Merchant ships are but extension bridges; armed ones but floating forts;  商船不过是桥梁的延伸;兵舰不过是浮动炮台;

even pirates and privateers, though following the sea as highwaymen the road.  甚至在海上游弋的海盗船和私掠船,虽然象拦路大盗在大道上打劫一样,

they but plunder other ships, other fragments of the land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the bottomless deep itself.  在海上打劫,它们只劫掠别的船只,拦路大盗也象海盗船和私掠船那样只在别的地段上劫掠,决不妄图到这无底的深渊里来谋生计。

The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships;  于是,单独住在海上,在海上骚扰的便只有南塔开特人了;按照《圣经》上的说法,他们是单独坐船下海的;

to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation.  把海洋当作他们的特有的农场往复地耕耘着。

There is his home;  那里是他们的家;

there lies his business which a Noah's flood would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in China.  他们的事业就在那里,这种事业不是挪亚的大洪水所妨碍得了的,虽然大水会淹没中国的无数生。

He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks in the prairie;  他们住在海上,犹如野雉之生活于大草原中;

he hides among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb the Alps.  他们隐伏在惊涛骇浪中,他们攀登巨浪,一如羚羊猎户之攀登阿尔卑斯山。

For years he knows not the land; so that when he comes to it at last,  多少年来,他们不知道有陆地;因此,等到他们终于来到陆地,

it smells like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman.  它就象是另一个世界的味道,比穴居人看到月亮还要觉得希奇。

With the landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows;  象无地可容的海鸥,每当夕阳西下就卷起两翼,躺在浪涛中晃来晃去地睡着了;

so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails,  南塔开特人也是这样地在薄暮时分,远离陆地,卷起风帆,

and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales. 躺下来休息了,而在他们的枕头底下,却正是川流不息的海象群和鲸群。