.. < chapter lxx 14  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 discolored, 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,

.. <p 309 >

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.

.. <p 310 >

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-masthead.  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.

.. <p 311 >