英语听书《白鲸记》第390期

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and though the only homage² he ever exacted, was implicit³, instantaneous obedience⁴; though he required no man to remove the shoes from his feet ere stepping upon the quarter-deck;  虽说他一向严格要求别人的只是绝对的。毫不犹豫的服从;虽说他并不要求人家得把鞋子脱掉后才能跨上后甲板;

and though there were times when, owing to peculiar⁵ circumstances connected with events hereafter to be detailed⁶, he addressed them in unusual terms, whether of condescension⁷ or in terrorem, or otherwise;  虽说有时由于情况特殊(有关事项以后就要谈到),他对他们说话时会语态失常(不管是出自谦虚还是带有警告性质或者其它等等);

yet even Captain Ahab was by no means unobservant of the paramount⁸ forms and usages of the sea. 然而,即使如此,亚哈船长可也决不是不遵守海上的种种至高形式和习惯的。

Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, that behind those forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked himself;  也许还可以看到,他有时仿佛是以这种形式和习惯为掩护。来把自己伪装起来;

incidentally making use of them for other and more private ends than they were legitimately⁹ intended to subserve.  偶然利用这种形式和习惯,以达到其它一些比之形式和习惯所能合法效劳的更要隐蔽的目的。

That certain sultanism of his brain, which had otherwise in a good degree remained unmanifested;  他脑子里还有相当程度的。未曾显露的君主观念;

through those forms that same sultanism became incarnate¹⁰ in an irresistible¹¹ dictatorship.  通过这些形式,那种君主观念便体现为一种难以抗拒的独裁。

For be a man's intellectual superiority what it will, it can never assume the practical, available supremacy¹² over other men, without the aid of some sort of external arts and entrenchments, always, in themselves, more or less paltry¹³ and base.  因为一个人随他有多大的卓越的智力,那种智力总不能永远对别人施行一种随心所欲的霸权,而不需要借助某种形式上的策略和防备手段,尽管这种策略和防备手段本身多少总有点可鄙和卑劣。

This it is, that for ever keeps God's true princes of the Empire from the world's hustings¹⁴;  帝国的名正言顺的皇子皇孙之所以能够始终免掉人间的选举手续,

and leaves the highest honors that this air can give, to those men who become famous more through their infinite inferiority to the choice hidden handful of the Divine Inert¹⁵, than through their undoubted superiority over the dead level of the mass.  而且把这种风尚所能产生的最高的荣誉归之于那些成名的人,就正是这个道理,虽然这些人之成名,与其说是因为他们具有确切无疑的超越于大众的迟钝水平的能力,倒不如说是因为他们是无能的神力所秘密创造出来的一小撮劣等货。

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