羅盤針

Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long slow billows of mighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod’s gurgling track, pushed her on like giants’ palms outspread. The strong, unstaggering breeze abounded so, that sky and air seemed vast outbellying sails; the whole world boomed before the wind. Muffled in the full morning light, the invisible sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place; where his bayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned Babylonian kings and queens, reigned over everything. The sea was as a crucible of molten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light and heat.

次日清晨，尚未平息的海面翻滾著緩慢悠長、體積龐大的巨浪，在裴廓德號汩汩的航跡裡奮力推送，像巨人攤開的手掌般把她往前推。那強勁而毫不動搖的微風是這般充沛，天空與大氣彷彿一張張鼓脹的巨帆；整個世界都在風前轟然作響。沉浸在飽滿晨光裡的太陽，雖看不見，卻只憑它所在之處那片瀰漫的強光便可辨識；它那刺刀般的光束一道道地移動著。一片片如同加冕的巴比倫帝王與后妃所佩的紋章華彩，君臨萬物。海面宛如一只盛著熔金的坩堝，隨著光與熱沸騰跳躍。

Long maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahab stood apart; and every time the tetering ship loweringly pitched down her bowsprit, he turned to eye the bright sun’s rays produced ahead; and when she profoundly settled by the stern, he turned behind, and saw the sun’s rearward place, and how the same yellow rays were blending with his undeviating wake.

亞哈獨自站在一旁，久久保持著一種著魔般的靜默；每當搖晃的船陰沉地把船首斜桅俯衝下去，他便轉頭凝望前方投射的燦爛日光；而當她深深地往船尾沉落時，他又回過身去，看那太陽落在身後的方位，看那同樣的金黃光束如何融進他那一道筆直不偏的航跡裡。

“Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightest well be taken now for the sea-chariot of the sun. Ho, ho! all ye nations before my prow, I bring the sun to ye! Yoke on the further billows; hallo! a tandem, I drive the sea!”

「哈，哈，我的船啊！此刻真該把你當成太陽的海上戰車了。嗬，嗬！我船首前方的萬邦啊，我把太陽給你們帶來了！給那更遠處的浪頭套上軛吧；嗨喲！一前一後串成一隊，我駕馭著整片大海！」

But suddenly reined back by some counter thought, he hurried towards the helm, huskily demanding how the ship was heading.

可忽然被某個相反的念頭勒住，他急步衝向舵旁，沙啞地追問船正朝哪個方向行駛。

“East-sou-east, sir,” said the frightened steersman.

「東南偏東，先生，」受驚的舵手說。

“Thou liest!” smiting him with his clenched fist. “Heading East at this hour in the morning, and the sun astern?”

「你撒謊！」他攥緊拳頭朝那人一捶。「清晨這個時辰朝東走，太陽卻在船尾？」

Upon this every soul was confounded; for the phenomenon just then observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else; but its very blinding palpableness must have been the cause.

聽到這話，人人都驚惶失措；因為亞哈方才察覺的那個現象，竟莫名其妙地被所有其他人都漏看了；可正是它那刺眼到無可置疑的明顯，才反倒成了被忽略的原因。

Thrusting his head half way into the binnacle, Ahab caught one glimpse of the compasses; his uplifted arm slowly fell; for a moment he almost seemed to stagger. Standing behind him Starbuck looked, and lo! the two compasses pointed East, and the Pequod was as infallibly going West.

亞哈把頭半探進羅盤櫃，瞥了一眼那兩具羅盤；他高舉的手臂緩緩垂落；有那麼一瞬，他幾乎像是要踉蹌跌倒。站在他身後的斯塔巴克也望去，瞧！兩具羅盤都指著東方，而裴廓德號卻千真萬確地在朝西行駛。

But ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the crew, the old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, “I have it! It has happened before. Mr. Starbuck, last night’s thunder turned our compasses—that’s all. Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take it.”

可不等第一聲驚惶在水手間傳開，老人便僵硬地一笑，喊道：「我明白了！這事以前發生過。斯塔巴克先生，昨夜的雷把我們的羅盤弄反了——就這麼回事。我想，這種事你從前也聽說過吧。」

“Aye; but never before has it happened to me, sir,” said the pale mate, gloomily.

「是的；可這事我自己以前還從沒碰上過，先生，」面色蒼白的大副陰鬱地說。

Here, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in more than one case occurred to ships in violent storms. The magnetic energy, as developed in the mariner’s needle, is, as all know, essentially one with the electricity beheld in heaven; hence it is not to be much marvelled at, that such things should be. Instances where the lightning has actually struck the vessel, so as to smite down some of the spars and rigging, the effect upon the needle has at times been still more fatal; all its loadstone virtue being annihilated, so that the before magnetic steel was of no more use than an old wife’s knitting needle. But in either case, the needle never again, of itself, recovers the original virtue thus marred or lost; and if the binnacle compasses be affected, the same fate reaches all the others that may be in the ship; even were the lowermost one inserted into the kelson.

這裡必須說明，這類事故在猛烈風暴中不止一次發生在船隻身上。眾所周知，航海羅盤磁針裡發出的磁力，本質上與天上所見的電是同一回事；因此這種事會發生，並不太值得驚奇。在某些閃電確實擊中船身、把部分桅桿與索具劈落的事例裡，對磁針的影響有時更為致命；它全部的磁石效力被徹底消滅，使原先帶磁的鋼針比老婦人的織針還不中用。但無論哪種情形，磁針都再也無法靠自身恢復這樣被損壞或喪失的原有效力；而一旦羅盤櫃裡的羅盤受了影響，船上其餘的羅盤也都難逃同樣的命運——哪怕最底下那具是嵌在內龍骨裡的。

Deliberately standing before the binnacle, and eyeing the transpointed compasses, the old man, with the sharp of his extended hand, now took the precise bearing of the sun, and satisfied that the needles were exactly inverted, shouted out his orders for the ship’s course to be changed accordingly. The yards were hard up; and once more the Pequod thrust her undaunted bows into the opposing wind, for the supposed fair one had only been juggling her.

老人不慌不忙地站到羅盤櫃前，端詳著那兩具指向錯亂的羅盤，伸出手以掌緣為準，量出太陽的精確方位，確認磁針恰好完全顛倒之後，便高聲下令把船的航向相應地改過來。桁桿被使勁扳轉；裴廓德號再一次把她毫不畏縮的船首頂進逆風裡——因為那所謂的順風，一直不過是在耍弄她罷了。

Meanwhile, whatever were his own secret thoughts, Starbuck said nothing, but quietly he issued all requisite orders; while Stubb and Flask—who in some small degree seemed then to be sharing his feelings—likewise unmurmuringly acquiesced. As for the men, though some of them lowly rumbled, their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate. But as ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost wholly unimpressed; or if impressed, it was only with a certain magnetism shot into their congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab’s.

與此同時，無論斯塔巴克心底藏著什麼念頭，他都一語不發，只默默地把一切必要的命令傳達下去；而斯塔布與弗拉斯克——此刻似乎多少有些感同身受——也都毫無怨言地默許了。至於水手們，雖有幾個低聲嘀咕，但他們對亞哈的畏懼勝過對命運的畏懼。可一如既往，那幾名異教標槍手幾乎全然無動於衷；就算有所觸動，那也不過是某種磁力，從堅不可摧的亞哈心中射進了他們意氣相投的胸膛。

For a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries. But chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed copper sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed to the deck.

老人在甲板上來回踱步，沉浸在起伏翻湧的遐思裡，踱了好一陣。可偶然間，他那只象牙假腿一滑，瞥見了前一天被他砸落甲板的那台象限儀——那些被壓扁的銅製窺管。

“Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun’s pilot! yesterday I wrecked thee, and to-day the compasses would fain have wrecked me. So, so. But Ahab is lord over the level loadstone yet. Mr. Starbuck—a lance without a pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker’s needles. Quick!”

「你這可憐又驕傲的觀天者、太陽的領航員啊！昨天我毀了你，今天那些羅盤又巴不得毀了我。罷了，罷了。可亞哈到底還是這平躺磁石的主人。斯塔巴克先生——拿一根沒柄的標槍頭；一柄頂槌，還有帆匠針裡最小的那一根。快！」

Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was now about to do, were certain prudential motives, whose object might have been to revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtile skill, in a matter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses. Besides, the old man well knew that to steer by transpointed needles, though clumsily practicable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious sailors, without some shudderings and evil portents.

或許，在驅使他即將去做這件事的衝動之外，還夾帶著某些精打細算的動機，目的多半是想藉一手巧妙的本事，在羅盤顛倒這樁如此離奇的事上，重新提振全船的士氣。再說，老人很清楚，靠著指向錯亂的磁針掌舵，雖說笨拙地勉強可行，卻絕不是迷信的水手們能輕易放過、而不暗自發抖、不視為凶兆的事。

“Men,” said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate handed him the things he had demanded, “my men, the thunder turned old Ahab’s needles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own, that will point as true as any.”

「弟兄們，」他穩穩地轉向眾人說道，這時大副正把他要的東西遞給他，「我的弟兄們，雷把老亞哈的磁針弄反了；可亞哈能用這麼一小塊鋼，造出一根自己的磁針來，它指得跟任何一根一樣準。」

Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as this was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic might follow. But Starbuck looked away. With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel head of the lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining, bade him hold it upright, without its touching the deck. Then, with the maul, after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this iron rod, he placed the blunted needle endwise on the top of it, and less strongly hammered that, several times, the mate still holding the rod as before. Then going through some small strange motions with it—whether indispensable to the magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to augment the awe of the crew, is uncertain—he called for linen thread; and moving to the binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there, and horizontally suspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of the compass-cards. At first, the steel went round and round, quivering and vibrating at either end; but at last it settled to its place, when Ahab, who had been intently watching for this result, stepped frankly back from the binnacle, and pointing his stretched arm towards it, exclaimed,—“Look ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level loadstone! The sun is East, and that compass swears it!”

聽他這麼一說，水手們交換著一種既羞慚又卑順的驚奇眼神；他們睜著著迷的眼睛，等著看接下來會變出什麼魔法。可斯塔巴克卻把臉別了開去。亞哈用頂槌一擊，敲掉那標槍的鋼頭，然後把剩下的長鐵桿遞給大副，吩咐他直直地豎著拿好，不許碰到甲板。接著，他用槌子反覆敲打這鐵桿的上端之後，把那根磨鈍了的縫針豎著抵在桿頂，又較輕地把它捶了好幾下，大副仍像先前那樣握著鐵桿。然後他拿著那針做了幾個古怪的小動作——究竟是磁化鋼針所必需，還是僅僅為了加深全船的敬畏，就不得而知了——他喚人取來麻線；走到羅盤櫃前，抽出那裡頭兩根指向倒反的磁針，把那帆匠縫針從中央水平地懸在一塊羅盤刻度盤的上方。起初，那鋼針一圈圈打轉，兩端都顫動著、抖個不停；可最終它穩定就位、定住了，這時一直全神貫注等著這結果的亞哈，坦然地從羅盤櫃前退開一步，伸直手臂指著它，喊道：——「你們自己看清楚了，亞哈是不是這平躺磁石的主人！太陽在東邊，這羅盤替我作證！」

One after another they peered in, for nothing but their own eyes could persuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another they slunk away.

他們一個接一個地探頭窺看，因為唯有他們自己的眼睛，才能說服他們那般的無知，然後又一個接一個地悄悄溜開。

In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his fatal pride.

在他那雙充滿輕蔑與得意、烈焰般的眼睛裡，你便看見了亞哈那全副的、致命的驕傲。