英语听书《白鲸记》第347期

搜索关注在线英语听力室公众号：tingroom，领取免费英语资料大礼包。

A happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant³; taking perils⁴ as they came with an indifferent air;  这个无忧无虑的人,既不畏葸,也不骁勇;面临危急,绝不改色;

and while engaged in the most imminent⁵ crisis of the chase, toiling⁶ away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged for the year.  他在从事最危急的追击时,总是镇定自若地干下去,象个长年辛劳的小木匠一样。

Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his whaleboat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his crew all invited guests.  他心情愉快,洒洒落落,随遇而安,驾驭起他的捕鲸小艇来,仿佛把最可怕的遭遇战看成是吃顿晚餐,他的水手全是应邀而来的宾客。

He was as particular about the comfortable arrangements of his part of the boat, as an old stage-driver is about the snugness⁷ of his box.  他很讲究于把他的小艇布置得舒舒适适,犹如一个老车夫很讲究于把他的车座弄得舒舒服服一样。

When close to the whale, in the very death-lock of the fight, he handled his unpitying lance coolly and off-handedly, as a whistling tinker his hammer.  每当迫近大鲸,进行生死关头的决斗时,他毫不在意地。随随便便地拿起他那支无情的鱼枪,赛似一个嘴里一边吹着唿哨,一边举起锤子的修补匠。

He would hum over his old rigadig tunes⁸ while flank and flank with the most exasperated⁹ monster.  到了跟那只愤怒已极的巨兽并拢的时候,他还会哼起他那流行的老调。

Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws¹⁰ of death into an easy chair.  这个斯塔布,已经是积久成习地把鬼门关看做一只安乐椅了。

What he thought of death itself, there is no telling.  他对于死亡这回事究竟是怎么个看法,那可不好讲。

Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question;  他是否想到过这回事,也许还是个问题;

but, if he ever did chance to cast his mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft,  但是,如果他吃过一顿舒服的晚餐后,心里会偶然闪上这个问题的话,那无疑地,他准会象一个好水手那样,把它看成是一种叫人连忙爬上桅顶的事情,一声遵命,

and bestir themselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed the order, and not sooner. 他就赶紧找人上去,去找他所能发现的东西了。

What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going, unfearing man, so cheerily trudging¹¹ off with the burden of life in a world full of grave peddlers, all bowed to the ground with their packs;  斯塔布为什么会这样事事处之泰然,无所畏惧,在一个到处尽是死亡关头的世间,大家都让包袱压得趴在地上,他却能这样逍遥自在地挑起生的重担走去;

what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that thing must have been his pipe.  究竟是什么东西使他会有这种简直是大不韪的高高兴兴的态度;那东西一定就是他的烟斗。

For, like his nose, his short, black little pipe was one of the regular features of his face.  因为,他那根短小的黑烟斗就象他的鼻子一样,是他脸上的固定特征之一。

分享到：