Great pains, small gains for those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve itself. Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox! and but six months before he wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born in throes, 't is fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So be it, then! Here's stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then.
那些想请求世界给解决大灾小利的人，世界却连它自己也闹不清。现在，我倒认为这只铸在金币上的太阳，面孔红彤彤；不信，请看呀！喂，它走进那大风暴的信号，那昼夜平分点里去了！它只在六个月前，才从先前的白羊宫的昼夜平分点里滚出来！从风暴到风暴！这真不错。来自痛苦的深渊，因此，人类必须生于苦痛，死于剧痛！哼，真不错！这就是悲痛大可活动的阵地呀。哼，真不错。
No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws must have left their mouldings there since yesterday, murmured Starbuck to himself, leaning against the bulwarks. "The old man seems to read Belshazzar's awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly. He goes below; let me read. A dark valley between three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil; but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer.
仙女的指头也揿不扁这块金币，但是，打昨天起，魔爪一定留下了爪印了，斯达巴克倚在舷墙上，暗自嘀咕道。"这老头倒象在读伯沙撒那令人心慌意乱的文字（伯沙撒——《圣经》上巴比伦最后之王，后为玛代人与波斯人所杀。这里所指的文字，见《旧约·但以理书》第五章二十五节："所写的文字是弥尼，弥尼，提客勒，乌法珥新。讲解是这样：弥尼就是上帝已经数算你国的年日到此完毕，提客勒就是你被称在天平里显出你的亏欠，乌法珥新就是你的国分裂，归与玛代人和波斯人。"）。我从来没有仔细察看过那块金币。他下舱里去了，我不妨去看一看。啊，在这三座天长地久的高峰间，还有一道阴森的山谷，简直有点象尘世的三位一体的符号。所以在这条死谷里，上帝把我们箍住了。可是，那个公正的太阳，仍对着我们这种忧郁的生活，投射出一个警标和一种希望。如果我们低眼一看，就看到暗谷里那发了霉的泥土；可是，如果我们抬起双眼，那只辉煌的太阳就打半路里跟我们的眼睛相逢，叫我们兴奋一番。