Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles; then quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of ice, swiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was heard; a subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, but obliquely from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping back into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of flakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the marble trunk of the whale.
突然间，他们四下的海面慢慢地激起许多大水圈来；接着，又迅速地往上一冒，仿佛旁边涌出一块沉在水里的冰块，飕地腾到水面上来。于是听到了一阵低沉的隆隆声；一阵地底下发出来的唔唔声；大家都屏声息气。一只巨大的形体好象里里拉拉地拖着许多绳索，标枪和捕鲸枪，纵长而微斜地打海里冲了出来。它给笼罩在一阵低垂的雾障中，在虹彩似的天空里逗留一下后，便扑通一声跌回海里去。海水哗啦啦地往上溅了三十英尺高，象是一堆堆的喷泉似的闪烁了一下后，又象一阵雪花样散落在水里，撇下一个圆圈圈，水面油腻腻的，象新鲜牛奶那样，把这条身躯如大理石的白鲸围住了。
Give way! cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted forward to the attack; but maddened by yesterday's fresh irons that corroded in him, Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell from heaven. The wide tiers of welded tendons overspreading his broad white forehead, beneath the transparent skin, looked knitted together; as head on, he came churning his tail among the boats;
划起来呀！亚哈对桨手们叫着，几只小艇都向前冲去攻击了；可是，莫比－迪克似乎让昨天插在它身上的新打出来的刀枪惹得发疯发狂了，又加上给天上下降的所有天使迷了心窍。漫布在它那宽阔的白色前额上。透明的皮肤下的大片大片的缠结的筋腱，好象都交织在一起；它一面朝前游去，一面用它的尾巴在小艇间搅来拌去；