本尼迪克特·康伯巴奇 | 朗读《白鲸记》（上）

》》》》》》一键领取入口《《《《《《

Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right Whale largely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undulated round us, so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden wheat.

我们在从克罗泽次向东北航行的路途中有时遇到面积广阔的小鱼场，小鱼是黄色的，身体细长，是露脊鲸的主要食物。附近几十海里之内全是这种小鱼，它们接连不断，我们好像进入了无边成熟的金色麦地。

On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure from the attack of a Sperm-Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws sluggishly swam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing fibres of that wondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner separated from the water that escaped at the lips.

我在第二天看到了很多的露脊鲸，它们很相信“佩科特号”捕抹香鲸船不会进攻它们，在小鱼群中慵懒地大张着嘴巴游来游去。鲸嘴的边缘有一些神奇的纤维，它们就像百叶窗一样，那些小鱼如果被它粘住，就会离开从嘴唇旁边流过的海水。

As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.

它们就像早晨起来割草的人，慢吞吞同时又集中攻势挥舞长柄的大镰刀，并排穿过长满湿草的长沼泽地。它们向前游的时候甚至会有怪异的割草声发出，很多条看不到边际的刈幅在它们后面的金色海面上呈现。

That part of sea known among whalemen as the “Brazil Banks” does not bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of there being shallows and soundings there, but because of this remarkable meadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit continually floating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is often chased.

捕鲸者把这一带海域称做“巴西滩”，但它和“纽芬兰滩”得名于浅滩和测深绳能达到的水域不相同，而是由于有成群的小鱼接连浮上水面，看上去怪异地像低草地而得名。这里也是经常捕杀露脊鲸的地方。

But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at all reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially when they paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms looked more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else.

只有当它们使鱼和水分开的时候发出响声才让人联想起割草的人。要是在它们停下休息时从船桅顶上看去，它们庞大的黑色身躯非常像一块一块没有生命的岩石。

And as in the great hunting countries of India, the stranger at a distance will sometimes pas on the plains recumbent elephants without knowing them to be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the soil; even so, often, with him, who for the first time beholds this species of the leviathans of the sea.

在印度的广阔狩猎地带，从外面来的人有时候会看到远处平原上躺着的大象，可他们并不知道那是大象，而认为那是寸草不生的黑土堆。第一次在海中见到这种大海兽的人通常也会有这种情形。