Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition;
他为人诚挚,有虔诚的信念和坚定不移的信心,海上既紧张又孤独的生活使他常常进入一种迷信状态。
but to that sort of superstition, which in some organizations seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance. Outward portents and inward presentiments were his.
不过,这种迷信更多的是出之于智慧而不是愚昧。
And if at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul, much more did his far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child, tend to bend him still more from the original ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those latent influences which, in some honest-hearted men, restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery.
这个有着与众不同的容貌和纤细敏感的心灵的人,如果说他心中还有那么一个软弱的角落的话,那就是为他远在故乡的妻子和孩子所保留的。
"I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale."
“没有谁不怕鲸鱼!”
By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
斯达巴克这句话透露着两层意思:坦然地承认现实,才称得上真正的勇敢;和这样一个人一起出海,比和一个懦弱的人一起出海更危险。