被遺棄者

It was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that a most significant event befell the most insignificant of the Pequod’s crew... which ended in providing the sometimes madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own. ...that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper. It was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin... Pip by abbreviation.

遇上那法國人不過幾天後，一樁意義最重大的事，降臨在裴廓德號最微不足道的船員身上——一樁最可悲的（lamentable）事；它最終為這艘「時而瘋狂歡快、卻命中注定（predestinated）」的船，提供了一個「活生生、永遠相隨的、預示她自己將有何種破碎終局」的預言。在捕鯨船上，並非人人都下艇。少數幾個人被留下、叫「船看守（ship-keepers）」，職責是在艇追鯨時操作船隻。一般而言，這些船看守跟艇上的船員一樣是硬漢。但若船上恰有個過分瘦弱、笨拙、或膽怯（timorous）的可憐蟲，這人必被派作船看守。裴廓德號上那綽號皮平、簡稱皮普的小黑人正是如此。可憐的皮普！——你以前聽過他；你必記得他在那戲劇性的午夜、那麼陰鬱而歡快的手鼓。

...even blackness has its brilliancy; behold yon lustrous ebony, panelled in king’s cabinets. ...what was thus temporarily subdued in him, in the end was destined to be luridly illumined by strange wild fires... So, though in the clear air of day... the pure-watered diamond drop will healthful glow; yet, when the cunning jeweller would show you the diamond in its most impressive lustre, he lays it against a gloomy ground, and then lights it up, not by the sun, but by some unnatural gases. ...then the evil-blazing diamond... looks like some crown-jewel stolen from the King of Hell.

……連黑色也有它的光輝（brilliancy）；看那鑲在王室櫥櫃裡、光亮的烏木（ebony）吧。但皮普熱愛生命、與生命一切平和的安穩；所以這場「驚人的勾當」——他莫名其妙被捲入的——最可悲地模糊了他的明亮；可是，後文將見，他身上這暫時被壓抑的東西，最終注定要被某種奇異狂野的火「陰森地照亮（luridly illumined）」——那火虛假地把他襯托出十倍於他天然的光彩……所以，雖然在白日清朗的空氣裡、靠在一條藍脈的頸項上，那純淨如水的鑽石會健康地閃耀；可是，當狡黠的珠寶商要向你展示鑽石最動人的光澤時，他卻把它襯在一個陰暗的背景上，然後不用太陽、而用某種「非自然的氣體」把它點亮——於是，那些火焰般的、地獄般輝煌的光芒（fiery effulgences）迸出來；於是那「邪惡燃燒的鑽石」，這曾是水晶天空最神聖的象徵之物，此刻竟像一顆從地獄之王那兒偷來的王冠寶石。

...temporarily, Pip was put into his place. ...as the fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap, which happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip’s seat. The involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in hand, out of the boat... poor Pip came all foaming up to the chocks of the boat, remorselessly dragged there by the line, which had taken several turns around his chest and neck.

……皮普被臨時頂替了那位置。第一次斯塔布帶他下艇時，皮普顯得很緊張；但幸而那次僥倖沒近距離接觸到鯨。可第二次下艇，艇划近了鯨；當那魚中了擲來的鐵器，便照例猛一甩——這一回恰好就在可憐皮普的座位正下方。那一瞬不由自主的驚惶，使他抓著划板、跳出了艇外；而且跳的方式，使部分鬆弛的鯨繩撞上他胸口、被他連人帶繩擋下了水、終於落水時把他纏住。那一瞬，中標的鯨猛地狂奔起來、繩驟然繃直；轉眼間！可憐的皮普滿身泡沫被拽回艇口、被那繩無情地拖在那兒——繩在他的胸與頸上，已繞了好幾圈。

Tashtego stood in the bows. He was full of the fire of the hunt. He hated Pip for a poltroon. Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath, he suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb, exclaimed interrogatively, “Cut?” Meantime Pip’s blue, choked face plainly looked, Do, for God’s sake! ...“Damn him, cut!” roared Stubb; and so the whale was lost and Pip was saved.

塔斯蒂哥立在艇首。他滿是獵鯨的火。他恨皮普是個懦夫（poltroon）。他從鞘裡抽出艇刀、把鋒利的刃懸在繩上、轉向斯塔布、以詢問的口氣喊：「割？」與此同時，皮普發青、窒息的臉分明在說：「看在上帝份上，割吧！」——這一切都在電光石火間。不到半分鐘，這整件事就發生了。「該死的，割！」斯塔布吼道；於是鯨丟了、皮普得救了。

...Stubb suddenly dropped all advice, and concluded with a peremptory command, “Stick to the boat, Pip, or by the Lord, I won’t pick you up if you jump; mind that. We can’t afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. ...” Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with his benevolence.

……斯塔布忽然丟下一切忠告、以一道斷然的命令作結：「守住艇，皮普，否則上帝在上，你再跳，我絕不撈你；給我記著。我們可不能因為你這種人丟掉鯨；皮普，在阿拉巴馬，一頭鯨能賣你的三十倍價錢。把這記在心上，別再跳了。」斯塔布或許藉此間接暗示：雖然人愛他的同類，可人卻是一個「賺錢的動物」，而這稟性（propensity），太常妨礙他的仁慈（benevolence）。

But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped again. ...this time he did not breast out the line; and hence, when the whale started to run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller’s trunk. Alas! Stubb was but too true to his word. ...Stubb’s inexorable back was turned upon him... Out from the centre of the sea, poor Pip turned his crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely castaway, though the loftiest and the brightest.

但我們都在眾神的手中；皮普又跳了。情形與第一次的表演極其相似；但這一次，他沒把繩擋出去；因此，當鯨開始狂奔時，皮普便被丟在海上、像一個趕路人匆忙落下的箱子。唉！斯塔布太信守他的話了。那是個美麗、豐饒（bounteous）的藍色日子；那繁星點點般的（spangled）海平靜而清涼、平平地向四面伸展到地平線，像被捶到極致的金箔匠的薄皮。皮普烏黑的頭在那海裡浮沉，像一顆丁香。當他那麼迅速地落到艇後時，沒有刀被舉起。斯塔布那「無情的（inexorable）背」對著了他；而鯨被「弄殘」了。三分鐘內，皮普與斯塔布之間，便隔了整整一哩無岸的海洋。從海的中心，可憐的皮普把他鬈曲的黑頭轉向太陽——又一個孤獨的「被遺棄者（castaway）」，雖然是最崇高、最明亮的一個。

Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore. But the awful lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of self in the middle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can tell it? Mark, how when sailors in a dead calm bathe in the open sea—mark how closely they hug their ship and only coast along her sides.

風平浪靜時，在大洋裡游泳，對老練的泳者而言，就像在岸上坐彈簧馬車一樣容易。但那可怕的孤寂（lonesomeness）令人無法忍受。在那麼無情的浩瀚中央、自我那劇烈的凝聚（concentration of self）——我的天！誰說得清？注意看：當水手在死寂無風中、到開闊的海裡洗澡時——注意看他們多麼緊貼著他們的船、只沿著船舷划。

...such considerations towards oarsmen jeopardized through their own timidity, is not always manifested by the hunters... a coward, so called, is marked with the same ruthless detestation peculiar to military navies and armies. ...Pip’s ringed horizon began to expand around him miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot... The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his soul.

……這種對「因自身膽怯而遇險的槳手」的體恤，並不總被獵人們在一切類似情況下表現出來；而這類情況不算少見；幾乎在漁業裡無一例外，一個所謂的懦夫，總被烙上那種軍隊與海軍特有的、無情的厭惡（detestation）。但事情恰巧是：那兩艘艇沒看見皮普，忽然瞥見一側貼近有鯨，便轉身去追了；而斯塔布的艇此刻已離得那麼遠、他和全體船員又那麼全神貫注於他的魚——皮普那環形的地平線，開始悲慘地在他四周擴大。純粹靠最微小的偶然，船本身最終救起了他；可從那一刻起，這小黑人在甲板上來去、成了個白癡——至少，他們這麼說他。海曾嘲弄地（jeeringly）保住了他有限的肉身，卻淹沒了他靈魂的無限。

Not drowned entirely, though. Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps... He saw God’s foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man’s insanity is heaven’s sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.

不過，也並非完全被淹沒。倒不如說，是被活著帶到了奇異的深處——在那兒，「未經扭曲的原初世界（unwarped primal world）」的奇形怪狀，在他被動的眼前來回滑動；而那吝嗇的人魚「智慧」，向他展示了祂祕藏的成堆寶物；在那歡樂的、無情的、永遠青春的永恆之間，皮普看見了那無數的、神無所不在的珊瑚蟲——它們從水的蒼穹裡，舉起了那些巨大的天體。他看見了神的腳踏在織機的踏板（treadle）上，並把它說了出來；於是他的同伴叫他瘋了。所以，人的瘋狂是天的清明（man's insanity is heaven's sense）；而人遠離一切凡人的理性、終於抵達那「在理性看來荒誕而瘋狂」的天國之思；於是禍與福，他此後便感到無所妥協、漠然得如同他的神。

For the rest, blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is common in that fishery; and in the sequel of the narrative, it will then be seen what like abandonment befell myself.

至於其餘，別太苛責斯塔布了。這種事在那漁業裡很常見；而在這敘事的後文，將會見到：何等相似的「遺棄」，也降臨到了我自己身上。