英语听书《白鲸记》第799期

（单词翻译）

 　　But all this is quite different from a South Sea Sperm¹ Whaler; which in a voyage of four years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil, does not, perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boiling out; and in the state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless². The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a species are by no means creatures of ill odor; nor can whalemen be recognised, as the people of the middle ages affected³ to detect a Jew in the company, by the nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant⁴, when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high health; taking abundance of exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above water dispenses⁵ a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles⁶ her dress in a warm parlor⁷. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance⁸, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks⁹, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town to do honor to Alexander the Great?