In connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am strongly tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous stories of them which are to be found in certain books, both ancient and modern, especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, &c. —
关于鲸鱼的巨大画像，我强烈地想要探讨一下在某些古代和现代的书籍中所述的更加巨大的故事，特别是在普林尼、普尔查斯、哈克卢特、哈里斯、居维叶等书中所提到的。 —

But I pass that matter by.
但我会跳过这个话题。

I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale; —
我只知道四幅关于大抹香鲸的发表的轮廓图； —

Colnett’s, Huggins’s, Frederick Cuvier’s, and Beale’s. —
科尔内特的、哈金斯的、弗雷德里克·居维叶的和比尔的。 —

In the previous chapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred to. —
在前一章中提到了科尔内特和居维叶。 —

Huggins’s is far better than theirs; but, by great odds, Beale’s is the best. —
哈金斯的比他们的要好得多；但毋庸置疑，比尔的是最好的。 —

All Beale’s drawings of this whale are good, excepting the middle figure in the picture of three whales in various attitudes, capping his second chapter. —
比尔关于这头鲸的所有绘画都很好，除了他第二章中三头鲸以不同姿态的图片中间那一幅。 —

His frontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales, though no doubt calculated to excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is admirably correct and life-like in its general effect. —
他的插图，船只攻击大抹香鲸，尽管无疑会激起一些客厅绅士的怀疑，但在整体效果上却是令人钦佩和栩栩如生的。 —

Some of the Sperm Whale drawings in J. Ross Browne are pretty correct in contour; —
带有S形鲸绘画的J·罗斯·布朗相当准确； —

but they are wretchedly engraved. That is not his fault though.
但它们的雕刻很糟糕。但这不是他的错。

Of the Right Whale, the best outline pictures are in Scoresby; —
在史考斯比的图中，正确鲸鱼的最佳轮廓图； —

but they are drawn on too small a scale to convey a desirable impression. —
但它们的绘制比例太小，无法传达令人满意的印象。 —

He has but one picture of whaling scenes, and this is a sad deficiency, because it is by such pictures only, when at all well done, that you can derive anything like a truthful idea of the living whale as seen by his living hunters.
他只有一幅捕鲸场景的图片，这是一个遗憾，因为只有通过这样精美绘制的图片，你才能对捕鲸者眼中活生生的鲸鱼有一个像样的真实印象。

But, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though in some details not the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling scenes to be anywhere found, are two large French engravings, well executed, and taken from paintings by one Garnery. —
但总的来说，到处可以找到的关于鲸鱼和捕鲸场景的最精美的，虽然在某些细节上不是最准确的，呈现是两幅大型的出色的法国版画，采用良好的执行和取材于加内瑞的绘画。 —

Respectively, they represent attacks on the Sperm and Right Whale. In the first engraving a noble Sperm Whale is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath the boat from the profundities of the ocean, and bearing high in the. —
它们分别代表对大抹香鲸和正确鲸的袭击。在第一幅版画中，一只高贵的大抹香鲸展示了他全身的威严，就从海洋的深处冒出来，从小船下方升起，在空中高高举起。 —

air upon his back the terrific wreck of the stoven planks. —
鲸鱼背上堆满了被打碎的木板，装得满满的。 —

The prow of the boat is partially unbroken, and is drawn just balancing upon the monster’s spine; —
小船的船首部分没有损坏，平衡地搁在怪兽的脊椎上； —

and standing in that prow, for that one single incomputable flash of time, you behold an oarsman, half shrouded by the incensed boiling spout of the whale, and in the act of leaping, as if from a precipice. —
站在船首的一个桨手，在那一瞬间，你看到他被滚烫的鲸鱼喷涌雾气掩盖了一半身子，仿佛要从悬崖上跳下去。 —

The action of the whole thing is wonderfully good and true. —
整个场景的动作惟妙惟肖。 —

The half-emptied line-tub floats on the whitened sea; —
半空的缆桶漂浮在白色的海面上； —

the wooden poles of the spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it; —
溢出来的鱼叉的木柄斜斜地在海面上跳动； —

the heads of the swimming crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting expressions of affright; while in the black stormy distance the ship is bearing down upon the scene. —
游泳的船员们的头在鲸身周围惊恐不同的表情中散落；而在黑暗的远处，船则驶向这一幕。 —

Serious fault might be found with the anatomical details of this whale, but let that pass; —
对这只鲸的解剖细节可能会发现一些严重的错误，但先不论； —

since, for the life of me, I could not draw so good a one.
因为，我就是拿不出和这样好的一只。

In the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing alongside the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale, that rolls his black weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-slide from the Patagonian cliffs. —
在第二幅插图中，小船正准备靠近一个巨大的奔跑中的顶鳍鲸的带着壳体的侧身，像是从巴塔哥尼亚悬崖上滑下的苔藓岩石。 —

His jets are erect, full, and black like soot; —
它的喷射口是竖立的、饱满的，黑得像煤烟； —

so that from so abounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there must be a brave supper cooking in the great bowels below. —
以至于从烟囱里冒出这么多烟，你会觉得肯定是在下面大肚子里在煮一顿美味的晚餐。 —

Sea fowls are pecking at the small crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. —
海鸟在啄食一些小蟹、贝壳、海鲜糖果和通心粉，这些顶鳍鲸有时背着。 —

And all the while the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer. —
糊嘴的大鲸鱼急速穿越深海，留下成吨的激荡白色浪花，并让那只轻微摇晃的小船像是被海洋轮船的桨轮紧贴在附近一样摇摆。 —

Thus, the fore-ground is all raging commotion; —
因此，前景全部是狂暴的喧嚣； —

but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the drooping unstarched sails of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of a dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily hanging from the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole.
但在背后，以令人赞赏的艺术对比，是一片宁静的玻璃般平静海面，无力船上垂下的失去了挺括感的帆，以及一头惰死的鲸鱼，一个被征服的堡垒，捕鲸站插在它的喷孔上的鲸须上懒散地挂着征服旗帜。

Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. —
我不知道画家加纳瑞是谁。 —

But my life for it he was either practically conversant with his subject, or else marvellously tutored by some experienced whaleman. —
但我敢打赌他要么对自己的主题有实际经验，要么是受到某位经验丰富的捕鲸者出色辅导。 —

The French are the lads for painting action. —
法国人擅长描绘行动。 —

Go and gaze upon all the paintings in Europe, and where will you find such a gallery of living and breathing commotion on canvas, as in that triumphal hall at Versailles; —
去欧洲的画廊环顾四周，你能在哪里找到像凡尔赛那样的画廊，画布上生动地呈现战斗情景， —

where the beholder fights his way, pell-mell, through the consecutive great battles of France; —
观者在其中混战，连续的法国伟大战役场面。 —

where every sword seems a flash of the Northern Lights, and the successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a charge of crowned centaurs? —
每一把剑犹如北极光的闪烁，历代武装的国王和皇帝像加冕的半人马一样冲过。 —

Not wholly unworthy of a place in that gallery, are these sea battle-pieces of Garnery.
这些加纳瑞的海战画作在那个画廊里也绝不会不占一席之地。

The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the picturesqueness of things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what paintings and engravings they have of their whaling scenes. —
法国人对于抓住事物的画面效果似乎表现得特别突出，尤其在他们捕鲸场景的绘画和版画中。 —

With not one tenth of England’s experience in the fishery, and not the thousandth part of that of the Americans, they have nevertheless furnished both nations with the only finished sketches at all capable of conveying the real spirit of the whale hunt. —
尽管经验不及英国的十分之一，不及美国的千分之一，他们仍然向这两个国家提供了唯一能传达捕鲸真正精神的精美素描。 —

For the most part, the English and American whale draughtsmen seem entirely content with presenting the mechanical outline of things, such as the vacant profile of the whale; —
大多数英美的捕鲸画家似乎完全满足于呈现机械的事物轮廓，比如鲸的空洞轮廓； —

which, so far as picturesqueness of effect is concerned, is about tantamount to sketching the profile of a pyramid. —
就画面效果而言，这与勾勒金字塔的轮廓几乎是等同的。 —

Even Scoresby, the justly renowned Right whaleman, after giving us a stiff full length of the Greenland whale, and three or four delicate miniatures of narwhales and porpoises, treats us to a series of classical engravings of boat hooks, chopping knives, and grapnels; —
尽管是名声显赫的北极捕鲸者斯科斯比，在给我们呈现格陵兰鲸鱼的生硬侧面全图，和三四幅狭小的独角鲸和海豚微型画之后，让我们欣赏到了一系列古典风格的船用钩、劈刀和钩镰； —

and with the microscopic diligence of a Leuwenhoeck submits to the inspection of a shivering world ninety-six fac-similes of magnified Arctic snow crystals. —
并以纤毛虫勤劳的眼光展示给一个发抖的世界九十六幅放大的北极雪花的样张。 —

I mean no disparagement to the excellent voyager (I honor him for a veteran), but in so important a matter it was certainly an oversight not to have procured for every crystal a sworn affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice of the Peace.
我并不是对这位优秀的航海者表示轻视（我尊敬他为老练的捕鲸者），但在如此重要的事情上，没有为每个水晶取得在格陵兰治安官面前取得的宣誓书显然是个疏忽。

In addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are two other French engravings worthy of note, by some one who subscribes himself “H. Durand.” —
除了那些出自加纳瑞(Garnery)之手的精美雕刻之外，还有两幅其他值得一提的法国雕刻，作者是一个自称为“H. Durand”的人。 —

One of them, though not precisely adapted to our present purpose, nevertheless deserves mention on other accounts. —
其中一幅虽然不完全适用于我们目前的目的，但仍然值得提及其他方面。 —

It is a quiet noon-scene among the isles of the Pacific; —
这是在太平洋群岛之间的一个宁静的正午场景； —

a French whaler anchored, inshore, in a calm, and lazily taking water on board; —
一艘法国捕鲸船在近岸抛锚，悠闲地装载水； —

the loosened sails of the ship, and the long leaves of the palms in the background, both drooping together in the breezeless air. —
船的解下的帆和远处棕榈树的长叶，在无风的空气中一起垂下。 —

The effect is very fine, when considered with reference to its presenting the hardy fishermen under one of their few aspects of oriental repose. —
在考虑到它展示了坚韧的渔民在东方静态中的少数情况时，效果非常出色。 —

The other engraving is quite a different affair: —
另一幅雕刻则完全不同： —

the ship hove-to upon the open sea, and in the very heart of the Leviathanic life, with a Right Whale alongside; —
船在海上横放，正处于巨兽生命的核心，一头公鲸靠近； —

the vessel (in the act of cutting-in) hove over to the monster as if to a quay; —
船（在进行分割作业时）如同对码头般横在怪物旁； —

and a boat, hurriedly pushing off from this scene of activity, is about giving chase to whales in the distance. —
一只从这个活动场景匆忙划开的小船，正准备追逐远处的鲸鱼。 —

The harpoons and lances lie levelled for use; three oarsmen are just setting the mast in its hole; —
鱼叉和长矛已经准备好使用；三名划手刚刚将桅杆插入孔中； —

while from a sudden roll of the sea, the little craft stands half-erect out of the water, like a rearing horse. —
而由于海浪的突然翻滚，小船像一匹后起之马一样半支立在水面上。 —

From the ship, the smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke over a village of smithies; —
船上，沸腾着的鲸鱼的烟尘像铁匠屋村庄的烟雾一样上升； —

and to windward, a black cloud, rising up with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of the excited seamen.
而顺风处，一团黑云，伴随着疾风暴雨的预兆，似乎激发了激动的水手们的活动。