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Originally it was in itself accounted an object of great curiosity. Black Letter tells me that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that voyage, when Queen Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him from a window of Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the Thames; when Sir Martin returned from that voyage, saith Black Letter, on bended knees he presented to her highness a prodigious long horn of the Narwhale, which for a long period after hung in the castle at Windsor. An Irish author avers that the Earl of Leicester, on bended knees, did likewise present to her highness another horn, pertaining to a land beast of the unicorn nature.
它本来还被当成一种富有玩赏价值的东西。书本上还告诉我说,在马丁。弗罗比歇爵士从那次航程回来,他那条历尽千难万险的船驶进泰晤士河的时候,贝斯女王还在格林尼治宫的窗口对他殷勤挥起她那珠光宝气的手呢。书上说,"马丁爵士从那次航行回来,屈着双膝把一只非常长的独角鲸的角献给女王,此后,这只角还在温沙宫里挂了很长一个时期。"某一个爱尔兰作家还证明出莱斯特伯爵也曾屈着双膝呈给女王一只角,不过,那是取自陆上的独角兽的。
The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being of a milk-white ground color, dotted with round and oblong spots of black. His oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there is little of it, and he is seldom hunted. He is mostly found in the circumpolar seas.
独角鲸有一种十分美丽如画的,豹子似的样子,因为它身上呈乳白色,长椭圆的黑点子,星罗棋布。它的油十分上乘而清纯;只是油量不多,并且难得捕到。大都要到极地附近的海洋上才找得到它。
BOOK II. (Octavo), CHAPTER IV. (Killer).--Of this whale little is precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the professed naturalists. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I should say that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savage-a sort of Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio whales by the lip, and hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death. The Killer is never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has. Exception might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included.
第二篇(八开型) 第四章(海豚鲸)...关于这种鲸,南塔开特人也不很弄得清楚,至于职业的博物学家更是一无所知了。根据我曾经在远处看到它的经验,我敢说它的身材大小跟逆戟鲸差不多。它生性十分凶猛...可以说是一种菲济鱼。它往往抓着大对开鲸的嘴唇,象只水蛭般吊在那里,直弄得那大野物恼得要死。人们从来没有捕到过海豚鲸,我也从来没有听到它有什么油。由于它的来路不明,我们必须反对给这种鲸取上这个名字。因为我们都是海上陆上的凶手,包括大鲨鱼和拿破仑在内。
