But the tendency to rapid sinking in this substance was in the present instance materially counteracted by the other parts of the head remaining undetached from it, so that it sank very slowly and deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fair chance for performing his agile obstetrics on the run, as you may say. Yes, it was a running delivery, so it was.
不过，这种东西的迅速下沉的趋势，在这一只鲸头说来，却由于头颅中还有未曾割掉的其它的零碎东西而大大地受到了牵制，所以，它才沉得很慢很稳，也可以这样说，这才使得魁魁格能够有机会从从容容摸来摸去，进行他那敏捷的接生术。不错，这就是一种随机应变的接生术。
Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can readily be recalled—the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed. How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head, and sweetly perished there?
那么，如果塔斯蒂哥就在那只头里完了蛋的话，这倒真是一种十分稀奇的惨死，给闷死在那很白很优美而芬芳的鲸脑里，装殓，盛棺，埋葬在那只大鲸的神秘的内室和至圣所里。这只能立刻教人想到另一个更为甜美的结局——想到一个俄亥俄的采蜂蜜人（这里指采野蜂蜜。）的妙死的故事，这个采蜂蜜人，在一棵中空的大树桠里采蜜的时候，因为发觉里面蜂蜜不少，上身伸得太猛，竟让蜜把他汲了进去，因而满身香气地死了。那么，你们想一想吧，同样地掉进了柏拉图那如蜜如胶的脑袋里，而美满地死了的可有多少呀？
Chapter 79 The Prairie
第七十九章 大草原
To scan the lines of his face, or feel the bumps on the head of this Leviathan; this is a thing which no Physiognomist or Phrenologist has as yet undertaken. Such an enterprise would seem almost as hopeful as for Lavater to have scrutinized the wrinkles on the Rock of Gibraltar, or for Gall to have mounted a ladder and manipulated the Dome of the Pantheon.
仔细地看一看它脸上的纹路，或者摸一摸这只大海兽头上隆起的头盖骨，这是一件连看相先生或者骨相学家都从来没有做过的事情。这种行当，倒差不多跟拉瓦特（约翰·卡斯柏·拉瓦特（1741—1801）——瑞士相士。）去仔细观察直布罗陀人的额上的纹路，或者是跟迦耳（法朗士·约瑟·迦耳（1758—1828）——德国医生，骨相学的创始者。）爬上梯子，去巧妙地抚弄伟人祠（伟人祠——指巴黎的圣·日尼维耶甫教堂。）的圆屋顶一样很有前途。