南塔克特

Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket.

航程上再沒發生什麼值得一提的事；於是，一帆風順之後，我們平安抵達了南塔克特。

Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it.

南塔克特！拿出你的地圖來瞧瞧它。

See what a real corner of the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely than the Eddystone lighthouse.

看它佔據著世界一個何等偏僻的角落；看它怎樣孤懸在那兒、遠離海岸，比埃迪斯通燈塔還要孤單。

Look at it—a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach, without a background.

瞧瞧它——不過是一座小沙丘、一彎沙肘；通體是海灘，沒有任何（陸地的）背景襯托。

There is more sand there than you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper.

那兒的沙，比你二十年裡拿來代替吸墨紙用的還要多。

Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they don’t grow naturally; that they import Canada thistles; that they have to send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome; that people there plant toadstools before their houses, to get under the shade in summer time; that one blade of grass makes an oasis, three blades in a day’s walk a prairie; that they wear quicksand shoes, something like Laplander snow-shoes; that they are so shut up, belted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island of by the ocean, that to their very chairs and tables small clams will sometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of sea turtles.

有些愛開玩笑的傢伙會告訴你：那兒的雜草得用種的，因為它們不會自然生長；他們得進口加拿大薊；要找一根木栓去堵油桶的漏洞，都得漂洋過海去要；南塔克特的木片，被人像羅馬的真十字架碎片一樣捧著傳看；那兒的人在屋前種毒蕈，好在夏天躲到底下乘涼；一片草葉就成了一座綠洲，走一天路碰上三片草葉就算一片大草原；他們穿「流沙鞋」，有點像拉普蘭人的雪鞋；他們被海洋關得那麼死、團團束住、四面圍困、徹底圈成一座孤島，以致連他們的桌椅上，有時都會發現黏著小蛤——就像黏在海龜背上一樣。

But these extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois.

但這些誇張的胡謅，只說明南塔克特絕不是（內陸的）伊利諾州。

Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was settled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend.

現在來看看這座島當初如何被紅種人拓居的那則奇妙的傳說。傳說是這麼講的。

In olden times an eagle swooped down upon the New England coast, and carried off an infant Indian in his talons.

在遠古的時候，一隻老鷹俯衝撲向新英格蘭海岸，用牠的利爪叼走了一個印第安嬰兒。

With loud lament the parents saw their child borne out of sight over the wide waters.

做父母的高聲悲號，眼看著自己的孩子被叼著、越過茫茫大水、消失在視線之外。

They resolved to follow in the same direction.

他們下定決心朝同一個方向追去。

Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous passage they discovered the island, and there they found an empty ivory casket,—the poor little Indian’s skeleton.

他們划著獨木舟出發，歷經一段凶險的航程後發現了這座島，並在那兒找到了一具空的象牙小盒——那可憐的小印第安人的骨骸。

What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should take to the sea for a livelihood!

那麼，這些生在沙灘上的南塔克特人會以海為生，又有什麼好奇怪的呢！

They first caught crabs and quohogs in the sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets for mackerel; more experienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod; and at last, launching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this watery world; put an incessant belt of circumnavigations round it; peeped in at Behring’s Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans declared everlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has survived the flood; most monstrous and most mountainous!

他們起先在沙裡抓螃蟹和圓蛤；膽子大了，便涉水出去張網捕鯖魚；更有經驗了，便撐船出海捕鱈魚；終於，他們在海上發起了一支大船組成的海軍，探索這片水的世界；給它纏上一條接連不斷的環球航行之帶；探頭窺看白令海峽；並在一切季節、一切海洋裡，向那洪水之後倖存下來、最龐大的活物宣告永恆的戰爭——那最是駭人、最是山嶽般龐然的活物！

That Himmalehan, salt-sea Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that his very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and malicious assaults!

那喜馬拉雅般、鹹海裡的乳齒象，渾身披著一種無意識的力量所散發的凶兆之氣，以致連牠的驚慌失措，都比牠最無畏、最兇狠的攻擊還要可怕！

And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like so many Alexanders; parcelling out among them the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did Poland.

就這樣，這些光著身子的南塔克特人、這些海上的隱士，從他們那座海中的蟻丘裡傾巢而出，像一個個亞歷山大大帝那樣，橫掃並征服了這片水的世界；把大西洋、太平洋、印度洋瓜分到各人手裡，就像那三個海盜強權瓜分波蘭一樣。

Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer’s.

任憑美國把墨西哥併到德州、把古巴疊到加拿大上頭；任憑英國人擠滿整個印度、把他們那面灼灼生輝的旗幟從太陽上掛出來；這個水陸交織的地球，仍有三分之二是屬於南塔克特人的。

For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen having but a right of way through it.

因為大海是他的；他像帝王擁有帝國那樣擁有它；別的水手不過有條穿越它的通行權罷了。

Merchant ships are but extension bridges; armed ones but floating forts; even pirates and privateers, though following the sea as highwaymen the road, they but plunder other ships, other fragments of the land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the bottomless deep itself.

商船不過是延伸的橋；武裝的軍艦不過是浮動的堡壘；就連海盜與私掠船，雖像攔路強盜走大路那樣討海營生，卻也只是劫掠別的船——別的、和他們一樣的「陸地碎片」罷了，並不曾想從那無底的深淵本身去汲取生計。

The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation.

唯獨南塔克特人，獨自一人棲居在海上、在海上縱情狂歡；唯獨他，用《聖經》的話說，「坐船下到海中」；在海上來來回回地耕犁，彷彿那是他自己專屬的種植園。

There is his home; there lies his business, which a Noah’s flood would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in China.

那兒才是他的家；那兒才是他的營生——一場諾亞洪水也打斷不了它，哪怕那洪水淹沒了中國千百萬的生靈。

He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps.

他住在海上，就像草原松雞住在草原上；他藏身於波濤之間，攀爬波濤，如同獵岩羚的人攀爬阿爾卑斯山。

For years he knows not the land; so that when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman.

一連好幾年他不識陸地；以致他最後上岸時，陸地聞起來像是另一個世界，比月亮對一個地球人來說還要陌生。

With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales.

就像那無陸可棲的海鷗，日落時收攏雙翼、在波濤之間被搖晃著入睡；南塔克特人也一樣，夜幕降臨時，在看不見陸地的海上收起風帆、躺下歇息，而就在他的枕頭底下，正奔湧著成群的海象與鯨。