Yes; and many is the time, when, after the severest uninterrupted labors, which know no night; continuing straight through for ninety-six hours; when from the boat, where they have swelled their wrists with all day rowing on the Line,—they only step to the deck to carry vast chains, and heave the heavy windlass, and cut and slash, yea, and in their very sweatings to be smoked and burned anew by the combined fires of the equatorial sun and the equatorial try-works; when, on the heel of all this, they have finally bestirred themselves to cleanse the ship, and make a spotless dairy room of it; many is the time the poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, are startled by the cry of "There she blows!" and away they fly to fight another whale, and go through the whole weary thing again. Oh! my friends, but this is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long toilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; hardly is this done, when—There she blows!—the ghost is spouted up, and away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's old routine again.
不错，往往就有许多时候，在他们不分日夜、连续不断干了九十六小时最辛劳的工作后；他们在小艇里，在赤道线上划了一整天，划得臂膀发肿，一会儿爬上大船去拿大铁链，一会儿又去旋那笨重的绞车，或者斩斩砍砍，再一会儿又得满身是汗地再受那赤道线上的太阳和赤道线似的炼油间的混合的烈火晒晒熏熏，总之干了所有这些活儿后，他们终于打起精神来洗刷船只，把它弄成一间一尘不染的牛奶棚的这个时候；往往有许多可怜的人们，刚把他们那干净外套的颈钮子一扣上，就被那"它又在喷水啦！"的叫声吓了一跳，又连忙赶去追击另一条大鲸，又得再去干这整个使人精疲力竭的活儿。啊！我的朋友们，可这就是叫人累死的营生呀！然而，这就是生活。因为我们这些人刚在长期的劳累里，打从这个世间的大东西里榨出了一点十分宝贵的抹香鲸脑，忍着疲劳，洗净身上的污秽，正想生活在灵魂的干净的圣室里时，不料就在这些事情刚一做完，又听到"它又在喷水了！"——那只幽灵又在喷水了，我们就得划起小艇，赶去作另一次战斗，又得去干年轻的生命的老套常规的活儿。
Oh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece, two thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild; I sailed with thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage—and, foolish as I am, taught thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope.
灵魂之轮回呵！毕达哥拉斯（毕达哥拉斯（公元前532—497）——希腊哲学家，灵魂轮回及转生是他的学说的主要部分。）呵！你这个二千年前死在辉煌的希腊的人呵，是如此仁慈、如此聪明、如此温厚；上一回，我还跟您一起驶过了秘鲁沿海——而且，我虽然是个傻瓜，还教过您这个初出茅庐的纯朴小子，怎样捻接绳索呢。