Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod now went rolling through the bright Quito spring, which at sea, almost perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of the Tropic.
过了几天,冰块和流冰都撇在后面了,这时,裴廓德号正乘风破浪冲过春光明媚的基多。在海洋上,春天差不多是老守在热带的永恒的八月天的门口。
The warmly cool, clear, ringing perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up-flaked up, with rose-water snow.
那种暖洋洋而凉爽晴朗。鸟语花香。丰富多采的白昼,就象是波斯那种盛冰果子露的水晶杯子,堆积着一片片地堆着玫瑰香水凝成的冰雪。
The starred and stately nights seemed haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns!
繁星闪烁。端庄肃穆的夜空,象是穿着珠光宝气的天鹅绒衣服的傲慢的贵妇,高傲孤单地呆在家里,想念着那不在她身旁的南征北战的公侯,想念着那盔甲辉煌的太阳!
For sleeping man, 'twas hard to choose between such winsome days and such seducing nights.
对于熟睡的人说来,这种逗人兴致的白昼和如此诱人的夜晚,都同样是可以酣睡的。
But all the witcheries of that unwaning weather did not merely lend new spells and potencies to the outward world.
不过,这种富有诱惑力的灿烂天气,它不光是给外界增添了新的迷惑力,还打开了人们的心扉,
Inward they turned upon the soul, especially when the still mild hours of eve came on;
尤其是每当这种静穆柔美的夜色扰来的时候,
then, memory shot her crystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights.
就象冰霜在万籁俱寂的夜空里结成冰晶体一样,记忆也突然结晶了。
And all these subtle agencies, more and more they wrought on Ahab's texture.
所有这些微妙的力量,也越来越甚地作用于亚哈的肌理。
Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
上年纪的人总是睡不着觉的;仿佛越是上了年纪,越是同死神这样的东西不那么有关系似的。
Among sea-commanders, the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths to visit the night-cloaked deck.
在一般海上的指挥者中,胡须灰白的老年人往往情愿舍弃他们的卧铺,去探望那夜幕笼罩的甲板。
It was so with Ahab; only that now, of late, he seemed so much to live in the open air, that truly speaking, his visits were more to the cabin, than from the cabin to the planks.
亚哈就是这般情况;不过,只是在最近,他才好象是愿意多呆在露天里,因此,老实说,他现在是从甲板去探望船长室,而不是从船长室去探望甲板。
It feels like going down into one's tomb,-he would mutter to himself-for an old captain like me to be descending this narrow scuttle, to go to my grave-dug berth.
象我这样一个老船长,要我走下这个狭窄的舱口,走到我那墓穴似的铺床上去,我不免觉得好象是走进我的坟冢。他会这么自言自语着。