And now that at the proper time and place, after so long and wide a preliminary cruise, Ahab,--all other whaling waters swept-- seemed to have chased his foe1 into an oceanfold, to slay2 him the more securely there; now, that he found himself hard by the very latitude3 and longitude4 where his tormenting5 wound had been inflicted6; now that a vessel7 had been spoken which on the very day preceding had actually encountered Moby Dick;-- and now that all his successive meetings with various ships contrastingly concurred8 to show the demoniac indifference9 with which the white whale tore his hunters, whether sinning or sinned against; now it was that there lurked10 a something in the old man's eyes, which it was hardly sufferable for feeble souls to see. As the unsetting polar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months' night sustains its piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab's purpose now fixedly11 gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew. It domineered above them so, that all their bodings, doubts, misgivings13, fears, were fain to hide beneath their souls, and not sprout14 forth15 a single spear or leaf.
In this foreshadowing interval16, too, all humor, forced or natural, vanished. Stubb no more strove to raise a smile; Starbuck no more strove to check one. Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to finest dust, and powdered, for the time, in the clamped mortar17 of Ahab's iron soul. Like machines, they dumbly moved about the deck, ever conscious that the old man's despot eye was on them.
But did you deeply scan him in his more secret confidential18 hours when he thought no glance but one was on him; then you would have seen that even as Ahab's eyes so awed19 the crew's, the inscrutable Parsee's glance awed his; or somehow, at least, in some wild way, at times affected20 it. Such an added, gliding21 strangeness began to invest the thin Fedallah now; such ceaseless shudderings shook him; that the men looked dubious22 at him; half uncertain, as it seemed, whether indeed he were a mortal substance, or else a tremulous shadow cast upon the deck by some unseen being's body. And that shadow was always hovering23 there. For not by night, even, had Fedallah ever certainly been known to slumber24, or go below. He would stand still for hours: but never sat or leaned; his wan25 but wondrous26 eyes did plainly say-- We two watchmen never rest.
Nor, at any time, by night or day could the mariners27 now step upon the deck, unless Ahab was before them; either standing28 in his pivot-hole, or exactly pacing the planks29 between two undeviating limits,--the main-mast and the mizen; or else they saw him standing in the cabin-scuttle30,--his living foot advanced upon the deck, as if to step; his hat slouched heavily over his eyes; so that however motionless he stood, however the days and nights were added on, that he had not swung in his hammock; yet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they could never tell unerringly whether, for all this, his eyes were really closed at times; or whether he was still intently scanning them; no matter, though he stood so in the scuttle for a whole hour on the stretch, and the unheeded night-damp gathered in beads31 of dew upon that stone-carved coat and hat. The clothes that the night had wet, the next day's sunshine dried upon him; and so, day after day, and night after night; he went no more beneath the planks; whatever he wanted from the cabin that thing he sent for.
He ate in the same open air; that is, his two only meals,-- breakfast and dinner: supper he never touched; nor reaped his beard; which darkly grew all gnarled, as unearthed32 roots of trees blown over, which still grow idly on at naked base, though perished in the upper verdure. But though his whole life was now become one watch on deck; and though the Parsee's mystic watch was without intermission as his own; yet these two never seemed to speak--one man to the other--unless at long intervals33 some passing unmomentous matter made it necessary. Though such a potent35 spell seemed secretly to join the twain; openly, and to the awe-struck crew, they seemed pole-like asunder36. If by day they chanced to speak one word; by night, dumb men were both, so far as concerned the slightest verbal interchange. At times, for longest hours, without a single hail, they stood far parted in the starlight; Ahab in his scuttle, the Parsee by the main-mast; but still fixedly gazing upon each other; as if in the Parsee Ahab saw his forethrown shadow, in Ahab the Parsee his abandoned substance.
And yet, somehow, did Ahab--in his own proper self, as daily, hourly, and every instant, commandingly revealed to his subordinates,-- Ahab seemed an independent lord; the Parsee but his slave. Still again both seemed yoked37 together, and an unseen tyrant38 driving them; the lean shade siding the solid rib39. For be this Parsee what he may, all rib and keel was solid Ahab.
At the first faintest glimmering40 of the dawn, his iron voice was heard from aft,--"Man the mast-heads!"--and all through the day, till after sunset and after twilight41, the same voice every hour, at the striking of the helmsman's bell, was heard--"What d'ye see?-- sharp! sharp! sharp!"
But when three or four days had slided by, after meeting the children-seeking Rachel; and no spout42 had yet been seen; the monomaniac old man seemed distrustful of his crew's fidelity43; at least, of nearly all except the Pagan harpooneers; he seemed to doubt, even, whether Stubb and Flask44 might not willingly overlook the sight he sought. But if these suspicions were really his, he sagaciously refrained from verbally expressing them, however his actions might seem to hint them.
"I will have the first sight of the whale myself,"-- he said. "Aye! Ahab must have the doubloon! and with his own hands he rigged a nest of basketed bowlines; and sending a hand aloft, with a single sheaved block, to secure to the mainmast head, he received the two ends of the downwardreeved rope; and attaching one to his basket prepared a pin for the other end, in order to fasten it at the rail. This done, with that end yet in his hand and standing beside the pin, he looked round upon his crew, sweeping45 from one to the other; pausing his glance long upon Daggoo, Queequeg, Tashtego; but shunning46 Fedallah; and then settling his firm relying eye upon the chief mate, said,--"Take the rope, sir--I give it into thy hands, Starbuck." Then arranging his person in the basket, he gave the word for them to hoist47 him to his perch48, Starbuck being the one who secured the rope at last; and afterwards stood near it. And thus, with one hand clinging round the royal mast, Ahab gazed abroad upon the sea for miles and miles,--ahead astern, this side, and that,--within the wide expanded circle commanded at so great a height.
When in working with his hands at some lofty almost isolated49 place in the rigging, which chances to afford no foothold, the sailor at sea is hoisted50 up to that spot, and sustained there by the rope; under these circumstances, its fastened end on deck is always given in strict charge to some one man who has the special watch of it. Because in such a wilderness51 of running rigging, whose various different relations aloft cannot always be infallibly discerned by what is seen of them at the deck; and when the deck-ends of these ropes are being every few minutes cast down from the fastenings, it would be but a natural fatality52, if, unprovided with a constant watchman, the hoisted sailor should by some carelessness of the crew be cast adrift and fall all swooping53 to the sea. So Ahab's proceedings54 in this matter were not unusual; the only strange thing about them seemed to be, that Starbuck, almost the one only man who had ever ventured to oppose him with anything in the slightest degree approaching to decision-- one of those too, whose faithfulness on the look-out he had seemed to doubt somewhat; it was strange, that this was the very man he should select for his watchman; freely giving his whole life into such an otherwise distrusted person's hands.
Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft; ere he had been there ten minutes; one of those red-billed savage55 sea-hawks which so often fly incommodiously close round the manned mast-heads of whalemen in these latitudes57; one of these birds came wheeling and screaming round his head in a maze58 of untrackably swift circlings. Then it darted59 a thousand feet straight up into the air; then spiralized downwards60, and went eddying61 again round his head.
But with his gaze fixed12 upon the dim and distant horizon, Ahab seemed not to mark this wild bird; nor, indeed, would any one else have marked it much, it being no uncommon62 circumstance; only now almost the least heedful eye seemed to see some sort of cunning meaning in almost every sight.
"Your hat, your hat, sir!" suddenly cried the Sicilian seaman63, who being posted at the mizen-mast-head, stood directly behind Ahab, though somewhat lower than his level, and with a deep gulf64 of air dividing them.
But already the sable65 wing was before the old man's eyes; the long hooked bill at his head: with a scream, the black hawk56 darted away with his prize.
An eagle flew thrice round Tarquin's head, removing his cap to replace it, and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin would be king of Rome. But only by the replacing of the cap was that omen34 accounted good. Ahab's hat was never restored; the wild hawk flew on and on with it; far in advance of the prow66: and at last disappeared; while from the point of that disappearance67, a minute black spot was dimly discerned, falling from that vast height into the sea.
1 foe | |
n.敌人,仇敌 | |
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2 slay | |
v.杀死,宰杀,杀戮 | |
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3 latitude | |
n.纬度,行动或言论的自由(范围),(pl.)地区 | |
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4 longitude | |
n.经线,经度 | |
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5 tormenting | |
使痛苦的,使苦恼的 | |
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6 inflicted | |
把…强加给,使承受,遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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7 vessel | |
n.船舶;容器,器皿;管,导管,血管 | |
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8 concurred | |
同意(concur的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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9 indifference | |
n.不感兴趣,不关心,冷淡,不在乎 | |
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10 lurked | |
vi.潜伏,埋伏(lurk的过去式与过去分词形式) | |
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11 fixedly | |
adv.固定地;不屈地,坚定不移地 | |
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12 fixed | |
adj.固定的,不变的,准备好的;(计算机)固定的 | |
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13 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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14 sprout | |
n.芽,萌芽;vt.使发芽,摘去芽;vi.长芽,抽条 | |
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15 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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16 interval | |
n.间隔,间距;幕间休息,中场休息 | |
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17 mortar | |
n.灰浆,灰泥;迫击炮;v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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18 confidential | |
adj.秘(机)密的,表示信任的,担任机密工作的 | |
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19 awed | |
adj.充满敬畏的,表示敬畏的v.使敬畏,使惊惧( awe的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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20 affected | |
adj.不自然的,假装的 | |
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21 gliding | |
v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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22 dubious | |
adj.怀疑的,无把握的;有问题的,靠不住的 | |
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23 hovering | |
鸟( hover的现在分词 ); 靠近(某事物); (人)徘徊; 犹豫 | |
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24 slumber | |
n.睡眠,沉睡状态 | |
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25 wan | |
(wide area network)广域网 | |
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26 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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27 mariners | |
海员,水手(mariner的复数形式) | |
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28 standing | |
n.持续,地位;adj.永久的,不动的,直立的,不流动的 | |
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29 planks | |
(厚)木板( plank的名词复数 ); 政纲条目,政策要点 | |
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30 scuttle | |
v.急赶,疾走,逃避;n.天窗;舷窗 | |
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31 beads | |
n.(空心)小珠子( bead的名词复数 );水珠;珠子项链 | |
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32 unearthed | |
出土的(考古) | |
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33 intervals | |
n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 );间隔时间;[数学]区间;(戏剧、电影或音乐会的)幕间休息 | |
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34 omen | |
n.征兆,预兆;vt.预示 | |
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35 potent | |
adj.强有力的,有权势的;有效力的 | |
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36 asunder | |
adj.分离的,化为碎片 | |
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37 yoked | |
结合(yoke的过去式形式) | |
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38 tyrant | |
n.暴君,专制的君主,残暴的人 | |
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39 rib | |
n.肋骨,肋状物 | |
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40 glimmering | |
n.微光,隐约的一瞥adj.薄弱地发光的v.发闪光,发微光( glimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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41 twilight | |
n.暮光,黄昏;暮年,晚期,衰落时期 | |
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42 spout | |
v.喷出,涌出;滔滔不绝地讲;n.喷管;水柱 | |
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43 fidelity | |
n.忠诚,忠实;精确 | |
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44 flask | |
n.瓶,火药筒,砂箱 | |
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45 sweeping | |
adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
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46 shunning | |
v.避开,回避,避免( shun的现在分词 ) | |
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47 hoist | |
n.升高,起重机,推动;v.升起,升高,举起 | |
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48 perch | |
n.栖木,高位,杆;v.栖息,就位,位于 | |
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49 isolated | |
adj.与世隔绝的 | |
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50 hoisted | |
把…吊起,升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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51 wilderness | |
n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等,荒漠 | |
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52 fatality | |
n.不幸,灾祸,天命 | |
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53 swooping | |
俯冲,猛冲( swoop的现在分词 ) | |
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54 proceedings | |
n.进程,过程,议程;诉讼(程序);公报 | |
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55 savage | |
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
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56 hawk | |
n.鹰,骗子;鹰派成员 | |
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57 latitudes | |
纬度 | |
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58 maze | |
n.迷宫,八阵图,混乱,迷惑 | |
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59 darted | |
v.投掷,投射( dart的过去式和过去分词 );向前冲,飞奔 | |
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60 downwards | |
adj./adv.向下的(地),下行的(地) | |
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61 eddying | |
涡流,涡流的形成 | |
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62 uncommon | |
adj.罕见的,非凡的,不平常的 | |
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63 seaman | |
n.海员,水手,水兵 | |
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64 gulf | |
n.海湾;深渊,鸿沟;分歧,隔阂 | |
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65 sable | |
n.黑貂;adj.黑色的 | |
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66 prow | |
n.(飞机)机头,船头 | |
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67 disappearance | |
n.消失,消散,失踪 | |
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