騎士與侍從

Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence, according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man.

斯塔布是二副。他是鱈魚角本地人；因此，按當地的叫法，被稱作「鱈魚角人」。

A happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged for the year.

一個樂天知命的人；既不怯懦、也不英勇；危險來了便來者不拒、一臉無所謂；而當追鯨陷入最迫在眉睫的危機時，他仍埋頭幹活，鎮定自若，像個受僱整年的細木工學徒。

Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his whale-boat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests.

他性子好、隨和、滿不在乎，指揮他那艘捕鯨小艇時，彷彿最致命的搏鬥不過是一頓晚餐、他的船員全是受邀的賓客。

He was as particular about the comfortable arrangement of his part of the boat, as an old stage-driver is about the snugness of his box.

他對自己那部分艇上的舒適布置講究得很，就像一個老驛車車夫對他那駕駛座的安穩那般在意。

When close to the whale, in the very death-lock of the fight, he handled his unpitying lance coolly and off-handedly, as a whistling tinker his hammer.

貼近鯨、在搏鬥那生死相扣的關頭，他冷靜而隨意地使著那柄毫不留情的長槍，像個吹著口哨的補鍋匠揮著他的錘子。

He would hum over his old rigadig tunes while flank and flank with the most exasperated monster.

他甚至會在跟那最暴怒的巨獸並肩肉搏時，哼著他那些老掉牙的快板小調。

Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair.

長年的習慣，對這位斯塔布而言，已把「死亡之顎」變成了一張安樂椅。

What he thought of death itself, there is no telling.

他對死亡本身怎麼想，無從得知。

Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question; but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir themselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed the order, and not sooner.

他究竟有沒有想過死，都成問題；但倘若他果真在一頓舒服的晚餐後，偶爾把心思往那邊一轉，那無疑——像個好水手一樣——他會把它當成換班的哨音：叫他爬上桅去、在那兒忙活點什麼，至於是什麼事，等他聽令上去才會知道，絕不會早一步。

What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going, unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a world full of grave pedlars, all bowed to the ground with their packs; what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that thing must have been his pipe.

究竟是什麼——或許連同別的因素——使斯塔布成了這麼一個逍遙無懼的人，能在這滿是「愁眉苦臉、被各自的包袱壓得彎腰駝背的小販」的世界裡，如此快活地扛起人生的重擔趕路；究竟是什麼促成了他那近乎不敬神的好脾氣；那東西，必定是他的菸斗。

For, like his nose, his short, black little pipe was one of the regular features of his face.

因為，就像他的鼻子一樣，那短短的、黑黑的小菸斗，是他臉上的固定五官之一。

You would almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk without his nose as without his pipe.

你幾乎會覺得：要他不帶鼻子起床，跟要他不帶菸斗起床，是一樣難以想像的事。

He kept a whole row of pipes there ready loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his hand; and, whenever he turned in, he smoked them all out in succession, lighting one from the other to the end of the chapter; then loading them again to be in readiness anew.

他在那兒插著一整排上好了菸、隨時待用的菸斗，擱在伸手可及的架子上；每當他躺下，就一根接一根地把它們挨個抽完，一根點著另一根、直到「全章抽盡」；然後再重新裝滿，以備下回。

For, when Stubb dressed, instead of first putting his legs into his trowsers, he put his pipe into his mouth.

因為斯塔布穿衣時，不是先把腿伸進褲子，而是先把菸斗塞進嘴裡。

I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least, of his peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this earthly air, whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it; and as in time of the cholera, some people go about with a camphorated handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against all mortal tribulations, Stubb’s tobacco smoke might have operated as a sort of disinfecting agent.

我說，這沒完沒了的抽菸，至少必定是他那古怪性情的成因之一；因為人人都知道，這人世的空氣——無論岸上海上——都被無數臨死之人呼出它時所帶的、那說不出名的悲苦，可怕地感染著；正如霍亂流行時，有些人嘴上捂著一塊浸了樟腦的手帕走來走去；同樣地，面對人世一切的苦難，斯塔布的菸草煙霧，大概也起著某種「消毒劑」的作用。

The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha’s Vineyard. A short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the great leviathans had personally and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered.

三副是弗拉斯克，瑪莎葡萄園島提斯伯里人。一個矮壯、紅臉的小伙子，一談到鯨就好鬥得很，他不知怎地竟認為那些大巨獸是「私下裡、世代相傳地冒犯了他」；因此，每逢遇上就把牠們消滅掉，於他成了一種「榮譽攸關」的事。

So utterly lost was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of any possible danger from encountering them; that in his poor opinion, the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least water-rat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil.

他對鯨那雄偉的龐大身軀與神祕習性的種種奇蹟，全然喪失了任何敬畏之感；對遭遇牠們可能帶來的任何危險，也麻木得毫無一絲警覺；以至於在他那點淺見裡，這了不起的鯨，不過是「放大版的老鼠」一類、頂多算隻水耗子，只需略施小計、再花一點點工夫，就能宰來煮了。

This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in the matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it; and a three years’ voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted that length of time.

他這份無知無覺的無畏，使他在對待鯨這事上有點愛開玩笑的勁兒；他追這些魚是為了好玩；一趟三年、繞行合恩角的航程，於他只是「持續那麼久的一個快活笑話」。

As a carpenter’s nails are divided into wrought nails and cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided. Little Flask was one of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight and last long.

正如木匠的釘子分為「鍛造釘」與「切割釘」；人類大概也可這麼分。小弗拉斯克便是「鍛造的那一種」——天生就能咬得緊、耐得久。

They called him King-Post on board of the Pequod; because, in form, he could be well likened to the short, square timber known by that name in Arctic whalers; and which by the means of many radiating side timbers inserted into it, serves to brace the ship against the icy concussions of those battering seas.

船上叫他「中柱（King-Post）」；因為論體型，他很可以比作北極捕鯨船裡那根叫這名字的、又短又方的木柱——靠著許多從四面插進它的輻射狀側木，它用來撐住船身、抵擋那些猛撞的冰海衝擊。

Now these three mates—Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, were momentous men. They it was who by universal prescription commanded three of the Pequod’s boats as headsmen.

卻說這三位船副——斯塔巴克、斯塔布和弗拉斯克——都是舉足輕重的人物。照普遍的慣例，正是他們各自當「艇長」，指揮裴廓德號的三艘小艇。

In that grand order of battle in which Captain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend on the whales, these three headsmen were as captains of companies.

在亞哈船長大概會用來調兵遣將、撲向鯨群的那個宏大戰陣裡，這三位艇長就如同各連隊的隊長。

Or, being armed with their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of lancers; even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins.

又或者，他們既配著長而鋒利的捕鯨槍，便如同一組精選的「持矛槍騎兵」；正如那些標槍手是「擲標槍的人」。

And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the assault; and moreover, as there generally subsists between the two, a close intimacy and friendliness; it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set down who the Pequod’s harpooneers were, and to what headsman each of them belonged.

而既然在這著名的捕鯨行當裡，每位船副或艇長，都像古時的哥德式騎士一樣，總有他的「掌舵手」或標槍手相隨——在某些緊要關頭，當前一柄長槍在攻擊中被嚴重扭彎、或撞歪了，後者便遞上一柄新的；再者，這兩人之間通常存著一種親密的交情與友誼；因此，在此處交代清楚裴廓德號的標槍手都有誰、各自又隸屬哪位艇長，便是合宜的了。

First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate, had selected for his squire. But Queequeg is already known.

首先是魁魁格，大副斯塔巴克選他作自己的侍從。不過魁魁格已經為人所熟知了。

Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly promontory of Martha’s Vineyard, where there still exists the last remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooneers.

其次是塔什特戈，一個血統純正的印第安人，來自蓋黑德——瑪莎葡萄園島最西端的海岬，那兒至今還留存著一個紅人村落的最後遺孑，長久以來，它為鄰近的南塔克特島輸送了許多最勇猛的標槍手。

In the fishery, they usually go by the generic name of Gay-Headers.

在捕鯨行裡，他們通常被統稱為「蓋黑德人」。

Tashtego’s long, lean, sable hair, his high cheek bones, and black rounding eyes—for an Indian, Oriental in their largeness, but Antarctic in their glittering expression—all this sufficiently proclaimed him an inheritor of the unvitiated blood of those proud warrior hunters, who, in quest of the great New England moose, had scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal forests of the main.

塔什特戈那又長又稀、烏黑如貂的頭髮，他高聳的顴骨，他黑而渾圓的眼睛——以一個印第安人而言，那雙眼大得像東方人，閃爍的神情卻冷得像南極——這一切都足以宣告：他承繼著那些驕傲的獵人戰士未受玷污的血統——他們昔日為了追獵新英格蘭的巨鹿，曾手持弓箭，踏遍大陸上原始的森林。

But no longer snuffing in the trail of the wild beasts of the woodland, Tashtego now hunted in the wake of the great whales of the sea; the unerring harpoon of the son fitly replacing the infallible arrow of the sires.

但塔什特戈如今不再循著林中野獸的蹤跡嗅探，而是追逐著海中巨鯨的航跡而獵；兒子那百發百中的魚叉，恰如其分地接替了先輩那彈無虛發的箭。

To look at the tawny brawn of his lithe snaky limbs, you would almost have credited the superstitions of some of the earlier Puritans, and half-believed this wild Indian to be a son of the Prince of the Powers of the Air.

望著他那柔韌如蛇的四肢上黝黑的肌肉，你幾乎要相信早期某些清教徒的迷信，半信這個野性的印第安人是「空中權勢之君」之子。

Tashtego was Stubb the second mate’s squire.

塔什特戈是二副斯塔布的侍從。

Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-black negro-savage, with a lion-like tread—an Ahasuerus to behold.

標槍手中的第三位是大個兒，一個巨人般、煤炭般漆黑的非洲黑人，邁著獅子般的步子——看上去活像個亞哈隨魯王。

Suspended from his ears were two golden hoops, so large that the sailors called them ring-bolts, and would talk of securing the top-sail halyards to them.

他耳上垂著兩個金環，大得水手們都管它們叫「索環」，還說要把上桅帆的纜繩繫到上頭去。

In his youth Daggoo had voluntarily shipped on board of a whaler, lying in a lonely bay on his native coast.

大個兒年輕時，在他故鄉海岸一個僻靜的海灣裡，自願上了一艘捕鯨船受僱。

And never having been anywhere in the world but in Africa, Nantucket, and the pagan harbors most frequented by whalemen; and having now led for many years the bold life of the fishery in the ships of owners uncommonly heedful of what manner of men they shipped; Daggoo retained all his barbaric virtues, and erect as a giraffe, moved about the decks in all the pomp of six feet five in his socks.

他這輩子除了非洲、南塔克特，以及捕鯨人最常去的那些異教港口，哪兒都沒到過；如今又在那些對「僱什麼樣的人」格外講究的船東的船上，過了多年捕鯨的豪邁生涯；大個兒仍保有他全部的蠻荒美德，像長頸鹿般挺直，穿著襪子六呎五吋的全副威儀，在甲板上走來走去。

There was a corporeal humility in looking up at him; and a white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to beg truce of a fortress.

仰望著他，會生出一種「肉身上的謙卑」；一個白人站在他面前，活像一面前來向堡壘乞求休戰的白旗。

Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Ahasuerus Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a chess-man beside him.

說來有趣，這位帝王般的黑人、亞哈隨魯式的大個兒，竟是矮小弗拉斯克的侍從——後者站在他身旁，看著就像一枚棋子。

As for the residue of the Pequod’s company, be it said, that at the present day not one in two of the many thousand men before the mast employed in the American whale fishery, are Americans born, though pretty nearly all the officers are.

至於裴廓德號其餘的船員，得說一句：時至今日，受僱於美國捕鯨業、在桅前當水手的數千人裡，本土出生的美國人還不到一半；雖然軍官則幾乎全是。

Herein it is the same with the American whale fishery as with the American army and military and merchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the construction of the American Canals and Railroads. The same, I say, because in all these cases the native American liberally provides the brains, the rest of the world as generously supplying the muscles.

在這一點上，美國捕鯨業跟美國的陸軍、海軍與商船隊、以及修築美國運河鐵路的工程隊伍，都是一個樣。我說一個樣，是因為在這所有情形裡，本土美國人都慷慨地供應「頭腦」，世界其餘地方則同樣慷慨地供應「肌肉」。

No small number of these whaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the outward bound Nantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews from the hardy peasants of those rocky shores.

這些捕鯨水手裡，有不少來自亞速群島——出航的南塔克特捕鯨船常在那兒靠岸，從那些岩岸上強健的農人中增補人手。

In like manner, the Greenland whalers sailing out of Hull or London, put in at the Shetland Islands, to receive the full complement of their crew. Upon the passage homewards, they drop them there again.

同樣地，從赫爾或倫敦出航的格陵蘭捕鯨船，會在設得蘭群島停靠，補足整船的人手。回航途中，再把他們放回那裡。

How it is, there is no telling, but Islanders seem to make the best whalemen. They were nearly all Islanders in the Pequod, Isolatoes too, I call such, not acknowledging the common continent of men, but each Isolato living on a separate continent of his own.

這是何故，無從說起，但島民似乎最適合當捕鯨人。裴廓德號上幾乎全是島民——也都是「孤島人（Isolatoes）」，我這麼稱呼他們：不承認人類共有的那片大陸，每個「孤島人」都活在自己一座獨立的大陸上。

Yet now, federated along one keel, what a set these Isolatoes were!

然而此刻，沿著一根龍骨聯邦化在一起，這群「孤島人」竟成了何等奇特的一夥！

An Anacharsis Clootz deputation from all the isles of the sea, and all the ends of the earth, accompanying Old Ahab in the Pequod to lay the world’s grievances before that bar from which not very many of them ever come back.

一支「阿那卡西斯·克魯茨式的使節團」，來自天下各海島、地極各端，隨老亞哈搭著裴廓德號，去把世界的種種怨屈，陳訴於那座「沒幾個人能從中回來」的法庭之前。

Black Little Pip—he never did—oh, no! he went before. Poor Alabama boy!

小黑人皮普——他就從沒回來——噢，不！他「先去了」。可憐的阿拉巴馬小子！

On the grim Pequod’s forecastle, ye shall ere long see him, beating his tambourine; prelusive of the eternal time, when sent for, to the great quarter-deck on high, he was bid strike in with angels, and beat his tambourine in glory; called a coward here, hailed a hero there!

在裴廓德號陰森的船頭，你不久就會見他敲著他的手鼓；那是「永恆時刻」的前奏——將來他被召喚、上到「天上那座宏偉的後甲板」時，必被命與天使們一同敲響、在榮光中擊鼓：在這裡被喚作懦夫，在那裡卻被頌為英雄！