From his mighty bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme whereon to enlarge, amplify, and generally expatiate. —
从他庞大的体型中，鲸鱼为我们提供了一个非常合适的主题，可以尽情扩展、增补和广泛论述。 —

Would you, you could not compress him. By good rights he should only be treated of in imperial folio. —
即使你愿意，也无法压缩他。按情理来说，他只应该以皇家大小的册子来对待。 —

Not to tell over again his furlongs from spiracle to tail, and the yards he measures about the waist; —
不用再述说他从呼吸孔到尾巴的弗隆长度，以及他腰部围长的码数； —

only think of the gigantic involutions of his intestines, where they lie in him like great cables and hawsers coiled away in the subterranean orlop-deck of a line-of-battle-ship.
只需想象一下他巨大的肠道盘绕，像大绳索和缆绳一样卷曲在他的体内，藏在一个战列舰的地下主甲板中。

Since I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it behoves me to approve myself omnisciently exhaustive in the enterprise; —
既然我已经决定处理这头利维坦，我必须证明自己在这个事业中是无所不知的； —

not overlooking the minutest seminal germs of his blood, and spinning him out to the uttermost coil of his bowels. —
不放过他体内最微小的血液种子，把他引申到他肠道的最后一环。 —

Having already described him in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it now remains to magnify him in an archaeological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian point of view. —
既然已经描述了他目前的栖息地和解剖特点，现在要从考古学、化石和史前的角度放大他。 —

Applied to any other creature than the Leviathan–to an ant or a flea– such portly terms might justly be deemed unwarrantably grandiloquent. —
应用于利维坦以外的任何其他生物——比如蚂蚁或跳蚤，这样庞大的术语可能会被认为太过于夸大其词。 —

But when Leviathan is the text, the case is altered. —
但当利维坦是主题时，情况就不同了。 —

Fain am I to stagger to this enterprise under the weightiest words of the dictionary. —
我很愿意用字典中最沉重的词汇来为这个事业摇摆。 —

And here be it said, that whenever it has been convenient to consult one in the course of these dissertations, I have invariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased for that purpose; —
在这些论述中方便的时候，我总是使用约翰逊的巨大四开本，专门为此购买； —

because that famous lexicographer’s uncommon personal bulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author like me.
因为这位著名的词典编纂者非同寻常的个人体型更适合来编纂一本供像我这样的鲸类作家使用的词典。

One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. —
人们常听说作家因主题而膨胀振奋，尽管主题可能看起来普通。 —

How, then, with me, writing of this Leviathan? —
那么，对我来说，写这头利维坦呢？ —

Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor’s quill! —
不知不觉中，我的笔迹变成了巨大的招贴体大写字母。给我一根秃鹰的羽毛！ —

Give me Vesuvius’ crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! —
将维苏威火山的火山口作为墨水瓶！朋友们，扶住我的手臂！ —

For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. —
因为简单地记录我对这头大白鲸的思考，它们让我感到疲倦，使我因其广泛的涉及科学领域、所有鲸鱼、人类和乳齿象的世代、过去、现在和未来，并包括地球上帝国的所有旋转全景和整个宇宙而昏晕。 —

Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. —
如此伟大和宽广的主题有着这样的美德！我们随着它的规模而扩展。 —

To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. —
要创作一部伟大且持久的著作，你必须选择一个伟大的主题。 —

No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.
没有人能写出关于跳蚤的伟大且持久的著作，尽管曾有许多人尝试过。

Ere entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales, I present my credentials as a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous time I have been a stone-mason, and also a great digger of ditches, canals and wells, wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts. —
在探讨化石鲸之前，我先介绍自己作为一名地质学家的资质，我曾是一名石匠，还是一个大概是所有类别的干沟、运河和井、酒窖、地窖和各种蓄水池的伟大挖掘者。 —

Likewise, by way of preliminary, I desire to remind the reader, that while in the earlier geological strata there are found the fossils of monsters now almost completely extinct; —
同样作为前提条件，我希望提醒读者，在早期地质岩层中发现了几乎已经灭绝的怪物的化石； —

the subsequent relics discovered in what are called the Tertiary formations seem the connecting, or at any rate intercepted links, between the antichronical creatures, and those whose remote posterity are said to have entered the Ark; —
在所谓的第三纪地层中发现的后续遗骸似乎是这些先前的生物与据说进入方舟的远古后代之间的联系或至少是被中断的环节； —

all the Fossil Whales hitherto discovered belong to the Tertiary period, which is the last preceding the superficial formations. —
迄今发现的所有化石鲸都属于第三纪时期，该时期是紧靠表面地层之前的一个时期。 —

And though none of them precisely answer to any known species of the present time, they are yet sufficiently akin to them in general respects, to justify their taking ranks as Cetacean fossils.
虽然它们都不精确对应于当前已知物种中的任何一个，但它们在一般方面与它们足够类似，以便将它们视为鲸鱼化石。

Detached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales, fragments of their bones and skeletons, have within thirty years past, at various intervals, been found at the base of the Alps, in Lombardy, in France, in England, in Scotland, and in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. —
在过去三十年中，在阿尔卑斯山脉的基地，意大利的朗巴第、法国、英国、苏格兰和路易斯安那、密西西比和阿拉巴马州的发现了大量分离的史前鲸鱼骨头残骸、骨头和骨骼。 —

Among the more curious of such remains is part of a skull, which in the year 1779 was disinterred in the Rue Dauphine in Paris, a short street opening almost directly upon the palace of the Tuileries; —
其中比较奇特的遗骸之一是一个头骨的部分，在1779年在巴黎都彼涅街被发掘出来，该街几乎直接通向图伊勒里宫； —

and bones disinterred in excavating the great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon’s time. —
还有在拿破仑时代挖掘安特卫普大码头时发掘出来的骨头。 —

Cuvier pronounced these fragments to have belonged to some utterly unknown Leviathanic species.
居维叶宣称这些碎片属于一些完全未知的庞然大物种。

But by far the most wonderful of all Cetacean relics was the almost complete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year 1842, on the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama. —
但是迄今为止最令人惊叹的鲸类遗物是在1842年发现的一具近乎完整的巨大绝种怪物骨架，在阿拉巴马州Creagh法官的种植园上。 —

The awe-stricken credulous slaves in the vicinity took it for the bones of one of the fallen angels. The Alabama doctors declared it a huge reptile, and bestowed upon it the name of Basilosaurus. —
在附近的惊叹且轻信的奴隶们将它误认为是堕落天使之一的骨骼。亚拉巴马州的医生们宣称它是一个巨型爬行动物，并赐予其巴塞洛萨鲸的名字。 —

But some specimen bones of it being taken across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, it turned out that this alleged reptile was a whale, though of a departed species. —
但一些骨骼标本被带到海外交给了英国解剖学家欧文，发现这个所谓的爬行动物实际上是一只鲸，尽管属于已经灭绝的物种。 —

A significant illustration of the fact, again and again repeated in this book, that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the shape of his fully invested body. —
这在本书中一再出现的一个重要例子表明，鲸鱼的骨架对于其完全形态的身体形状提供很少线索。 —

So Owen rechristened the monster Zeuglodon; —
因此，欧文重新命名这个怪物为众龙鲸； —

and in his paper read before the London Geological Society, pronounced it, in substance, one of the most extraordinary creatures which the mutations of the globe have blotted out of existence.
并在伦敦地质学协会上宣称，在本质上它是地球变迁中抹去的最非凡的生物之一。

When I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons, skulls, tusks, jaws, ribs, and vertebrae, all characterized by partial resemblances to the existing breeds of sea-monsters; —
当我站在这些庞大的利维坦骨架、头骨、獠牙、下颚、肋骨和椎骨之间时，它们都带有与现存海洋生物部分相似之处； —

but at the same time bearing on the other hand similar affinities to the annihilated antichronical Leviathans, their incalculable seniors; —
但同时，却又具有与灭绝的远古利维坦相类似的亲缘关系，那些无法计算的前辈； —

I am, by a flood, borne back to that wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; —
我被一股洪水冲回到那奇妙的时期，时间本身似乎还没有开始； —

for time began with man. Here Saturn’s grey chaos rolls over me, and I obtain dim, shuddering glimpses into those Polar eternities; —
因为时间从人类开始。在这里，土星那灰色的混沌在我周围翻滚，我窥见极地永恒的模糊、颤抖的片段； —

when wedged bastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics; —
那时整个世界都是鲸的天下；而他，作为创造之王，留下了自己的痕迹，延伸至现今的安第斯山脉和喜马拉雅山脉。 —

and in all the 25,000 miles of this world’s circumference, not an inhabitable hand’s breadth of land was visible. —
在这一万里环绕的世界，现在看不到一寸可居住的陆地。 —

Then the whole world was the whale’s; and, king of creation, he left his wake along the present lines of the Andes and the Himmalehs. —
然后整个世界是鲸的；作为创造之王，他沿现今安第斯山脉和喜马拉雅山脉的线路留下他的踪迹。 —

Who can show a pedigree like Leviathan? Ahab’s harpoon had shed older blood than the Pharaoh’s. —
谁能展示利维坦这样的家谱？亚哈的鱼叉溅出的血液比法老的还要古老。 —

Methuselah seems a schoolboy. I look round to shake hands with Shem. I am horror-struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been before all time, must needs exist after all humane ages are over.
拿鹿撒看起来像个小学生。我环顾四周准备与闪姆握手。看到这个神秘的鲸的前摩西时代存在，使我感到震惊；这种鲸在所有人类年代结束后必定还会存在。

But not alone has this Leviathan left his pre-adamite traces in the stereotype plates of nature, and in limestone and marl bequeathed his ancient bust; —
但这利维坦并不仅仅在大自然的铭版、石灰岩和泥灰岩中留下他的古老半身像； —

but upon Egyptian tablets, whose antiquity seems to claim for them an almost fossiliferous character, we find the unmistakable print of his fin. —
但在埃及的碑文上，其古老程度似乎为它们赋予了一种近乎化石的特性，我们可以找到他鳍的明显痕迹。 —

In an apartment of the great temple of Denderah, some fifty years ago, there was discovered upon the granite ceiling a sculptured and painted planisphere, abounding in centaurs, griffins, and dolphins, similar to the grotesque figures on the celestial globe of the moderns. —
大约五十年前，在登德拉大神殿的一个房间里，人们在花岗岩天花板上发现了一个雕刻和绘制的天球图，上面充满了半人半马兽、狮鹫和海豚，类似于现代天球上的怪异图案。 —

Gliding among them, old Leviathan swam as of yore; —
老利维坦仍然在它们中间滑行，如同往昔一般； —

was there swimming in that planisphere, centuries before Solomon was cradled.
索罗门出生之前的几个世纪，它便在那个天球中游弋。

Nor must there be omitted another strange attestation of the antiquity of the whale, in his own osseous postdiluvian reality, as set down by the venerable John Leo, the old Barbary traveller.
另外，还有一个有关鲸鱼古老性质的古怪证据，据尊敬的巴巴利旅行者约翰·里奥所写。

“Not far from the Sea-side, they have a Temple, the Rafters and Beams of which are made of Whale-Bones; —
“靠近海边，他们有一座神殿，其椽和横梁由鲸骨制成； —

for Whales of a monstrous size are oftentimes cast up dead upon that shore. —
因为经常有体积巨大的鲸鱼死在海滩上。 —

The Common People imagine, that by a secret Power bestowed by God upon the Temple, no Whale can pass it without immediate death. —
普通百姓认为，神给予神庙一种秘密力量，让鲸鱼经过时会立即死亡。 —

But the truth of the Matter is, that on either side of the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot two Miles into the Sea, and wound the Whales when they light upon ‘em. —
然而事实是，神庙左右两侧有两英里长的岩石伸入海中，当鲸鱼落在上面时就会受伤。 —

They keep a Whale’s Rib of an incredible length for a Miracle, which lying upon the Ground with its convex part uppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of which cannot be reached by a Man upon a Camel’s Back. This Rib (says John Leo) is said to have layn there a hundred Years before I saw it. —
他们保存了一根难以置信长度的鲸骨为奇迹，当它平放在地上，凸起部分朝上时，形成一个拱门，骨头的顶端无法被骑骆驼的人达到。 —

Their Historians affirm, that a Prophet who prophesy’d of Mahomet, came from this Temple, and some do not stand to assert, that the Prophet Jonas was cast forth by the Whale at the Base of the Temple.”
他们的历史学家声称，一个预言家预言了穆罕默德的降生，来自这座神庙，甚至还有人断言先知约纳被吐出来，就在神庙的基座下。

In this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you, reader, and if you be a Nantucketer, and a whaleman, you will silently worship there.
在这座鲸鱼之神的非洲神庙里，我告诉你，读者，如果你是南安普敦人，一名捕鲸者，你将在那里默默膜拜。