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Moby Dick, or, the Whale
CHAPTER 70
The Sphynx.
It should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping
the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now, the beheading of the
Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon which experienced
whale surgeons very much pride themselves: and not without reason.
Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a
neck; on the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in
that very place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also, that
the surgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet
intervening between him and his subject, and that subject almost
hidden in a discoloured, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and
bursting sea. Bear in mind, too, that under these untoward
circumstances he has to cut many feet deep in the flesh; and in that
subterraneous manner, without so much as getting one single peep into
the ever-contracting gash thus made, he must skilfully steer clear of
all adjacent, interdicted parts, and exactly divide the spine at a
critical point hard by its insertion into the skull. Do you not
marvel, then, at Stubb's boast, that he demanded but ten minutes to
behead a sperm whale?
When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a
cable till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small
whale it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with
a full grown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale's head
embraces nearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to
suspend such a burden as that, even by the immense tackles of a
whaler, this were as vain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn
in jewellers' scales.
The Pequod's whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head
was hoisted against the ship's side--about half way out of the sea, so
that it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element.
And there with the strained craft steeply leaning over to it, by
reason of the enormous downward drag from the lower mast-head, and
every yard-arm on that side projecting like a crane over the waves;
there, that blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod's waist like the
giant Holofernes's from the girdle of Judith.
When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went
below to their dinner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous but
now deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow
lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves
upon the sea.
A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab alone
from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to
gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he took
Stubb's long spade--still remaining there after the whale's
Decapitation--and striking it into the lower part of the
half-suspended mass, placed its other end crutch-wise under one arm,
and so stood leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head.
It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so
intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx's in the desert. "Speak, thou
vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though ungarnished
with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak,
mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all
divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper
sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations. Where
unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot;
where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones
of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was
thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never
went; hast slept by many a sailor's side, where sleepless mothers
would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw'st the locked
lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank
beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed
false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates
from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of
the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed--while
swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a
righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast
seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and
not one syllable is thine!"
"Sail ho!" cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-head.
"Aye? Well, now, that's cheering," cried Ahab, suddenly erecting
himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow. "That
lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better
man.--Where away?"
"Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her breeze
to us!
"Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that
way, and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul
of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not
the smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning
duplicate in mind."