Ere that come to pass; ere the Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of the leviathan;  在这以前,趁裴廓德号那长满杂草的船壳跟大海兽的藤壶似的身体并驾齐驱之前,先来做好一件可说是必不可少的事:

at the outset it is but well to attend to a matter almost indispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding of the more special leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts which are to follow. 彻底了解我们就要研究的各种有关大海兽的比较特殊的材料与典故,这是再好也没有的了。

It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad genera, that I would now fain put before you.  我现在所乐于告诉你们的,就是按照鲸的大类,把它有系统地罗列出来。

Yet is it no easy task.  然而,这可不是一桩轻而易举的工作。

The classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here essayed. Listen to what the best and latest authorities have laid down. 这里所提出的分类,其中有不少混乱之处。请听近代那些最优秀的权威者是怎样说的。

No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is entitled Cetology, says Captain Scoresby, A.D. 1820. 在动物学的分科中,牵涉之广,应该算是鲸类学这一名称了,公元一八二○年斯哥斯比船长这样说。

It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the inquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups and families....  我如果力所能及的话,那我就不想研究关于鲸类分成群和族的这种方法...

Utter confusion exists among the historians of this animal (sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A.D. 1839. 在研究这种动物(抹香鲸)的考据家中,存在有极大的混乱。公元一八三九年外科医生比尔这样说。

Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable waters. Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea.  在无底的大海中从事我们的研究工作是不适当的。难以穿透的帷幕把我们对于鲸类的知识都给遮住了。

A field strewn with thorns. All these incomplete indications but serve to torture us naturalists. 一个满布荆棘的园地。所有这些不完全的迹象只是徒增我们博物学家的苦恼而已。