评论
打印
But as the colossal skull embraces so very large a proportion of the entire extent of the skeleton; as it is by far the most complicated part; and as nothing is to be repeated concerning it in this chapter, you must not fail to carry it in your mind, or under your arm, as we proceed, otherwise you will not gain a complete notion of the general structure we are about to view.
不过，因为这个硕大的脑壳占着整个骷髅非常大的比例；它又是极其复杂的部分；同时，在这方面，本章又不想再重复，所以在我说下去的时候，你必须时刻把它谨记在心，或者谨慎地挟在腋窝里，否则，你对于我们将要观察的整个结构，就将不能获得全豹。
In length, the Sperm Whale's skeleton at Tranque measured seventy-two feet: so that when fully invested and extended in life, he must have been ninety feet long; for in the whale, the skeleton loses about one fifth in length compared with the living body. Of this seventy-two feet, his skull and jaw comprised some twenty feet, leaving some fifty feet of plain backbone. Attached to this back-bone, for something less than a third of its length, was the mighty circular basket of ribs which once enclosed his vitals.
托朗郭那条抹香鲸骷髅的长度是七十二英尺；所以，当它有头有尾。是一只活生生的东西的时候，它一定就有九十英尺长；因为鲸骷髅跟活鲸比起来，长度总得缩小五分之一。在这七十二英尺中，它的脑壳和嘴巴要占去二十英尺，那根背脊骨大约也有五十英尺。跟这根背脊骨相连的，长度只有脊骨三分之一不到点，就是那个一度裹住它的重要器官的。满是肋骨的大围篮。
To me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved spine, extending far away from it in a straight line, not a little resembled the hull of a great ship new-laid upon the stocks, when only some twenty of her naked bow-ribs are inserted, and the keel is otherwise, for the time, but a long, disconnected timber.
在我看来，这个象牙围墙似的大胸脯，有着平坦的长椎骨，一条直线似的从那中间老远地伸展出去，可真象一只刚造好的、放在造船架上的大船壳，只消给它插上一二十根光堂堂的船头肋骨，暂时把那根龙骨换上一根不相连接的长木头就行了。
