不是装在边上的。如果你把它往上一撬，好教它张在你的头顶上，露出它那许多牙齿，它真象是城门上的一排可怕的格子吊闸。哟，那些个牙齿！这些象尖铁一般的东西，一经使起打桩一样的力气，对谁敲将下来，可要叫捕鱼业中多少个可怜虫一命归西啊！可是，更教人看得胆战心惊的是，你看到一只满面怒容的鲸，在海里张起十五英尺长的大下巴颏，翻浮在水面上，下巴垂挂得跟身体成为一只直角，随你怎样看，都跟一艘船的第二桅樯一模一样。这种鲸可不是死的；它只是没有精神；也许是有点不舒服，患了忧郁症，这才仰躺在那里，连下巴的铰链也松脱了，落得一副惨相，成为它全族类的唾骂对象，它的族类毫无疑问一定会祈求上天使它害牙关紧闭症。
