Availing himself of the mild, summer-cool weather that now reigned1 in these latitudes2, and in preparation for the peculiarly active pursuits shortly to be anticipated, Perth, the begrimed, blistered4 old blacksmith, had not removed his portable forge to the hold again, after concluding his contributory work for Ahab's leg, but still retained it on deck, fast lashed5 to ringbolts by the foremast; being now almost incessantly6 invoked7 by the headsmen, and harpooneers, and bowsmen to do some little job for them; altering, or repairing, or new shaping their various weapons and boat furniture. Often he would be surrounded by an eager circle, all waiting to be served; holding boat-spades, pikeheads, harpoons8, and lances, and jealously watching his every sooty movement, as he toiled10. Nevertheless, this old man's was a patient hammer wielded11 by a patient arm. No murmur12, no impatience13, no petulance14 did come from him. Silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over still further his chronically15 broken back, he toiled away, as if toil9 were life itself, and the heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating of his heart. And so it was.--Most miserable16!
A peculiar3 walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful appearing yawing in his gait, had at an early period of the voyage excited the curiosity of the mariners17. And to the importunity18 of their persisted questionings he had finally given in; and so it came to pass that every one now knew the shameful19 story of his wretched fate.
Belated, and not innocently, one bitter winter's midnight, on the road running between two country towns, the blacksmith half-stupidly felt the deadly numbness20 stealing over him, and sought refuge in a leaning, dilapidated barn. The issue was, the loss of the extremities21 of both feet. Out of this revelation, part by part, at last came out the four acts of the gladness, and the one long, and as yet uncatastrophied fifth act of the grief of his life's drama.
He was an old man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had postponedly encountered that thing in sorrow's technicals called ruin. He had been an artisan of famed excellence22, and with plenty to do; owned a house and garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three blithe23, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church, planted in a grove24. But one night, under cover of darkness, and further concealed25 in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into his happy home, and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet to tell, the blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into his family's heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror26! Upon the opening of that fatal cork27, forth28 flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home. Now, for prudent29, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith's shop was in the basement of his dwelling30, but with a separate entrance to it; so that always had the young and loving healthy wife listened with no unhappy nervousness, but with vigorous pleasure, to the stout31 ringing of her young-armed old husband's hammer; whose reverberations, muffled32 by passing through the floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly, in her nursery; and so, to stout Labor's iron lullaby, the blacksmith's infants were rocked to slumber33.
Oh, woe34 on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely? Hadst thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came upon him, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and her orphans35 a truly venerable, legendary36 sire to dream of in their after years; and all of them a care-killing competency. But Death plucked down some virtuous37 elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely38 hung the responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse than useless old man standing39, till the hideous40 rot of life should make him easier to harvest.
Why tell the whole? The blows of the basement hammer every day grew more and more between; and each blow every day grew fainter than the last; the wife sat frozen at the window, with tearless eyes, glitteringly gazing into the weeping faces of her children; the bellows41 fell; the forge choked up with cinders42; the house was sold; the mother dived down into the long church-yard grass; her children twice followed her thither43; and the houseless, familyless old man staggered off a vagabond in crape; his every woe unreverenced; his grey head a scorn to flaxen curls!
Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this; but Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; it is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the Wild, the Watery44, the Unshored; therefore, to the death-longing eyes of such men, who still have left in them some interior compunctions against suicide, does the all-contributed and all-receptive ocean alluringly45 spread forth his whole plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures; and from the hearts of infinite Pacifics, the thousand mermaids46 sing to them--"Come hither, broken-hearted; here is another life without the guilt47 of intermediate death; here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them. Come hither! bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally abhorred48 and abhorring49, landed world, is more oblivious50 than death. Come hither! put up thy grave-stone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till we marry thee!"
Hearkening to these voices, East and West, by early sunrise, and by fall of eve, the blacksmith's soul responded, Aye, I come! And so Perth went a-whaling.
1 reigned | |
vi.当政,统治(reign的过去式形式) | |
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2 latitudes | |
纬度 | |
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3 peculiar | |
adj.古怪的,异常的;特殊的,特有的 | |
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4 blistered | |
adj.水疮状的,泡状的v.(使)起水泡( blister的过去式和过去分词 );(使表皮等)涨破,爆裂 | |
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5 lashed | |
adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 );煽动;紧系;怒斥 | |
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6 incessantly | |
ad.不停地 | |
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7 invoked | |
v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 );行使(权利等);祈求救助;恳求 | |
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8 harpoons | |
n.鱼镖,鱼叉( harpoon的名词复数 )v.鱼镖,鱼叉( harpoon的第三人称单数 ) | |
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9 toil | |
vi.辛劳工作,艰难地行动;n.苦工,难事 | |
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10 toiled | |
长时间或辛苦地工作( toil的过去式和过去分词 ); 艰难缓慢地移动,跋涉 | |
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11 wielded | |
手持着使用(武器、工具等)( wield的过去式和过去分词 ); 具有; 运用(权力); 施加(影响) | |
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12 murmur | |
n.低语,低声的怨言;v.低语,低声而言 | |
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13 impatience | |
n.不耐烦,急躁 | |
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14 petulance | |
n.发脾气,生气,易怒,暴躁,性急 | |
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15 chronically | |
ad.长期地 | |
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16 miserable | |
adj.悲惨的,痛苦的;可怜的,糟糕的 | |
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17 mariners | |
海员,水手(mariner的复数形式) | |
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18 importunity | |
n.硬要,强求 | |
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19 shameful | |
adj.可耻的,不道德的 | |
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20 numbness | |
n.无感觉,麻木,惊呆 | |
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21 extremities | |
n.端点( extremity的名词复数 );尽头;手和足;极窘迫的境地 | |
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22 excellence | |
n.优秀,杰出,(pl.)优点,美德 | |
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23 blithe | |
adj.快乐的,无忧无虑的 | |
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24 grove | |
n.林子,小树林,园林 | |
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25 concealed | |
a.隐藏的,隐蔽的 | |
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26 conjuror | |
n.魔术师,变戏法者 | |
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27 cork | |
n.软木,软木塞 | |
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28 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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29 prudent | |
adj.谨慎的,有远见的,精打细算的 | |
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30 dwelling | |
n.住宅,住所,寓所 | |
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32 muffled | |
adj.(声音)被隔的;听不太清的;(衣服)裹严的;蒙住的v.压抑,捂住( muffle的过去式和过去分词 );用厚厚的衣帽包着(自己) | |
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33 slumber | |
n.睡眠,沉睡状态 | |
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34 woe | |
n.悲哀,苦痛,不幸,困难;int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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35 orphans | |
孤儿( orphan的名词复数 ) | |
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36 legendary | |
adj.传奇(中)的,闻名遐迩的;n.传奇(文学) | |
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37 virtuous | |
adj.有品德的,善良的,贞洁的,有效力的 | |
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38 solely | |
adv.仅仅,唯一地 | |
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39 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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40 hideous | |
adj.丑陋的,可憎的,可怕的,恐怖的 | |
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41 bellows | |
n.风箱;发出吼叫声,咆哮(尤指因痛苦)( bellow的名词复数 );(愤怒地)说出(某事),大叫v.发出吼叫声,咆哮(尤指因痛苦)( bellow的第三人称单数 );(愤怒地)说出(某事),大叫 | |
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42 cinders | |
n.煤渣( cinder的名词复数 );炭渣;煤渣路;煤渣跑道 | |
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43 thither | |
adv.向那里;adj.在那边的,对岸的 | |
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44 watery | |
adj.有水的,水汪汪的;湿的,湿润的 | |
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45 alluringly | |
诱人地,妩媚地 | |
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46 mermaids | |
n.(传说中的)美人鱼( mermaid的名词复数 ) | |
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47 guilt | |
n.犯罪;内疚;过失,罪责 | |
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48 abhorred | |
v.憎恶( abhor的过去式和过去分词 );(厌恶地)回避;拒绝;淘汰 | |
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49 abhorring | |
v.憎恶( abhor的现在分词 );(厌恶地)回避;拒绝;淘汰 | |
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50 oblivious | |
adj.易忘的,遗忘的,忘却的,健忘的 | |
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