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To sailors, oaths are household words; they will swear in the trance of the calm, and in the teeth of the tempest; they will imprecate curses from the topsail-yard-arms, when most they teeter over to a seething sea; but in all my voyagings, seldom have I heard a common oath when God's burning finger has been laid on the ship; when His "Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin" has been woven into the shrouds and the cordage.
对水手们说来，赌神发誓本来就是家常便饭的事；他们在静得出神的时候，要咒骂，碰到暴风雨时，要咒骂；碰到他们在翻卷过来的海浪中，张弄着中帆桁的时候，也要大加咒骂一顿。不过，在我所有的航程中，可难得碰上这样的情况，就是说，当上帝的炽热的手指已经按在船上的时候；当上帝的"弥尼，弥尼，提客勒，乌法珥新"（"弥尼，弥尼，提客勒，乌法珥新"——典出《旧约·但以理书》第五章二十五节，但以理对伯沙撒王的解释文字。这里的意思是说，上帝已经算好你的"劫数已到，你有阴亏，应该完蛋。"）已跟护桅索和索具交织在一块儿的时候，竟会听到这么一种咒骂。
While this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were heard from the enchanted crew; who in one thick cluster stood on the forecastle, all their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence, like a faraway constellation of stars. Relieved against the ghostly light, the gigantic jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his real stature, and seemed the black cloud from which the thunder had come. The parted mouth of Tashtego revealed his shark-white teeth, which strangely gleamed as if they too had been tipped by corpusants; while lit up by the preternatural light, Queequeg's tattooing burned like Satanic blue flames on his body.
这种青白色的火光正在高高地烧着的当儿，那些着迷似的水手们话也不多了；他们都紧挤在一起，站在船头楼上，在那股灰白的磷光的照射下，大家的眼睛都亮闪闪的，象是远远的群星。那个乌黑发亮的魁梧黑人大个儿，衬着那鬼火，更其轮廓鲜明，他的身材赫然显得比他原来的身躯大了三倍，似乎巨雷就是发自那团黑云。塔斯蒂哥那只张开的嘴巴，露出了他那副雪白的鲨鱼牙齿，牙齿发出的闪光，煞是奇特，仿佛在那上面也有一层电光似的；魁魁格身上的刺花，给这股不可思议的亮光一照，好象也燃得身上发出了恶魔似的蓝光。
The tableau all waned at last with the pallidness aloft; and once more the Pequod and every soul on her decks were wrapped in a pall. A moment or two passed, when Starbuck, going forward, pushed against some one. It was Stubb. "What thinkest thou now, man; I heard thy cry; it was not the same in the song."
后来随着那股青白色的火光的上升，这个戏剧性的场面也就完全消逝了；"裴廓德号"和甲板上的全部船员又再次给笼罩在黑色的帷幕里。隔不多久，斯达巴克向前走去时，撞上了个什么人。原来是斯塔布。"喂，你现在觉得怎样，老朋友；我听到你在哭呢，那声音可跟歌声不同呀。"
