亞哈

For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches was seen of Captain Ahab.

離開南塔克特後的好幾天，艙口之上都不見亞哈船長的蹤影。

The mates regularly relieved each other at the watches, and for aught that could be seen to the contrary, they seemed to be the only commanders of the ship; only they sometimes issued from the cabin with orders so sudden and peremptory, that after all it was plain they but commanded vicariously.

船副們按時輪流換班，就表面所見，他們彷彿是全船僅有的指揮者；只是他們有時從艙裡出來、帶著那麼突然而專斷的命令，可見說到底，他們不過是在「代行指揮」罷了。

Yes, their supreme lord and dictator was there, though hitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to penetrate into the now sacred retreat of the cabin.

是的，他們那至高無上的主宰與獨裁者就在那兒，只是迄今還沒被任何「未獲准踏進那如今神聖的艙室隱所」的眼睛見過。

Every time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, I instantly gazed aft to mark if any strange face were visible; for my first vague disquietude touching the unknown captain, now in the seclusion of the sea, became almost a perturbation.

每次我從底艙值完班上到甲板，總立刻往船尾張望，看有沒有陌生的面孔；因為我先前對這位未知船長那份隱約的不安，如今在海上的幽閉中，幾乎成了一種焦躁。

This was strangely heightened at times by the ragged Elijah’s diabolical incoherences uninvitedly recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived of.

這份不安，有時竟被那衣衫襤褸的以利亞那些「魔鬼般語無倫次」的話奇異地加劇——它們不請自來地回到我心頭，帶著一種我先前無從想像的微妙力量。

But poorly could I withstand them, much as in other moods I was almost ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of that outlandish prophet of the wharves.

我實在難以抵擋它們，儘管在別的心境下，我幾乎要對那碼頭上古怪先知那番一本正經的奇談發笑。

But whatever it was of apprehensiveness or uneasiness—to call it so—which I felt, yet whenever I came to look about me in the ship, it seemed against all warrantry to cherish such emotions.

可無論我所感到的那是何種憂懼或不安——姑且這麼稱呼——每當我在船上四下環顧，又覺得懷著這種情緒實在毫無根據。

For though the harpooneers, with the great body of the crew, were a far more barbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the tame merchant-ship companies which my previous experiences had made me acquainted with, still I ascribed this—and rightly ascribed it—to the fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation in which I had so abandonedly embarked.

因為，儘管標槍手連同大批船員，比我過去經驗裡所熟悉的任何溫馴商船船員都要野蠻、異教、駁雜得多，我仍把這——而且正確地把這——歸因於我如此豁出去投身的那狂野「斯堪地那維亞行當」本身那股兇悍的獨特性。

But it was especially the aspect of the three chief officers of the ship, the mates, which was most forcibly calculated to allay these colourless misgivings, and induce confidence and cheerfulness in every presentment of the voyage.

但尤其是船上三位主要軍官、那三位船副的模樣，最有力地足以平撫這些蒼白無謂的疑懼，並在這趟航程的每一種展望裡注入信心與愉快。

Three better, more likely sea-officers and men, each in his own different way, could not readily be found, and they were every one of them Americans; a Nantucketer, a Vineyarder, a Cape man.

三個更出色、更可靠的海上軍官與漢子，各以各自不同的方式，是不容易找到的；而且他們個個都是美國人：一個南塔克特人、一個葡萄園島人、一個鱈魚角人。

Now, it being Christmas when the ship shot from out her harbor, for a space we had biting Polar weather, though all the time running away from it to the southward; and by every degree and minute of latitude which we sailed, gradually leaving that merciless winter, and all its intolerable weather behind us.

卻說，船射出港口時正值聖誕，有一陣子我們遇上刺骨的極地天氣，儘管一路都在朝南逃離它；而隨著我們航過的每一度、每一分緯度，那無情的寒冬與它一切難熬的天氣，都被我們漸漸拋在身後。

It was one of those less lowering, but still grey and gloomy enough mornings of the transition, when with a fair wind the ship was rushing through the water with a vindictive sort of leaping and melancholy rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck at the call of the forenoon watch, so soon as I levelled my glance towards the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me.

那是過渡期裡一個不那麼陰沉、卻仍夠灰暗陰鬱的早晨，船借著順風，以一種帶宿怨的跳躍、憂鬱的疾速破水疾行；當我應上午班的召喚登上甲板、目光剛投向船尾欄杆時，一陣不祥的寒顫便掠過了我全身。

Reality outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck.

現實超出了預感：亞哈船長就立在他的後甲板上。

There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the recovery from any.

他身上似乎看不出任何尋常病痛的跡象，也看不出病後初癒的痕跡。

He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness.

他看上去像一個剛被從火刑柱上解下的人——烈火燒遍了他四肢卻沒把它們燒盡，也沒從那緊實而蒼老的剛健上奪走一分一毫。

His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini’s cast Perseus.

他那高大寬闊的全身，彷彿由堅實的青銅鑄成、塑進一個不可更改的模子裡，像切利尼鑄的珀爾修斯像。

Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish.

你會看見一道細長如杖、慘白泛青的痕跡，從他的灰髮間蜿蜒而出，順著他那黝黑焦灼的臉與脖子的一側一路下行，直到沒入他的衣服裡。

It resembled that perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top to bottom, ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded.

它像大樹那挺直高聳的樹幹上有時被劈出的那道垂直裂縫——當上方的閃電撕裂般沿它猛劈而下，不扭折一根枝椏，卻把樹皮從頭到尾剝開、刻出溝槽，再竄入泥土；留下那樹仍青蔥地活著，卻被烙上了印記。

Whether that mark was born with him, or whether it was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could certainly say.

那記號是與他一同生來的，還是某次拚死重傷留下的疤，誰也說不準。

By some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little or no allusion was made to it, especially by the mates.

出於某種心照不宣的默契，整趟航程裡幾乎無人提起它，船副們尤其如此。

But once Tashtego’s senior, an old Gay-Head Indian among the crew, superstitiously asserted that not till he was full forty years old did Ahab become that way branded, and then it came upon him, not in the fury of any mortal fray, but in an elemental strife at sea.

但有一回，塔什特戈的一位前輩、船員中一個老蓋黑德印第安人，迷信地斷言：亞哈足足到四十歲才被這麼烙上印記，而且那不是在任何凡人廝殺的狂暴裡降臨於他，而是在海上一場「元素之爭」中。

Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially negatived, by what a grey Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man, who, having never before sailed out of Nantucket, had never ere this laid eye upon wild Ahab.

然而，這個狂野的暗示，似乎被一個灰白的曼島人所影射的話間接否定了——那是個墓穴般陰森的老人，從沒出過南塔克特、在此之前也從未見過狂野的亞哈。

Nevertheless, the old sea-traditions, the immemorial credulities, popularly invested this old Manxman with preternatural powers of discernment.

然而，古老的海上傳統、那些自古相傳的輕信，普遍賦予了這老曼島人「超自然的洞察力」。

So that no white sailor seriously contradicted him when he said that if ever Captain Ahab should be tranquilly laid out—which might hardly come to pass, so he muttered—then, whoever should do that last office for the dead, would find a birth-mark on him from crown to sole.

所以當他說：若亞哈船長哪天安詳地躺平——他咕噥道，這只怕難得發生——那麼替死者料理後事的人，會發現他從頭頂到腳底有一道「胎記」時，沒有哪個白人水手認真反駁他。

So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly noted that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood.

亞哈整個陰森的模樣、以及那道劃過其上的慘白烙痕，如此強烈地震撼了我，以致頭幾刻我幾乎沒注意到：這壓人的森然有不小一部分，來自他半邊立著的那條野蠻的白腿。

It had previously come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the polished bone of the sperm whale’s jaw.

我先前已得知，這條象牙腿是在海上、用抹香鯨顎骨磨光的骨頭做成的。

“Aye, he was dismasted off Japan,” said the old Gay-Head Indian once; “but like his dismasted craft, he shipped another mast without coming home for it. He has a quiver of ’em.”

「對，他在日本外海『斷了桅』，」老蓋黑德印第安人曾說過；「可他像他那艘斷了桅的船一樣，沒回家就裝上了另一根桅。他備著一整箙呢。」

I was struck with the singular posture he maintained.

他所保持的那個奇特姿態，令我一震。

Upon each side of the Pequod’s quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizzen shrouds, there was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so, into the plank.

裴廓德號後甲板的兩側、相當靠近後桅側支索的地方，甲板上各鑽了一個約莫半吋深的鑽孔。

His bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm elevated, and holding by a shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out beyond the ship’s ever-pitching prow.

他把骨腿穩穩插進那孔裡；一臂高舉、抓著一根支索；亞哈船長挺直地立著，目光直直越過船那不停顛簸的船首，望向遠方。

There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedication of that glance.

在那凝定而無懼、向前傾注的一瞥裡，有一種無限堅定的剛毅、一種斬釘截鐵、絕不屈服的意志。

Not a word he spoke; nor did his officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye.

他一個字也不說；他的軍官們也不敢對他講半句；然而從他們最細微的手勢與神情，分明流露出一種「身處一雙憂煩的主人之眼底下」的不安、甚至痛苦的自覺。

And not only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe.

不僅如此，鬱結而受創的亞哈立在他們面前，臉上刻著一種「受難」之相；帶著某種雄渾大慟所賦予的、難以名狀、帝王般凌駕一切的尊嚴。

Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his cabin.

不久，這頭一回到甲板上露面之後，他便退回了他的艙室。

But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew; either standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he had; or heavily walking the deck.

但那個早晨之後，他每天都讓船員看得見：或立在他那「樞孔」裡、或坐在他那張象牙凳上、或沉重地在甲板上踱步。

As the sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began to grow a little genial, he became still less and less a recluse; as if, when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded.

隨著天空漸漸不那麼陰沉、甚至開始有點和煦，他也越來越少幽居獨處；彷彿當初船一離家，把他關得那麼緊的，無非是海上那死寂的隆冬荒涼。

And, by and by, it came to pass, that he was almost continually in the air; but, as yet, for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, he seemed as unnecessary there as another mast.

漸漸地，到後來他幾乎一直待在甲板上；可至此為止，就他在那終於放晴的甲板上所說的、或明顯所做的而言，他在那兒彷彿跟多一根桅杆一樣多餘。

But the Pequod was only making a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whaling preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to, so that there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ or excite Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval, the clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon.

但裴廓德號此刻只是在趕路、並非正式巡獵；幾乎一切需要督管的捕鯨準備，船副們都完全能勝任；於是眼下，除了他自己以外，幾乎沒什麼事可勞動或激起亞哈、好在那一段過渡期裡替他驅散那層層堆在他眉間的烏雲——一如烏雲總愛揀最高的峰頂堆積。

Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood.

然而不久，我們駛入的那宜人假日般天氣、那暖意融融、婉轉如歌的勸誘，似乎漸漸把他從陰鬱中誘了出來。

For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air.

因為，正如紅頰歡舞的「四月」與「五月」兩位姑娘，輕快地回到那冬日厭世的林子裡時，連最光禿、最嶙峋、最被雷劈裂的老橡樹，也至少會抽出幾枝嫩綠，來迎接這些歡欣的訪客；亞哈最終也對那少女般天氣的嬉戲招引，略略作了回應。

More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile.

他不止一次綻出一抹淡淡的神色——那神色換了任何別的人，早就會開成一朵笑了。