英语听书《海底两万里》第503期 第31章 章鱼(11)

 I stared in my turn and couldn't keep back a movement of revulsion. 我上前一看，忍不住感到一阵恶心。

Before my eyes there quivered a horrible monster worthy¹ of a place among the most farfetched teratological legends. 在我的眼前，游动着一头可怕的完全配得上载入那些离奇怪诞的传说中的怪物。

It was a squid of colossal² dimensions, fully³ eight meters long. 这是一条8米长的巨大的章鱼。

It was traveling backward with tremendous speed in the same direction as the Nautilus. 它非常迅速地往“鹦鹉螺号”船只的同一方向倒退走。

It gazed with enormous, staring eyes that were tinted⁴ sea green. 它那巨大的海绿色眼睛盯着我们。

Its eight arms (or more accurately⁵, feet) were rooted in its head, which has earned these animals the name cephalopod; 那八只长在头上、使它被称为头足动物的爪子，或者说八只脚，

its arms stretched a distance twice the length of its body and were writhing⁶ like the serpentine⁷ hair of the Furies.  伸展时相当于身体的两倍，像复仇三女神的头发一样扭动着。

You could plainly see its 250 suckers, arranged over the inner sides of its tentacles⁸ and shaped like semispheric capsules.  我们清楚地看到它的两百五十个吸盘，呈半圆球状，排列在触脚的内侧。

Sometimes these suckers fastened onto the lounge window by creating vacuums against it. 有时，这些吸盘内形成真空紧紧地吸住客厅的玻璃。

The monster's mouth--a beak⁹ made of horn and shaped like that of a parrot--opened and closed vertically¹⁰. 这头怪物的嘴——像鹦鹉的喙一样是骨质的——垂直地一张一翕。

Its tongue, also of horn substance and armed with several rows of sharp teeth, would flicker¹¹ out from between these genuine shears¹². 它的骨质舌头上武装着好几排尖牙，颤动时活像一把真正的大铁剪。

What a freak of nature! 大自然是多离奇怪诞啊！

A bird's beak on a mollusk¹³! 一只软体动物竟然长着一只鸟喙！

Its body was spindle-shaped and swollen¹⁴ in the middle, a fleshy mass that must have weighed 20,000 to 25,000 kilograms.  它的身体成棱形，中间部位鼓起，形成一块重可达20000到25000公斤的肉。

1 worthy   

adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的

参考例句：

• I did not esteem him to be worthy of trust.我认为他不值得信赖。
• There occurred nothing that was worthy to be mentioned.没有值得一提的事发生。

2 colossal   

adj.异常的，庞大的

参考例句：

• There has been a colossal waste of public money.一直存在巨大的公款浪费。
• Some of the tall buildings in that city are colossal.那座城市里的一些高层建筑很庞大。

3 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

4 tinted   

adj. 带色彩的 动词tint的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• a pair of glasses with tinted lenses 一副有色镜片眼镜
• a rose-tinted vision of the world 对世界的理想化看法

5 accurately   

adv.准确地，精确地

参考例句：

• It is hard to hit the ball accurately.准确地击中球很难。
• Now scientists can forecast the weather accurately.现在科学家们能准确地预报天气。

6 writhing   

（因极度痛苦而）扭动或翻滚( writhe的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• She was writhing around on the floor in agony. 她痛得在地板上直打滚。
• He was writhing on the ground in agony. 他痛苦地在地上打滚。

7 serpentine   

adj.蜿蜒的，弯曲的

参考例句：

• One part of the Serpentine is kept for swimmers.蜿蜒河的一段划为游泳区。
• Tremolite laths and serpentine minerals are present in places.有的地方出现透闪石板条及蛇纹石。

8 tentacles   

n.触手( tentacle的名词复数 )；触角；触须；触毛

参考例句：

• Tentacles of fear closed around her body. 恐惧的阴影笼罩着她。
• Many molluscs have tentacles. 很多软体动物有触角。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 beak   

n.鸟嘴，茶壶嘴，钩形鼻

参考例句：

• The bird had a worm in its beak.鸟儿嘴里叼着一条虫。
• This bird employs its beak as a weapon.这种鸟用嘴作武器。

10 vertically   

adv.垂直地

参考例句：

• Line the pages for the graph both horizontally and vertically.在这几页上同时画上横线和竖线，以便制作图表。
• The human brain is divided vertically down the middle into two hemispheres.人脑从中央垂直地分为两半球。

11 flicker   

vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现

参考例句：

• There was a flicker of lights coming from the abandoned house.这所废弃的房屋中有灯光闪烁。
• At first,the flame may be a small flicker,barely shining.开始时，光辉可能是微弱地忽隐忽现，几乎并不灿烂。

12 shears   

n.大剪刀

参考例句：

• These garden shears are lightweight and easy to use.这些园丁剪刀又轻又好用。
• With a few quick snips of the shears he pruned the bush.他用大剪刀几下子就把灌木给修剪好了。

13 mollusk   

n.软体动物

参考例句：

• I swear I have never seen such a mollusk with thorns all over its body.我敢发誓我从来没有见过这种全身长满棘刺的软体动物。
• The colour varies with the mollusk and its environment.颜色因母体及其环境的不同而异。

14 swollen   

adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀

参考例句：

• Her legs had got swollen from standing up all day.因为整天站着，她的双腿已经肿了。
• A mosquito had bitten her and her arm had swollen up.蚊子叮了她，她的手臂肿起来了。