On Tower-hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have seen a crippled beggar (or kedger, as the sailors say) holding a painted board before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his leg. —
在塔山上，当你下到伦敦码头时，你可能会看到一个跛腿的乞丐(或者说是水手们称之为kedger)，他面前摆着一块绘有惨痛场景的画板，表示他失去腿时的情景。 —

There are three whales and three boats; and one of the boats (presumed to contain the missing leg in all its original integrity) is being crunched by the jaws of the foremost whale. —
画板上有三条鲸鱼和三艘小船；其中一艘小船(据推测可能装有失腿的原始部分)被最前面的鲸鱼的下巴咬住了。 —

Any time these ten years, they tell me, has that man held up that picture, and exhibited that stump to an incredulous world. —
他们告诉我，这个人已经有十年的时间，举着那幅画，向不信任的世界展示他的残肢。 —

But the time of his justification has now come. —
但他的辩护时刻现在到来了。 —

His three whales are as good whales as were ever published in Wapping, at any rate; —
他的三只鲸鱼与Wapping发表过的任何好鲸鱼一样； —

and his stump as unquestionable a stump as any you will find in the western clearings. —
他的残肢是无可置疑的残肢，是你在西部开阔地会找到的。 —

But, though for ever mounted on that stump, never a stump-speech does the poor whaleman make; —
然而，尽管永远架在那个残肢上，这个可怜的捕鲸者从未做过残肢演讲； —

but, with downcast eyes, stands ruefully contemplating his own amputation.
他只是低着头，忧郁地凝视着自己的截肢。

Throughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket, and New Bedford, and Sag Harbor, you will come across lively sketches of whales and whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on Sperm Whale-teeth, or ladies’ busks wrought out of the Right Whale-bone, and other like skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the numerous little ingenious contrivances they elaborately carve out of the rough material, in their hours of ocean leisure. —
在整个太平洋地区，还有在南塔基特、纽贝德福特和萨格港，你会看到渔民们在抹香鲸牙齿上，或者女用鲸骨制作的背梁上，刻画的生动的鲸鱼和捕鲸场景；这些都是捕鲸者自己雕刻出来的，还有其他像渔夫所称的那种小巧的机敏物品。 —

Some of them have little boxes of dentistical-looking implements, specially intended for the skrimshandering business. —
他们有些有专门用于雕刻的仿牙器具小盒。 —

But, in general, they toil with their jack-knives alone; —
但通常，他们只用折刀辛勤工作； —

and, with that almost omnipotent tool of the sailor, they will turn you out anything you please, in the way of a mariner’s fancy.
并用水手几乎无所不能的工具，为了一个水手的幻想，他们会给你制作任何你喜欢的东西。

Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed him, i. —
与基督教和文明长期的流放必然使一个人恢复到上帝赋予他的那种被称为野蛮的状态。您真正的捕鲸者和易洛魁人一样是野蛮的。 —

e. what is called savagery. Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. —
我自己也是野蛮的，只效忠于食人族之王。 —

I myself am a savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; —
我本人也是野蛮的，只顺从于食人族之王。 —

and ready at any moment to rebel against him.
并随时准备反抗他。

Now, one of the peculiar characteristics of the savage in his domestic hours, is his wonderful patience of industry. —
现在，野蛮人在家中的特殊特点之一是他对工作的出色耐心。 —

An ancient Hawaiian war-club or spear-paddle, in its full multiplicity and elaboration of carving, is as great a trophy of human perseverance as a Latin lexicon. —
一支古老的夏威夷战斗狼牙棒或长矛桨，在其复杂精致的雕刻中，是人类毅力的伟大纪念品。 —

For, with but a bit of broken sea-shell or a shark’s tooth, that miraculous intricacy of wooden net-work has been achieved; —
因为，仅凭一小片破碎的海贝壳或一只鲨鱼的牙齿，就完成了那种奇妙的木网的复杂构图； —

and it has cost steady years of steady application.
而这需要持续不断的岁月来完成。

As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the white sailor-savage. —
正如夏威夷野蛮人一样，白人水手野蛮人也是如此。 —

With the same marvellous patience, and with the same single shark’s tooth, of his one poor jack-knife, he will carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not quite as workmanlike, but as close packed in its maziness of design, as the Greek savage, Achilles’s shield; —
凭着同样奇妙的耐心，以及他那把破旧的折刀上的一根鲨鱼牙齿，他会为你雕刻一件骨雕作品，也许不像希腊野蛮人阿奇里斯盾那样精工细作，但在设计的错综复杂中丝毫不逊色； —

and full of barbaric spirit and suggestiveness, as the prints of that fine old Dutch savage, Albert Durer.
充满了野蛮的精神和暗示，如同那位优秀的老荷兰野蛮人阿尔布雷希特·丢勒的画作。

Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile out of the small dark slabs of the noble South Sea war-wood, are frequently met with in the forecastles of American whalers. —
木制的鲸鱼，或者从贵族南海战争木料的小黑色木板上剪下的侧面鲸鱼，经常见于美国捕鲸船的舱里。 —

Some of them are done with much accuracy.
其中一些做得非常准确。

At some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass whales hung by the tail for knockers to the road-side door. —
在一些老式有尖顶的乡间别墅上，你会看到黄铜鲸鱼挂在路边门扇上当门环。 —

When the porter is sleepy, the anvil-headed whale would be best. —
当门房困倦时，硬头鲸应该是最好的选择。 —

But these knocking whales are seldom remarkable as faithful essays. —
但这些敲击鲸鱼很少被作为忠实的尝试。 —

On the spires of some old-fashioned churches you will see sheet-iron whales placed there for weathercocks; —
在一些老式的教堂尖顶上，你会看到铁皮鲸鱼被放置在那里当指南针； —

but they are so elevated, and besides that are to all intents and purposes so labelled with “Hands off!” —
但它们太高，而且除此之外，在所有意图和目的上都被标记为“勿触！”。 —

you cannot examine them closely enough to decide upon their merit.
你无法仔细检查它们以决定它们的价值。

In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high broken cliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the plain, you will often discover images as of the petrified forms of the Leviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against them in a surf of green surges.
在骨瘦如柴的地区，靠近高高的断崖基部，岩石堆积在平原上，你经常会发现象石化的利维坦形态部分混在草中，风起之日，绿色波涛拍打在它们上面。

Then, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is continually girdled by amphitheatrical heights; —
而在多山之地，旅行者常被环绕在壮丽的山峰之中； —

here and there from some lucky point of view you will catch passing glimpses of the profiles of whales defined along the undulating ridges. —
在某些幸运的角度，你会偶然看到鲸鱼的轮廓沿着起伏的山脊浮现。 —

But you must be a thorough whaleman, to see these sights; —
但你必须是一个彻底的捕鲸者才能看到这些景象； —

and not only that, but if you wish to return to such a sight again, you must be sure and take the exact intersecting latitude and longitude of your first stand-point, else so chance-like are such observations of the hills, that your precise, previous stand-point would require a laborious re-discovery; —
不止如此，如果你想再次回到这一景象，你必须确定并记下你初次停留时的确切纬度和经度相交点，否则像这样的对山丘的观察太像偶然，你以前准确的位置会需要费力重新发现； —

like the Solomon islands, which still remain incognita, though once high-ruffed Mendanna trod them and old Figuera chronicled them.
正如所罗门群岛一样，它们仍然未知，尽管曾经高高隆起的门丹纳曾踏上那里，老菲格拉记录过它们。

Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to trace out great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them; —
当你被你的主题振奋时，你也会在繁星灿烂的天空中发现巨鲸，以及追逐它们的船只； —

as when long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations saw armies locked in battle among the clouds. —
就像东方国家长时间充满战争念头时，看到云上的军队在战斗。 —

Thus at the North have I chased Leviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright points that first defined him to me. —
因此在北方，我追逐利维坦在极点周围旋转，用最初定义他的明亮点的旋转。 —

And beneath the effulgent Antarctic skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Flying Fish.
在璀璨的南极天空下，我登上了阿尔戈?纳维斯，参加追猎对抗遥远的星座鲸，超出了蛇发座和飞鱼星座的极限。

With a frigate’s anchors for my bridle-bitts and fasces of harpoons for spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the topmost skies, to see whether the fabled heavens with all their countless tents really lie encamped beyond my mortal sight!
用一艘护卫舰的船锚作为我驾驭的束链，鱼叉作为马刺，但愿我能骑上那鲸鱼，跃向最高的天空，看看传说中的天堂和他们无数的帐幕是否真的在我人类视线之外扎营！