1. Alongside stories about the sea, there is another story: the story of how some countries see themselves as maritime nations. They construct a national fiction in which the sea is seen as part of their being. This is especially true of the Britain. The creation of such a story has a origins in two factors. One is geographical, the fact that Britain is an island positioned just a few miles from continental Europe. The other factor is the circumstances of history: the Britain have invested heavily at sea and reaped rewards at sea. One thing that is very clear about the story of maritime Britain is that it is a story that is unites the nation, a story in which the country believes its best qualities are on display.
1、除了一部部海洋小说，还有另一部小说即：讲述某些国家如何自诩为海洋之国的故事。凡此诸国虚构出一部民族小说，并在小说中，将海洋视为关乎其国计民生的一部分。其中，英国尤甚。此类小说的创作源起有二。其一为地理因素：英国所在岛屿距欧洲大陆仅有几英里之遥。其二，历史因素：英国在海上斥资不菲，并收获颇丰。显而易见，英国海上传说乃英国万众团结于一心的小说。在小说中，英国坚信其举世无双的民族品格有目共睹。
2. Britain’s naval story can be traced back as far as Aethelred II’s plight under Danish attack at Sandwich in 1006, but the real evolution of the navy takes place in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, in the context of a steady expansion of trading voyages. The ‘dynasty which truly founded the navy’ is the Tudors, establishing naval dockyards at Portsmouth, Chatham, Deptford and Woolwich, and forming the Navy Board in 1546. During the course of the eighteenth century, the period of Vernon, Hawke, Rodney and Nelson, the navy became so important that there is nothing in the least surprising about the future Duke of Wellington, in 1808, describing the navy ‘as the characteristic and constitutional force of Britain’; the navy had come through the American War, defeated the French at sea, and would now play a crucial role in supporting Wellington in the Peninsula.
2、有关英国海军的叙事小说，可追根溯源至1006年。彼时，在桑德威奇，英王埃塞尔雷德二世遭遇丹麦攻伐而身陷困境。但直至15、16世纪，在贸易航行稳步扩张的背景下，英国海军才开始得以真正意义上的发展。“切实建立海军”的是都铎王朝，当时在朴茨茅斯、查塔姆群岛、德普特福德和伍利奇均开办了海军造船厂，并于1546年，成立了英国海军委员会。18世纪，在弗农、霍克、罗德尼和纳尔逊等名将辈出的时代，英国海军举足轻重。因此，1808年，尚未获勋的惠灵顿公爵盛赞海军为“具有英国特色的宪法力量”丝毫不为过！英国海军历经美国战争，又在海上大败法国，并在力援威灵顿公爵的半岛之战中，发挥着中流砥柱的作用。
3. It was in 1694 that Halifax had written, ‘The first article of an Englishman’s political creed must be, that he believeth in the sea.’ As the years passed, this was a conviction that could only gain in strength. Bolingbroke, in 1749, in his Idea of a Patriot King, expresses this well: ‘Like other amphibious animals we must come occasionally on shore: but the water is more properly our element, as we find our greatest security, so we find our greatest force.’
3、1694年，哈利法克斯撰文道: “英国人首要的政治信条必是信仰海洋”。随着时光的流逝，这一信仰只会愈发地坚定。1749年，波林勃洛克在其《爱国者君主观》一书中对此鞭辟入里: “与两栖动物别无二致，我们须时常上岸：但对我们而言，海洋才是我们更为适宜的生存环境。在海上，我们固若金汤，靡坚不摧。”
4. When such a positive story is being told, one thing that becomes necessary is that tensions must be defuse. As the previous section of this chapter should have indicated, however, the reality of a life at sea was likely to be different from a ‘Hearts of Oak’ myth. The phrase ‘Hearts of Oak’ derives from an eighteenth-century song which sums up the simple patriotic view of the navy. Written by David Garrick in 1759, it celebrated a wonderful year in which there had been a number of victories in the Seven Years’ War: ‘The heart of oak is the wood the British ships are made of, and so by extension the quality of British sailors.’ We can see in this song a positive myth beginning to be put together. It is clear that the three elements in a sea story are the sailor, a challenge and the context.
4、讲述此类正面故事时，需缓和其中矛盾。然而正如本章前文所表明的那样，海上生活的现实很可能与“橡树之心”神话中所描述的情形有着天差地别。“橡树之心”一词源自18世纪的一首歌曲。歌中凝聚着海军纯粹的爱国之情，此曲由戴维•盖里克于1759年谱就。讴歌了七年战争中捷报频传的一载：“橡树之心乃我大英战舰之材，橡树之心乃我大英舰长之德”。人们能从该军歌中聆听出东拼西凑的真实神话。但彰明较著，海上神话的三大元素为：水手、艰难险阻与时代背景。
5. The story of maritime Britain focuses principally on the sailors, both officers and men. In the second half of the eighteenth century the sailor began to be seen in an increasingly favourable light, a development that was consolidated in the years following the death of Nelson. Captains are ‘gentlemen’: the failings of individuals can be glossed over in deference to the qualities shared by those in positions of authority. The ordinary seaman, potentially a problematic figure, is made safe by rendering him as ‘Jack Tar’: he is cheerful, brave and contented, not the kind of person who is likely to indulge in political agitation. He also serves another purpose; for those on shore, the sailor might be a disturbing figure, partly because of the laxity of his sexual morality. ‘Jack Tar’, by contrast, can be seen as a romantic figure, possibly with a girl in every port, but the caricature of the sailor defuses the sexual tension.
5、海上英国传说聚焦于军官和士兵的水手。18世纪后半叶开始，愈来愈多的人对水手情有独钟。在纳尔逊撒手人寰后的数年之间，这一进展愈发势不可挡。舰长即“绅士”：个人的瑕疵被掩饰，以尊崇位高权重者的共有品质。惹事生非的庸碌水手，经作者一番粉饰后，摇身一变成为了“杰克•塔尔” 式的人物：表现地豁然开朗、勇敢无畏且知足常乐，对政治鼓吹不屑一顾。刻画出如此的人物尚别有用意。对于常年生活在陆地上的人而言，水手让人心生厌烦，这在一定程度上归咎于其性道德沦丧。相较之下，“杰克•塔尔”则是一派浪漫的绅士形象。在每个港口，皆有碧鬟红袖相伴左右。但正是在这样夸大其词的描述之下，性紧张反倒烟消云散。
6. These images of the officer and the seaman are reproduced over and over again in the late-eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, particularly in popular song and theatrical entertainments. The novel, however, has the potential to offer more. In part, this is due to its characteristic orientation: the novel, as it has developed in Western Europe, is concerned primarily with domestic life. Typically, it focuses upon anxieties in middle-class society. When the novel turns to telling a sea-based story, rather than escaping from its usual constraints, it tends to focus on difficult issues as there is such an obvious gap between the social arrangements of those at sea and the arrangements of those on land.
6、从18世纪末至整个19世纪，军官和水手的形象主要在流行歌曲和戏剧作品中反复重现。但他们在小说中的出场频次兴许更高。在某种程度上，这缘于小说的特殊定位：西欧小说以描写家庭生活为主，通常写作的重点在于刻画中产阶级的焦虑。当小说转而将一则基于海洋的故事娓娓道来之际，因为海上之人与陆上之人的社会分工存在着天壤之别，所以其并不会对寻常桎梏避而不谈，反而会就棘手的问题涂上浓墨重彩的一笔。
