第 七十 章 · 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.”