《白鲸记》译本对比（罗山川、成时、曹庸）

原文：
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hill- side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine- tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies—what is the one charm wanting?— Water - there is not a drop of water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is al- most every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passen- ger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Per- sians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
罗山川：
    可是，这儿说的是位艺术家。他想给你画幅遍地浓阴、幽静如梦、最富于浪漫情调的萨科流域风景画。画里最主要的因素是什么？自然，画里有挺拔的树，一株株还全是空心的，里面仿佛有个隐士和耶稣受难像；还有沉睡的草原，躺着的牛群；远处的小屋上升起了袅袅的炊烟。遥远的树林深处，一条迂回曲折的小径伸向满身青翠的层峦叠嶂。但是，尽管这幅画如此迷人，尽管这株松树把声声叹息像松针似的抖落在牧羊人头上，然而，除非牧羊人的眼睛盯住了他面前那道富有魔力的溪流，这种精心构思便都会白费。到六月里的大草原上去走走吧，当你在绵延几十英里深可没膝的卷丹草中一步步往前迈时——美中不足的是什么呢？——水——那儿一滴水都没有！如果尼亚加拉瀑布白练凌空的不是水，而是黄沙，你还会不远千里去观赏一番吗？为什么田纳西州一个穷诗人，在突然得到两大把银子后，会考虑是买一件急需的上衣好呢，还是花在徒步旅行去罗卡韦海滩好？为什么身心健壮的小伙子差不多迟早都会渴望出海呢？为什么当你有生以来头一次登上一艘海轮，头一次听到人家告诉你，你和你的船现在都已经见不着陆地时，你心头会感到一种神秘的颤动呢？为什么古代波斯人把大海奉若神明呢？为什么希腊人单给大海一位神，而且是朱庇特的亲兄弟呢？这一切肯定不是毫无意义的。而那西萨斯的传说含意就更深了，美少年那西萨斯因为抓不着自己映在清泉中的影子而苦恼，终至投水自溺。可是我们自己在江河湖海中也看到了同样的影子。那是无从把捉的幽灵般的生命的影子；这就是对一切的答案。
成时：
                
                
曹庸：
                
                
by seahog004