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Yet habit—strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?—Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany, than you will hear over the half-inch white cedar of the whaleboat, when thus hung in hangman's nooses; and, like the six burghers of Calais before King Edward, the six men composing the crew pull into the jaws of death, with a halter around every neck, as you may say.
然而，习惯就是不可思议的东西！有什么是习惯所克服不了的？——象这样给吊在绞架的套索上，坐在半英寸厚的白杉木的捕鲸艇上，人们所听到的那种快活的俏皮话，愉快的打趣，尽情的开玩笑，和伶俐的应对，是在一般餐桌上从来听不到的。你不妨这么说，这只小艇上那六个划到鬼门关去的水手，就跟那六个站在爱德华国王面前的卡勒斯市民卡勒斯——法国北部的商港。在英法百年战争期间，这地方于一三四六年为英王爱德华三世所攻占，当时，有六个市民为了保全当地居民的生命，免遭英军大屠杀，各人在脖子上套了一根绞索，到爱德华跟前去牺牲自己。现在那里还立有罗丹所塑的六个人的铜像。）一样，每个人的颈脖子上都套有一根绞索。
Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for those repeated whaling disasters—some few of which are casually chronicled—of this man or that man being taken out of the boat by the line, and lost. For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in the boat, is like being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings of a steam-engine in full play, when every flying beam, and shaft, and wheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you cannot sit motionless in the heart of these perils, because the boat is rocking like a cradle, and you are pitched one way and the other, without the slightest warning; and only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and simultaneousness of volition and action, can you escape being made a Mazeppa of, and run away with where the all-seeing sun himself could never pierce you out.
这会儿，你也许不大会想到那些一再发生的捕鲸业的灾难——虽说偶尔也有一些记载——不大会想到有这个或者那个人让捕鲸索给摔出了小艇而完了蛋。因为捕鲸索一经抛了出去，坐在小艇上，就如置身在开足马力的蒸汽机的大闹声里，这时候每一支飞滚的杠杆呀，轴呀，轮盘呀，都在摩擦着你。最糟糕的是，坐在这种危险的中心里，却不能坐在那里，一动不动，因为那只小艇本身就摇簸得象只摇篮，你只能毫无防备地听其摇来摆去；只有靠着一阵自动调节的弹力，和同时发生的意志力与活动力，才不至于做麦齐巴（麦齐巴（1645—1709）——波兰贵族，先为波兰王克西米宫廷的学习骑士，后因与某贵族的妻子有纠葛，被缚在马身上，由马飞驰狂拖，哪知马匹把他拖到乌克兰后，马死，麦齐巴却为乌克兰人所救，后为彼得一世所赏识，使他成为乌克兰王子，到了俄国与瑞典作战时，他又背弃俄国。英国诗人拜伦曾写有同名的一首诗。），不至于飞奔而去，飞奔到那个始终张开眼睛的太阳也看不见你的地方去。
