Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape1 Cod2; and hence, according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant3; taking perils4 as they came with an indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent5 crisis of the chase, toiling6 away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged for the year. 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. 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. 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. He would hum over his old rigadig tunes8 while flank and flank with the most exasperated9 monster. Long usage had, for this Stubb, converted the jaws10 of death into an easy chair. What he thought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether he ever thought of it at all, might be a question; 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, and bestir themselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed the order, and not sooner.
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; what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his short, black little pipe was one of the regular features of his face. You would almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk12 without his nose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row of pipes there ready loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his hand; and, whenever he turned in, he smoked them all out in succession, lighting13 one from the other to the end of the chapter; then loading them again to be in readiness anew. For, when Stubb dressed, instead of first putting his legs into his trowsers, he put his pipe into his mouth.
I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least of his peculiar14 disposition15; for every one knows that this earthly air, whether ashore16 or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless miseries17 of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling18 it; and as in time of the cholera19, some people go about with a camphorated handkerchief to their mouths; so, likewise, against all mortal tribulations20, Stubb's tobacco smoke might have operated as a sort of disinfecting agent.
The third mate was Flask21, a native of Tisbury, in Martha's Vineyard. A short, stout22, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious23 concerning whales, who somehow seemed to think that the great Leviathans had personally and hereditarily24 affronted25 him; and therefore it was a sort of point of honor with him, to destroy them whenever encountered. So utterly26 lost was he to all sense of reverence27 for the many marvels28 of their majestic29 bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension30 of any possible danger from encountering them; that in his poor opinion, the wondrous31 whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least water-rat, requiring only a little circumvention32 and some small application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil. This ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish33 in the matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it; and a three years' voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted that length of time. As a carpenter's nails are divided into wrought34 nails and cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided. Little Flask was one of the wrought ones; made to clinch35 tight and last long. They called him King-Post on board of the Pequod; because, in form, he could be well likened to the short, square timber known by that name in Arctic whalers; and which by the means of many radiating side timbers inserted into it, serves to brace36 the ship against the icy concussions37 of those battering38 seas.
Now these three mates--Starbuck, Stubb and Flask, were momentous39 men. They it was who by universal prescription40 commanded three of the Pequod's boats as headsmen. In that grand order of battle in which Captain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend41 on the whales, these three headsmen were as captains of companies. Or, being armed with their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of lancers; even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins43.
And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic Knight44 of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or harpooneer, who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the assault; and moreover, as there generally subsists45 between the two, a close intimacy46 and friendliness47; it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set down who the Pequod's harpooneers were, and to what headsman each of them belonged.
First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate, had selected for his squire48. But Queequeg is already known.
Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly promontory49 of Martha's Vineyard, where there still exists the last remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooneers. In the fishery, they usually go by the generic50 name of Gay-Headers. Tashtego's long, lean, sable51 hair, his high cheek bones, and black rounding eyes--for an Indian, Oriental in their largeness, but Antarctic in their glittering expression--all this sufficiently52 proclaimed him an inheritor of the unvitiated blood of those proud warrior53 hunters, who, in quest of the great New England moose, had scoured54, bow in hand, the aboriginal55 forests of the main. But no longer snuffing in the trail of the wild beasts of the woodland, Tashtego now hunted in the wake of the great whales of the sea; the unerring harpoon42 of the son fitly replacing the infallible arrow of the sires. To look at the tawny56 brawn57 of his lithe58 snaky limbs, you would almost have credited the superstitions59 of some of the earlier Puritans and half-believed this wild Indian to be a son of the Prince of the Powers of the Air. Tashtego was Stubb the second mate's squire.
Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-black negro-savage, with a lion-like tread--an Ahasuerus to behold60. Suspended from his ears were two golden hoops61, so large that the sailors called them ringbolts, and would talk of securing the top-sail halyards to them. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarily shipped on board of a whaler, lying in a lonely bay on his native coast. And never having been anywhere in the world but in Africa, Nantucket, and the pagan harbors most frequented by the whalemen; and having now led for many years the bold life of the fishery in the ships of owners uncommonly62 heedful of what manner of men they shipped; Daggoo retained all his barbaric virtues63, and erect64 as a giraffe, moved about the decks in all the pomp of six feet five in his socks. There was a corporeal65 humility66 in looking up at him; and a white man standing67 before him seemed a white flag come to beg truce68 of a fortress69. Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Ahasuerus Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a chess-man beside him. As for the residue70 of the Pequod's company, be it said, that at the present day not one in two of the many thousand men before the mast employed in the American whale fishery, are Americans born, though pretty nearly all the officers are. Herein it is the same with the American whale fishery as with the American army and military and merchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the construction of the American Canals and Railroads. The same, I say, because in all these cases the native American literally71 provides the brains, the rest of the world as generously supplying the muscles. No small number of these whaling seamen72 belong to the Azores, where the outward bound Nantucket whalers frequently touch to augment73 their crews from the hardy74 peasants of those rocky shores. In like manner, the Greenland whalers sailing out of Hull75 or London, put in at the Shetland Islands, to receive the full complement76 of their crew. Upon the passage homewards, they drop them there again. How it is, there is no telling, but Islanders seem to make the best whalemen. They were nearly all Islanders in the Pequod, Isolatoes too, I call such, not acknowledging the common continent of men, but each Isolato living on a separate continent of his own. Yet now, federated along one keel, what a set these Isolatoes were! An Anacharsis Clootz deputation from all the isles77 of the sea, and all the ends of the earth, accompanying Old Ahab in the Pequod to lay the world's grievances78 before that bar from which not very many of them ever come back. Black Little Pip-- he never did--oh, no! he went before. Poor Alabama boy! On the grim Pequod's forecastle, ye shall ere long see him, beating his tambourine79; prelusive of the eternal time, when sent for, to the great quarter-deck on high, he was bid strike in with angels, and beat his tambourine in glory; called a coward here, hailed a hero there!
1 cape | |
n.海角,岬;披肩,短披风 | |
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2 cod | |
n.鳕鱼;v.愚弄;哄骗 | |
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3 valiant | |
adj.勇敢的,英勇的;n.勇士,勇敢的人 | |
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4 perils | |
极大危险( peril的名词复数 ); 危险的事(或环境) | |
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5 imminent | |
adj.即将发生的,临近的,逼近的 | |
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6 toiling | |
长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的现在分词 ); 艰难缓慢地移动,跋涉 | |
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7 snugness | |
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8 tunes | |
n.曲调,曲子( tune的名词复数 )v.调音( tune的第三人称单数 );调整;(给收音机、电视等)调谐;使协调 | |
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9 exasperated | |
adj.恼怒的 | |
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10 jaws | |
n.口部;嘴 | |
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11 trudging | |
vt.& vi.跋涉,吃力地走(trudge的现在分词形式) | |
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12 bunk | |
n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位;废话 | |
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13 lighting | |
n.照明,光线的明暗,舞台灯光 | |
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14 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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15 disposition | |
n.性情,性格;意向,倾向;排列,部署 | |
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16 ashore | |
adv.在(向)岸上,上岸 | |
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17 miseries | |
n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 );痛苦的事;穷困;常发牢骚的人 | |
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18 exhaling | |
v.呼出,发散出( exhale的现在分词 );吐出(肺中的空气、烟等),呼气 | |
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19 cholera | |
n.霍乱 | |
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20 tribulations | |
n.苦难( tribulation的名词复数 );艰难;苦难的缘由;痛苦 | |
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21 flask | |
n.瓶,火药筒,砂箱 | |
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23 pugnacious | |
adj.好斗的 | |
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24 hereditarily | |
世袭地,遗传地 | |
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25 affronted | |
adj.被侮辱的,被冒犯的v.勇敢地面对( affront的过去式和过去分词 );相遇 | |
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26 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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27 reverence | |
n.敬畏,尊敬,尊严;Reverence:对某些基督教神职人员的尊称;v.尊敬,敬畏,崇敬 | |
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28 marvels | |
n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 );令人惊奇的事物(或事例);不平凡的成果;成就v.惊奇,对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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29 majestic | |
adj.雄伟的,壮丽的,庄严的,威严的,崇高的 | |
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30 apprehension | |
n.理解,领悟;逮捕,拘捕;忧虑 | |
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31 wondrous | |
adj.令人惊奇的,奇妙的;adv.惊人地;异乎寻常地;令人惊叹地 | |
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32 circumvention | |
n.陷害,欺骗 | |
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33 waggish | |
adj.诙谐的,滑稽的 | |
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34 wrought | |
v.引起;以…原料制作;运转;adj.制造的 | |
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35 clinch | |
v.敲弯,钉牢;确定;扭住对方 [参]clench | |
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36 brace | |
n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备 | |
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37 concussions | |
n.震荡( concussion的名词复数 );脑震荡;冲击;震动 | |
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38 battering | |
n.用坏,损坏v.连续猛击( batter的现在分词 ) | |
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39 momentous | |
adj.重要的,重大的 | |
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40 prescription | |
n.处方,开药;指示,规定 | |
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41 descend | |
vt./vi.传下来,下来,下降 | |
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42 harpoon | |
n.鱼叉;vt.用鱼叉叉,用鱼叉捕获 | |
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43 javelins | |
n.标枪( javelin的名词复数 ) | |
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44 knight | |
n.骑士,武士;爵士 | |
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45 subsists | |
v.(靠很少的钱或食物)维持生活,生存下去( subsist的第三人称单数 ) | |
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46 intimacy | |
n.熟悉,亲密,密切关系,亲昵的言行 | |
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47 friendliness | |
n.友谊,亲切,亲密 | |
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48 squire | |
n.护卫, 侍从, 乡绅 | |
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49 promontory | |
n.海角;岬 | |
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50 generic | |
adj.一般的,普通的,共有的 | |
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51 sable | |
n.黑貂;adj.黑色的 | |
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52 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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53 warrior | |
n.勇士,武士,斗士 | |
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54 scoured | |
走遍(某地)搜寻(人或物)( scour的过去式和过去分词 ); (用力)刷; 擦净; 擦亮 | |
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55 aboriginal | |
adj.(指动植物)土生的,原产地的,土著的 | |
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56 tawny | |
adj.茶色的,黄褐色的;n.黄褐色 | |
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57 brawn | |
n.体力 | |
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58 lithe | |
adj.(指人、身体)柔软的,易弯的 | |
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59 superstitions | |
迷信,迷信行为( superstition的名词复数 ) | |
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60 behold | |
v.看,注视,看到 | |
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61 hoops | |
n.箍( hoop的名词复数 );(篮球)篮圈;(旧时儿童玩的)大环子;(两端埋在地里的)小铁弓 | |
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62 uncommonly | |
adv. 稀罕(极,非常) | |
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63 virtues | |
美德( virtue的名词复数 ); 德行; 优点; 长处 | |
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64 erect | |
n./v.树立,建立,使竖立;adj.直立的,垂直的 | |
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65 corporeal | |
adj.肉体的,身体的;物质的 | |
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66 humility | |
n.谦逊,谦恭 | |
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67 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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68 truce | |
n.休战,(争执,烦恼等的)缓和;v.以停战结束 | |
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69 fortress | |
n.堡垒,防御工事 | |
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70 residue | |
n.残余,剩余,残渣 | |
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71 literally | |
adv.照字面意义,逐字地;确实 | |
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72 seamen | |
n.海员 | |
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73 augment | |
vt.(使)增大,增加,增长,扩张 | |
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74 hardy | |
adj.勇敢的,果断的,吃苦的;耐寒的 | |
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75 hull | |
n.船身;(果、实等的)外壳;vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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76 complement | |
n.补足物,船上的定员;补语;vt.补充,补足 | |
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77 isles | |
岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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78 grievances | |
n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 );苦衷;不满;牢骚 | |
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79 tambourine | |
n.铃鼓,手鼓 | |
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