Not eight inches of perpendicular rope were visible at the bows. Seems it credible that by three such thin threads the great Leviathan was suspended like the big weight to an eight day clock. Suspended? and to what? To three bits of board. Is this the creature of whom it was once so triumphantly said—"Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish-spears? The sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold, the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon: he esteemeth iron as straw; the arrow cannot make him flee; darts are counted as stubble; he laugheth at the shaking of a spear!" This the creature? this he? Oh! that unfulfilments should follow the prophets. For with the strength of a thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his head under the mountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod's fishspears!
船头上所看到的垂直的绳索还没有八英寸长。看来似乎一点不假，这样三根细绳子，就把这条大鲸象吊住一只八天大钟般吊起了。吊起么？吊什么？吊三片小木板么？难道这就是那只曾经被非常洋洋得意地谈论着的畜生么？——"你能用倒钩枪扎满它的皮？能用鱼叉叉满它的头么？若用刀，用枪，用标枪，用尖枪扎它，都是无用；它以铁为干草，箭不能恐吓它，使它逃避，弹石在它看为碎秸，它嗤笑短枪飕的响声！"（见《旧约·约伯记》第四十一章七-二十六-二十九节。）就是这只畜生么？这就是它吗？啊！这种预言是注定不能应验了。因为，这条大鲸为了逃避"裴廓德号"的鱼枪，已经用它那有千钧之力的尾巴，连奔带跑地把它的头钻进大海里去了！
In that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three boats sent down beneath the surface, must have been long enough and broad enough to shade half Xerxes' army. Who can tell how appalling to the wounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting over his head!
在那午后的斜阳中，三只小艇投在海面上的阴影，真是又长又阔，足以掩护瑟克西斯（瑟克西斯（公元前519—465）——波斯王。）的半支军队。究竟这么许多晃荡在这条受伤大鲸头顶的巨大的魔影，它会感到多么害怕，谁又说得上来呢！
Stand by, men; he stirs, cried Starbuck, as the three lines suddenly vibrated in the water, distinctly conducting upwards to them, as by magnetic wires, the life and death throbs of the whale, so that every oarsman felt them in his seat.
准备好，伙伴们，它在动啦，斯达巴克叫道，这时候，三根绳子都突然在水里晃动起来，那三根绳子，仿佛是有磁力的电线，清清楚楚地牵住了这条大鲸的生死关头，弄得每个坐在位子上的划桨人也都觉得到绳子的颤动。