For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches was seen of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each other at the watches, and for aught that could be seen to the contrary, they seemed to be the only commanders of the ship; only they sometimes issued from the cabin with orders so sudden and peremptory1, that after all it was plain they but commanded vicariously. Yes, their supreme2 lord and dictator was there, though hitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to penetrate3 into the now sacred retreat of the cabin.
Every time I ascended4 to the deck from my watches below, I instantly gazed aft to mark if any strange face were visible; for my first vague disquietude touching5 the unknown captain, now in the seclusion6 of the sea became almost a perturbation. This was strangely heightened at times by the ragged7 Elijah's diabolical8 incoherences uninvitedly recurring9 to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived of. But poorly could I withstand them, much as in other moods I was almost ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of that outlandish prophet of the wharves10. But whatever it was of apprehensiveness11 or uneasiness--to call it so-- which I felt, yet whenever I came to look about me in the ship, it seemed against all warranty12 to cherish such emotions. For though the harpooneers, with the great body of the crew, were a far more barbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the tame merchant-ship companies which my previous experiences had made me acquainted with, still I ascribed this--and rightly ascribed it--to the fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation13 in which I had so abandonedly embarked14. But it was especially the aspect of the three chief officers of the ship, the mates, which was most forcibly calculated to allay15 these colorless misgivings16, and induce confidence and cheerfulness in every presentment of the voyage. Three better, more likely sea-officers and men, each in his own different way, could not readily be found, and they were every one of them Americans; a Nantucketer, a Vineyarder, a Cape17 man. Now, it being Christmas when the ship shot from out her harbor, for a space we had biting Polar weather, though all the time running away from it to the southward; and by every degree and minute of latitude18 which we sailed, gradually leaving that merciless winter, and all its intolerable weather behind us. It was one of those less lowering, but still grey and gloomy enough mornings of the transition, when with a fair wind the ship was rushing through the water with a vindictive19 sort of leaping and melancholy20 rapidity, that as I mounted to the deck at the call of the forenoon watch, so soon as I levelled my glance towards the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. Reality outran apprehension21; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck.
There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, or taking away one particle from their compacted aged22 robustness23. His whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an unalterable mould, like Cellini's cast Perseus. Threading its way out from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his tawny24 scorched25 face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that perpendicular26 seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts27 down it, and without wrenching28 a single twig29, peels and grooves30 out the bark from top to bottom ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly alive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or whether it was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could certainly say. By some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little or no allusion31 was made to it, especially by the mates. But once Tashtego's senior, an old Gay-Head Indian among the crew, superstitiously32 asserted that not till he was full forty years old did Ahab become that way branded, and then it came upon him, not in the fury of any mortal fray33, but in an elemental strife34 at sea. Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially negatived, by what a grey Manxman insinuated35, an old sepulchral36 man, who, having never before sailed out of Nantucket, had never ere this laid eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless, the old sea-traditions, the immemorial credulities, popularly invested this old Manxman with preternatural powers of discernment. So that no white sailor seriously contradicted him when he said that if ever Captain Ahab should be tranquilly37 laid out-- which might hardly come to pass, so he muttered--then, whoever should do that last office for the dead, would find a birth-mark on him from crown to sole.
So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the livid brand which streaked39 it, that for the first few moments I hardly noted40 that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric white leg upon which he partly stood. It had previously41 come to me that this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the polished bone of the sperm42 whale's jaw43. "Aye, he was dismasted off Japan," said the old Gay-Head Indian once; "but like his dismasted craft, he shipped another mast without coming home for it. He has a quiver of 'em."
I was struck with the singular posture44 he maintained. Upon each side of the Pequod's quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizzen shrouds46, there was an auger47 hole, bored about half an inch or so, into the plank48. His bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm elevated, and holding by a shroud45; Captain Ahab stood erect49, looking straight out beyond the ship's ever-pitching prow50. There was an infinity51 of firmest fortitude52, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness53, in the fixed54 and fearless, forward dedication55 of that glance. Not a word he spoke56; nor did his officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not only that, but moody57 stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty58 woe59.
Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his cabin. But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew; either standing60 in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he had; or heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began to grow a little genial61, he became still less and less a recluse62; as if, when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry bleakness63 of the sea had then kept him so secluded64. And, by and by, it came to pass, that he was almost continually in the air; but, as yet, for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, he seemed as unnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was only making a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whaling preparatives needing supervision65 the mates were fully38 competent to, so that there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ or excite Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval66, the clouds that layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose the loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon.
Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness67 of the pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, trip home to the wintry, misanthropic68 woods; even the barest, ruggedest, most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth69 some few green sprouts70, to welcome such gladhearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile.
1 peremptory | |
adj.紧急的,专横的,断然的 | |
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2 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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3 penetrate | |
v.透(渗)入;刺入,刺穿;洞察,了解 | |
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4 ascended | |
v.上升,攀登( ascend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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5 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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6 seclusion | |
n.隐遁,隔离 | |
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7 ragged | |
adj.衣衫褴褛的,粗糙的,刺耳的 | |
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8 diabolical | |
adj.恶魔似的,凶暴的 | |
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9 recurring | |
adj.往复的,再次发生的 | |
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10 wharves | |
n.码头,停泊处( wharf的名词复数 ) | |
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11 apprehensiveness | |
忧虑感,领悟力 | |
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12 warranty | |
n.担保书,证书,保单 | |
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13 vocation | |
n.职业,行业 | |
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14 embarked | |
乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 ); 装载; 从事 | |
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15 allay | |
v.消除,减轻(恐惧、怀疑等) | |
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16 misgivings | |
n.疑虑,担忧,害怕;疑虑,担心,恐惧( misgiving的名词复数 );疑惧 | |
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17 cape | |
n.海角,岬;披肩,短披风 | |
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18 latitude | |
n.纬度,行动或言论的自由(范围),(pl.)地区 | |
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19 vindictive | |
adj.有报仇心的,怀恨的,惩罚的 | |
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20 melancholy | |
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
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21 apprehension | |
n.理解,领悟;逮捕,拘捕;忧虑 | |
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22 aged | |
adj.年老的,陈年的 | |
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23 robustness | |
坚固性,健壮性;鲁棒性 | |
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24 tawny | |
adj.茶色的,黄褐色的;n.黄褐色 | |
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25 scorched | |
烧焦,烤焦( scorch的过去式和过去分词 ); 使(植物)枯萎,把…晒枯; 高速行驶; 枯焦 | |
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26 perpendicular | |
adj.垂直的,直立的;n.垂直线,垂直的位置 | |
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27 darts | |
n.掷飞镖游戏;飞镖( dart的名词复数 );急驰,飞奔v.投掷,投射( dart的第三人称单数 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
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28 wrenching | |
n.修截苗根,苗木铲根(铲根时苗木不起土或部分起土)v.(猛力地)扭( wrench的现在分词 );扭伤;使感到痛苦;使悲痛 | |
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29 twig | |
n.小树枝,嫩枝;v.理解 | |
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30 grooves | |
n.沟( groove的名词复数 );槽;老一套;(某种)音乐节奏v.沟( groove的第三人称单数 );槽;老一套;(某种)音乐节奏 | |
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31 allusion | |
n.暗示,间接提示 | |
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32 superstitiously | |
被邪教所支配 | |
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33 fray | |
v.争吵;打斗;磨损,磨破;n.吵架;打斗 | |
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34 strife | |
n.争吵,冲突,倾轧,竞争 | |
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35 insinuated | |
v.暗示( insinuate的过去式和过去分词 );巧妙或迂回地潜入;(使)缓慢进入;慢慢伸入 | |
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36 sepulchral | |
adj.坟墓的,阴深的 | |
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37 tranquilly | |
adv. 宁静地 | |
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38 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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39 streaked | |
adj.有条斑纹的,不安的v.快速移动( streak的过去式和过去分词 );使布满条纹 | |
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40 noted | |
adj.著名的,知名的 | |
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41 previously | |
adv.以前,先前(地) | |
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42 sperm | |
n.精子,精液 | |
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43 jaw | |
n.颚,颌,说教,流言蜚语;v.喋喋不休,教训 | |
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44 posture | |
n.姿势,姿态,心态,态度;v.作出某种姿势 | |
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45 shroud | |
n.裹尸布,寿衣;罩,幕;vt.覆盖,隐藏 | |
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46 shrouds | |
n.裹尸布( shroud的名词复数 );寿衣;遮蔽物;覆盖物v.隐瞒( shroud的第三人称单数 );保密 | |
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47 auger | |
n.螺丝钻,钻孔机 | |
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48 plank | |
n.板条,木板,政策要点,政纲条目 | |
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49 erect | |
n./v.树立,建立,使竖立;adj.直立的,垂直的 | |
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50 prow | |
n.(飞机)机头,船头 | |
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51 infinity | |
n.无限,无穷,大量 | |
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52 fortitude | |
n.坚忍不拔;刚毅 | |
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53 wilfulness | |
任性;倔强 | |
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54 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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55 dedication | |
n.奉献,献身,致力,题献,献辞 | |
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56 spoke | |
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说 | |
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57 moody | |
adj.心情不稳的,易怒的,喜怒无常的 | |
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58 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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59 woe | |
n.悲哀,苦痛,不幸,困难;int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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60 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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61 genial | |
adj.亲切的,和蔼的,愉快的,脾气好的 | |
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62 recluse | |
n.隐居者 | |
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63 bleakness | |
adj. 萧瑟的, 严寒的, 阴郁的 | |
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64 secluded | |
adj.与世隔绝的;隐退的;偏僻的v.使隔开,使隐退( seclude的过去式和过去分词) | |
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65 supervision | |
n.监督,管理 | |
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66 interval | |
n.间隔,间距;幕间休息,中场休息 | |
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67 persuasiveness | |
说服力 | |
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68 misanthropic | |
adj.厌恶人类的,憎恶(或蔑视)世人的;愤世嫉俗 | |
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69 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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70 sprouts | |
n.新芽,嫩枝( sprout的名词复数 )v.发芽( sprout的第三人称单数 );抽芽;出现;(使)涌现出 | |
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