英语听书《白鲸记》第871期

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all characterized by partial resemblances to the existing breeds of sea-monsters; 我看到全都多少有点跟现存的那些海里巨兽相似的特征，

but at the same time bearing on the other hand similar affinities⁶ to the annihilated⁷ antichronical Leviathans, their incalculable seniors; 不过，同时，另一方面，也有跟那些早已湮灭的反年纪的大鲸，它们的难测的先辈相似的特点。

I am, by a flood, borne back to that wondrous⁸ period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; for time began with man. 我仿佛被一阵洪水泛回到那种奇妙的时期里去了，那是早在时间本身还刚开始的时候，因为时间总是与人类共始。

Here Saturn's grey chaos⁹ rolls over me, and I obtain dim, shuddering¹⁰ glimpses into those Polar eternities; 这时我头上滚着土星的阴惨的浑沌之气，我朦胧而战颤地瞥到那些北极的永久不变的事物，

when wedged bastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics; 当时冰霜象楔形的棱堡似的紧压着现在称做热带的地方；

and in all the 25,000 miles of this world's circumference¹¹, not an inhabitable hand's breadth of land was visible. 而在整个二万五千英里的世界圆周中，却连一小片可以居住的地方都看不到。

Then the whole world was the whale's; and, king of creation, he left his wake along the present lines of the Andes and the Himmalehs. 当时整个世界是大鲸的世界；而万物之灵的人已沿着现在的安第斯和喜马拉雅山脉走去了。

Who can show a pedigree like Leviathan? 谁能给象大鲸这样的生物提出家系来呢？

Ahab's harpoon¹² had shed older blood than the Pharaoh's. 亚哈（以色列的第七代王）的标枪早在法老（古代埃及国王）的标枪之先染了血滴。

Methuselah seems a schoolboy. 玛土撒拉似乎还是个小学生呢。

I look round to shake hands with Shem. 我四处寻找，想跟闪握一握手。

I am horror-struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the unspeakable terrors of the whale, 我给这些摩西以前的、来路不明的大鲸那种不可言喻的恐怖吓慌了，

which, having been before all time, must needs exist after all humane¹³ ages are over. 它既然是早就一直存在着，那就一定会在人类已经消灭以后的年代里继续存在下去了。

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