their deformities floundering in seas of blood and blue paint. 它们那些畸形的躯体就在红红绿绿的油漆的海洋里翻腾着。

　　But these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so very surprising after all. 不过，描画鲸的这种错误百出的情形，毕竟还不算是顶惊人的。

　　Consider! Most of the scientific drawings have been taken from the stranded fish; 请想一想吧！大多数科学家的绘画都是以被打死了的鱼为蓝本的；

　　and these are about as correct as a drawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back, would correctly represent the noble animal itself in all its undashed pride of hull and spars. 其实，这种做法，虽想表现出这种未遭打击、浑身光滑的高贵的动物的原来的雄姿，但其正确性，充其量不过是跟画一只打烂了龙骨的失事船以代表船只一样而已。

　　Though elephants have stood for their full-lengths, the living Leviathan has never yet fairly floated himself for his portrait. 虽然人们可以给大象拍个全身照，然而，这种活生生的大海兽可从来还没有自己浮得端端正正、让人家来给他写生的。

　　The living whale, in his full majesty and significance, is only to be seen at sea in unfathomable waters; 这种活生生的鲸，人们只能在海洋的无底的深渊里，才看得到它那气象万千的威仪。

　　and afloat the vast bulk of him is out of sight, like a launched line-of-battle ship; 等到它那硕大的躯干一泛上来的时候，它已是在望不到的远方，象一种开动的战舰那样的游去了；

　　and out of that element it is a thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him bodily into the air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations. 为了保存它那万千壮仪和波动起伏的雄姿，而想把它弄出水来，整个吊在空中，却是人类永远无能为力的事。

　　And, not to speak of the highly presumable difference of contour between a young suckling whale and a full-grown Platonian Leviathan;  至于一条小鲸跟一条身强力壮的柏拉图式的大鲸之间，具有很可以推想得到的不同的轮廓，更是不必说了，

　　yet, even in the case of one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a ship's deck,  而且，就算万一有这样一条小鲸被吊上船甲板，

　　such is then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying shape of him, that his precise expression the devil himself could not catch. 可是，象它那种奇异的、滑溜溜、软绵绵、千变万化的形态，怕连魔鬼本人也领悟不了它的真相。