How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled man to try to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely poring over his dead attenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood. No. Only in the heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale be truly and livingly found out.
于是，我心里想，那些足不出户的胆小鬼，只是对着这架躺在平静的树林里的干枯的死尸瞄了一眼，就想正确了解这条惊人的大鲸，是多么枉费而愚蠢。不，只有在最危急的关头；只有在它那怒冲冲的裂尾的大涡流里；只有在无涯无底的大海上，才能真切而逼真地看到这条充满生气的大鲸的雄姿。
But the spine. For that, the best way we can consider it is, with a crane, to pile its bones high up on end. No speedy enterprise. But now it's done, it looks much like Pompey's Pillar.
但是，关于那脊骨，现在我们所想得出的最好的办法，就是用一架起重机，把它的骨胳高高地堆起。这可不是一下子就办得到的。不过，一经堆了起来，它可就活象庞彼的大柱（庞彼的大柱——十五世纪时埃及的玫瑰色花岗石的纪念物，高六十七英尺，柱脚有二十一英尺宽。）了。
There are forty and odd vertebrae in all, which in the skeleton are not locked together. They mostly lie like the great knobbed blocks on a Gothic spire, forming solid courses of heavy masonry. The largest, a middle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in depth more than four. The smallest, where the spine tapers away into the tail, is only two inches in width, and looks something like a white billiard-ball. I was told that there were still smaller ones, but they had been lost by some little cannibal urchins, the priest's children, who had stolen them to play marbles with. Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple child's play.
脊椎骨一共约有四十多根，它可不是一起放在骷髅里的。它们大多象峨特式塔尖上的大瘤木头，结结实实地堆得象一排排笨重的泥水作物。中间那根最大的脊椎骨，大约还不到三英尺阔，厚薄却有四英尺多。那根尖端接着尾巴的最小椎骨，只不过有两英寸阔，样子有点象只白色的台球。据说还有比这更小的东西，可惜，它们已被许多小野人，那些僧人的孩子们偷去玩打弹子游戏了。这样，我们就看到，甚至最为魁梧的生物的脊骨，到头来也会缩成无知的小孩的玩物了。