論較不離譜的鯨像，與真實的捕鯨場景

In connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am strongly tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous stories of them which are to be found in certain books, both ancient and modern, especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, etc. But I pass that matter by.

談到那些荒謬的鯨圖，我在此很想再進一步談談那些更荒謬的、關於牠們的「故事」——它們見於某些古今書中，尤其是普林尼、珀切斯、哈克盧伊特、哈里斯、居維葉等人筆下。但這事我略過不談。

I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale; Colnett’s, Huggins’s, Frederick Cuvier’s, and Beale’s. ... Huggins’s is far better than theirs; but, by great odds, Beale’s is the best. ... His frontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales, though no doubt calculated to excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is admirably correct and life-like in its general effect. Some of the Sperm Whale drawings in J. Ross Browne are pretty correct in contour; but they are wretchedly engraved. That is not his fault though.

我所知已出版的大抹香鯨輪廓圖只有四幅：科爾尼特的、哈金斯的、弗雷德里克·居維葉的、比爾的。前一章已提過科爾尼特與居維葉。哈金斯的遠勝他們；而論優劣，比爾的最佳。比爾畫這鯨的所有素描都好——除了那張「三鯨各種姿態」圖（其第二章卷首插圖）中間那一隻。他的扉頁畫「小艇攻擊抹香鯨」，雖無疑會引起某些客廳閒人「客客氣氣的懷疑」，整體效果卻準確而逼真得令人讚嘆。羅斯·布朗書裡有些抹香鯨素描，輪廓相當正確；只是版刻得糟透了。不過那不是他的錯。

Of the Right Whale, the best outline pictures are in Scoresby; but they are drawn on too small a scale to convey a desirable impression. He has but one picture of whaling scenes, and this is a sad deficiency, because it is by such pictures only, when at all well done, that you can derive anything like a truthful idea of the living whale as seen by his living hunters.

論露脊鯨，最佳的輪廓圖在斯科斯比書中；但畫得比例太小，傳達不出令人滿意的印象。他只有一幅捕鯨場景的圖，這是個可悲的缺憾——因為唯有這類圖（只要畫得好），你才能對「活鯨在活生生的獵人眼中所見的樣子」得到任何近乎真切的概念。

But, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though in some details not the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling scenes to be anywhere found, are two large French engravings... taken from paintings by one Garnery. ... a noble Sperm Whale is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath the boat from the profundities of the ocean... you behold an oarsman, half shrouded by the incensed boiling spout of the whale, and in the act of leaping, as if from a precipice. The action of the whole thing is wonderfully good and true. ... Serious fault might be found with the anatomical details of this whale, but let that pass; since, for the life of me, I could not draw so good a one.

但總的來看，到處能找到的鯨與捕鯨場景的呈現中，遠遠最精彩的（雖某些細節並非最準確），是兩幅大型法國版畫——刻工精良，取自一位名叫加爾納里（Garnery）的人的畫作。它們分別表現攻擊抹香鯨與露脊鯨。第一幅版畫裡，一頭高貴的抹香鯨被畫得威猛十足、剛從大海的深淵升到小艇之下，背上高高舉著那被撞碎的船板的可怖殘骸。小艇的船首部分未斷，被畫成恰好平衡在那怪物的脊背上；而站在那船首上的——在那不可計量的一閃時間裡——你看見一名槳手，半掩在鯨那狂怒沸騰的噴水中，正做出縱身一躍的動作，彷彿從懸崖躍下。整件作品的「動作」美妙而真實得驚人。半空的繩桶浮在泛白的海上；潑灑出的魚叉的木柄斜斜地在水裡晃；泅水船員的頭顱以各種驚恐的對比神情散布在鯨的四周；而在黑色風暴的遠方，大船正壓向這一幕。這鯨的解剖細節或許找得到嚴重的毛病，但隨它去吧；因為，說真的，我自己也畫不出這麼好的一隻。

In the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing alongside the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale, that rolls his black weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-slide from the Patagonian cliffs. His jets are erect, full, and black like soot... And all the while the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake... Thus, the foreground is all raging commotion; but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed... and the inert mass of a dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily hanging from the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole.

第二幅版畫裡，小艇正貼上一頭奔逃的大露脊鯨那長滿藤壺的脅腹——牠在海裡翻滾著生著海藻的黑色身軀，像巴塔哥尼亞峭壁滑落的長著青苔的巨岩。牠的噴水筆直、飽滿、黑如煤煙；如此一個煙囪冒出這麼多的煙，你會以為底下那巨大的肚腸裡，必定正煮著一頓豐盛的晚餐。海鳥啄食著小蟹、貝類、以及露脊鯨有時馱在牠那「害人的背上」的其他「海中糖果與通心粉」。而那厚唇的巨獸始終衝過深海，在尾跡裡留下成噸翻騰的白色凝乳，使那小艇在浪湧裡搖晃，像一葉被吸近遠洋輪明輪邊的小舟。於是，前景全是狂暴的騷動；可背後，以絕妙的藝術反差，卻是一片風平浪靜、玻璃般平滑的海，那無力的大船耷拉著未漿挺的帆，以及一頭死鯨那僵滯的軀體——一座被攻陷的堡壘，捕獲之旗懶懶地從插進牠噴水孔的鯨竿上垂下。

Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life for it he was either practically conversant with his subject, or else marvellously tutored by some experienced whaleman. The French are the lads for painting action. Go and gaze upon all the paintings of Europe, and where will you find such a gallery of living and breathing commotion on canvas, as in that triumphal hall at Versailles... where every sword seems a flash of the Northern Lights, and the successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a charge of crowned centaurs? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that gallery, are these sea battle-pieces of Garnery.

加爾納里這畫家是誰、或曾是誰，我不知道。但我敢以性命打賭：他要嘛實際上熟悉他的題材，要嘛受過某位老練捕鯨人神乎其技的指點。法國人是畫動作的好手。去把全歐洲的畫都看一遍吧，你哪裡能找到像凡爾賽宮那「凱旋廳」那樣、在畫布上「活生生、會呼吸的騷動」的畫廊？——在那兒，觀者亂哄哄地殺出一條血路，穿過法蘭西接連的大戰役；在那兒，每一把劍都像北極光的一道閃爍，歷代披甲的帝王相繼疾馳而過，像一隊戴冠的半人馬的衝鋒。加爾納里這些海戰圖，躋身那畫廊也並非全不配。

The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the picturesqueness of things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what paintings and engravings they have of their whaling scenes. With not one tenth of England’s experience in the fishery, and not the thousandth part of that of the Americans, they have nevertheless furnished both nations with the only finished sketches at all capable of conveying the real spirit of the whale hunt. ... Even Scoresby... after giving us a stiff full length of the Greenland whale... treats us to a series of classical engravings of boat hooks, chopping knives, and grapnels; and with the microscopic diligence of a Leuwenhoeck submits to the inspection of a shivering world ninety-six fac-similes of magnified Arctic snow crystals. I mean no disparagement to the excellent voyager... but in so important a matter it was certainly an oversight not to have procured for every crystal a sworn affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice of the Peace.

法國人「捕捉事物如畫之美」的天賦，似乎在他們關於捕鯨場景的畫與版畫中表現得格外明顯。他們在這漁業上的經驗不及英國的十分之一、不及美國的千分之一，卻為兩國提供了「唯一能傳達捕鯨真精神」的完成素描。多數情況下，英美的鯨畫師似乎完全滿足於只呈現事物的「機械輪廓」——比如鯨那空洞的側影；就如畫之美而言，這大約等於描一座金字塔的側影。連斯科斯比，那位實至名歸的露脊鯨人，給了我們一隻僵硬的格陵蘭鯨全身像、加三四幅獨角鯨與鼠海豚的精緻小圖之後，竟改用一系列「典雅的」船鉤、剁刀、抓鉤的版畫來款待我們；還以列文虎克般的顯微鏡式勤勉，向發抖的世界呈獻九十六幅放大的北極雪花晶體摹本。我對這位優秀的航海家絕無貶意（我敬重他是位老前輩），但在這麼重要的事上，竟疏忽得沒為每一片晶體弄到一份在格陵蘭治安法官面前宣誓的證詞，這實在是個疏漏。

In addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are two other French engravings worthy of note, by some one who subscribes himself “H. Durand.” One of them... It is a quiet noon-scene among the isles of the Pacific; a French whaler anchored, inshore, in a calm, and lazily taking water on board... The other engraving is quite a different affair: the ship hove-to upon the open sea... with a Right Whale alongside; the vessel (in the act of cutting-in) hove over to the monster as if to a quay... From the ship, the smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke over a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud, rising up with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of the excited seamen.

除了加爾納里那些精美的版畫，另有兩幅值得一提的法國版畫，出自一位自署「H. 杜蘭」者之手。其中一幅，雖不完全切合我們眼下的目的，卻因別的緣故值得一提：那是太平洋諸島間一個靜謐的正午景——一艘法國捕鯨船在風平浪靜中靠岸下錨、懶洋洋地汲水上船；船上鬆開的帆、與背景裡棕櫚的長葉，都在無風的空氣中一同耷拉。就「呈現這些剽悍漁人少有的東方式安憩的一面」而言，效果極佳。另一幅版畫則是全然不同的場面：大船在公海上停船（hove-to），正處在「巨獸生命」的核心，一頭露脊鯨在旁；那船（正在「切割」鯨脂）朝那怪物傾側過去，彷彿靠向一座碼頭；一艘小艇匆匆從這繁忙的場景駛開，正要去追遠處的鯨。魚叉與長矛已平放待用；三名槳手正把桅杆插進孔裡；海面突然一個翻湧，那小艇半立出水，像一匹直立的馬。從大船上，那煮鯨之苦的煙正升起，像一座鐵匠村莊上空的煙；上風處，一團黑雲升起、預示著颮雨，似乎催快了那群興奮水手的動作。