.. < 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,
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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.
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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.
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