But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded whale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true form. Not at all. For it is one of the more curious things about this Leviathan, that his skeleton gives very little idea of his general shape. Though Jeremy Bentham's skeleton, which hangs for candelabra in the library of one of his executors, correctly conveys the idea of a burly-browed utilitarian old gentleman, with all Jeremy's other leading personal characteristics; yet nothing of this kind could be inferred from any leviathan's articulated bones.
不过，也许有人认为，说不定从那只被拖上岸来的鲸的赤裸裸的骨架上，可以对它的真形获得正确的启示。并不尽然。因为这就是这种大海兽的比较奇特的事项之一，它的骨架对于它一般形状也提供不出什么概念来，虽然杰里米·边沁（杰里米·边沁（1748—1832）——英国社会学家，他死后，按照他的遗嘱，遗体放在遗嘱执行人之一的伦敦大学博物馆中。）的骨架，可以象大烛台一般地挂在他一个指定遗嘱执行人的图书馆里，正确地传达出这位魁伟的功利主义的老先生的形象，以及他本人种种主要的特征；然而，从任何一条大海兽的皑皑白骨中，却一点也推论不出类似的东西来。
In fact, as the great Hunter says, the mere skeleton of the whale bears the same relation to the fully invested and padded animal as the insect does to the chrysalis that so roundingly envelopes it. This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the head, as in some part of this book will be incidentally shown. It is also very curiously displayed in the side fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer to the bones of the human hand, minus only the thumb. This fin has four regular bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger. But all these are permanently lodged in their fleshy covering, as the human fingers in an artificial covering. "However recklessly the whale may sometimes serve us," said humorous Stubb one day, "he can never be truly said to handle us without mittens."
事实上，正如伟大的亨特所说，鲸的骨架之与厚拥重裘的活鲸的关系，不过是象昆虫之与那被团团包牢的蛹的关系一样。这个特征，在头部尤其表现得明显，这在本书的其它部分将会偶然提到。它那边鳍也显得十分奇特，鳍里的骨头差不多跟人手的骨头一模一样，不过没有大拇指而已。这种鳍有四根正常的手指骨，就是食指、中指、无名指和小指头。但是所有这种手指骨都深藏在肉里，一如人的手指戴上连指手套那样。“不管鲸鱼会时常多么粗卤地对付我们，”爱发幽默的斯塔布有一天说，“它可永远不会不戴连指手套就真的抓得住我们。”