Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm1 Whale, I have chiefly dwelt upon the marvels2 of his outer aspect; or separately and in detail upon some few interior structural3 features. But to a large and thorough sweeping4 comprehension of him, it behoves me now to unbutton him still further, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters, and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints5 of his innermost bones, set him before you in his ultimatum6; that is to say, in his unconditional7 skeleton.
But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere8 oarsman in the fishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean9 parts of the whale? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures on the anatomy10 of the Cetacea; and by help of the windlass, hold up a specimen11 rib12 for exhibition? Explain thyself, Ishmael. Can you land a full-grown whale on your deck for examination, as a cook dishes a roast-pig? Surely not. A veritable witness have you hitherto been, Ishmael; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone; the privilege of discoursing13 upon the joists and beams; the rafters, ridge-pole, sleepers14, and under-pinnings, making up the frame-work of leviathan; and belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries, and cheeseries in his bowels15.
I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated16 very far beneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessed with an opportunity to dissect17 him in miniature. In a ship I belonged to, a small cub18 Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted19 to the deck for his poke20 or bag, to make sheaths for the barbs21 of the harpoons22, and for the heads of the lances. Think you I let that chance go, without using my boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading all the contents of that young cub?
And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan in their gigantic, full grown development, for that rare knowledge I am indebted to my late royal friend Tranquo, king of Tranque, one of the Arsacides. For being at Tranque, years ago, when attached to the trading-ship Dey of Algiers, I was invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with the lord of Tranque, at his retired24 palm villa25 at Pupella; a sea-side glen not very far distant from what our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his capital.
Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted with a devout26 love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had brought together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious of his people could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices, chiselled27 shells, inlaid spears, costly28 paddles, aromatic29 canoes; and all these distributed among whatever natural wonders, the wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had cast upon his shores.
Chief among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which, after an unusually long raging gale30, had been found dead and stranded31, with his head against a cocoa-nut tree, whose plumage-like, tufted droopings seemed his verdant32 jet. When the vast body had at last been stripped of its fathomdeep enfoldings, and the bones become dust dry in the sun, then the skeleton was carefully transported up the Pupella glen, where a grand temple of lordly palms now sheltered it.
The ribs33 were hung with trophies34; the vertebrae were carved with Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics35; in the skull36, the priests kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head again sent forth37 its vapory spout38; while, suspended from a bough39, the terrific lower jaw40 vibrated over all the devotees, like the hair-hung sword that so affrighted Damocles.
It was a wondrous41 sight. The wood was green as mosses42 of the Icy Glen; the trees stood high and haughty43, feeling their living sap; the industrious44 earth beneath was as a weaver45's loom46, with a gorgeous carpet on it, whereof the ground-vine tendrils formed the warp47 and woof, and the living flowers the figures. All the trees, with all their laden48 branches; all the shrubs49, and ferns, and grasses; the message-carrying air; all these unceasingly were active. Through the lacings of the leaves, the great sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving the unwearied verdure. Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver!--pause!--one word!-- whither flows the fabric50? what palace may it deck? wherefore all these ceaseless toilings? Speak, weaver!--stay thy hand!-- but one single word with thee! Nay--the shuttle flies-- the figures float from forth the loom; the fresher-rushing carpet for ever slides away. The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that weaving is he deafened51, that he hears no mortal voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through it. For even so it is in all material factories. The spoken words that are inaudible among the flying spindles; those same words are plainly heard without the walls, bursting from the opened casements52. Thereby53 have villainies been detected. Ah, mortal! then, be heedful; for so, in all this din23 of the great world's loom, thy subtlest thinkings may be overheard afar.
Now, amid the green, life-restless loom of that Arsacidean wood, the great, white, worshipped skeleton lay lounging--a gigantic idler! Yet, as the ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around him, the mighty54 idler seemed the cunning weaver; himself all woven over with the vines; every month assuming greener, fresher verdure; but himself a skeleton. Life folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories.
Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous whale, and saw the skull an altar, and the artificial smoke ascending55 from where the real jet had issued, I marvelled56 that the king should regard a chapel57 as an object of vertu. He laughed. But more I marvelled that the priests should swear that smoky jet of his was genuine. To and fro I paced before this skeleton-- brushed the vines aside--broke through the ribs--and with a ball of Arsacidean twine58, wandered, eddied59 long amid its many winding60, shaded colonnades61 and arbors. But soon my line was out; and following it back, I emerged from the opening where I entered. I saw no living thing within; naught62 was there but bones.
Cutting me a green measuring-rod, I once more dived within the skeleton. From their arrow-slit in the skull, the priests perceived me taking the altitude of the final rib, "How now!" they shouted; "Dar'st thou measure this our god! That's for us." "Aye, priests--well, how long do ye make him, then?" But hereupon a fierce contest rose among them, concerning feet and inches; they cracked each other's sconces with their yard-sticks-- the great skull echoed--and seizing that lucky chance, I quickly concluded my own admeasurements.
These admeasurements I now propose to set before you. But first, be it recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter any fancied measurements I please. Because there are skeleton authorities you can refer to, to test my accuracy. There is a Leviathanic Museum, they tell me, in Hull63, England, one of the whaling ports of that country, where they have some fine specimens64 of fin-backs and other whales. Likewise, I have heard that in the museum of Manchester, in New Hampshire, they have what the proprietors65 call "the only perfect specimen of a Greenland or River Whale in the United States." Moreover, at a place in Yorkshire, England, Burton Constable66 by name, a certain Sir Clifford Constable has in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale, but of moderate size, by no means of the full-grown magnitude of my friend King Tranquo's.
In both cases, the stranded whales to which these two skeletons belonged, were originally claimed by their proprietors upon similar grounds. King Tranquo seizing his because he wanted it; and Sir Clifford, because he was lord of the seignories of those parts. Sir Clifford's whale has been articulated throughout; so that, like a great chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his bony cavities--spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan-- and swing all day upon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap-doors and shutters67; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at the whispering gallery in the spinal68 column; threepence to hear the echo in the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view from his forehead.
The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are copied verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed69; as in my wild wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving such valuable statistics. But as I was crowded for space, and wished the other parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was then composing-- at least, what untattooed parts might remain--I did not trouble myself with the odd inches; nor, indeed, should inches at all enter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale.
1 sperm | |
n.精子,精液 | |
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2 marvels | |
n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 );令人惊奇的事物(或事例);不平凡的成果;成就v.惊奇,对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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3 structural | |
adj.构造的,组织的,建筑(用)的 | |
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4 sweeping | |
adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的 | |
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5 joints | |
接头( joint的名词复数 ); 关节; 公共场所(尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所) (非正式); 一块烤肉 (英式英语) | |
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6 ultimatum | |
n.最后通牒 | |
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7 unconditional | |
adj.无条件的,无限制的,绝对的 | |
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8 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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9 subterranean | |
adj.地下的,地表下的 | |
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10 anatomy | |
n.解剖学,解剖;功能,结构,组织 | |
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11 specimen | |
n.样本,标本 | |
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12 rib | |
n.肋骨,肋状物 | |
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13 discoursing | |
演说(discourse的现在分词形式) | |
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14 sleepers | |
n.卧铺(通常以复数形式出现);卧车( sleeper的名词复数 );轨枕;睡觉(呈某种状态)的人;小耳环 | |
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15 bowels | |
n.肠,内脏,内部;肠( bowel的名词复数 );内部,最深处 | |
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16 penetrated | |
adj. 击穿的,鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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17 dissect | |
v.分割;解剖 | |
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18 cub | |
n.幼兽,年轻无经验的人 | |
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19 hoisted | |
把…吊起,升起( hoist的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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20 poke | |
n.刺,戳,袋;vt.拨开,刺,戳;vi.戳,刺,捅,搜索,伸出,行动散慢 | |
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21 barbs | |
n.(箭头、鱼钩等的)倒钩( barb的名词复数 );带刺的话;毕露的锋芒;钩状毛 | |
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22 harpoons | |
n.鱼镖,鱼叉( harpoon的名词复数 )v.鱼镖,鱼叉( harpoon的第三人称单数 ) | |
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23 din | |
n.喧闹声,嘈杂声 | |
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24 retired | |
adj.隐退的,退休的,退役的 | |
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25 villa | |
n.别墅,城郊小屋 | |
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26 devout | |
adj.虔诚的,虔敬的,衷心的 (n.devoutness) | |
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27 chiselled | |
adj.凿过的,凿光的; (文章等)精心雕琢的v.凿,雕,镌( chisel的过去式 ) | |
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28 costly | |
adj.昂贵的,价值高的,豪华的 | |
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29 aromatic | |
adj.芳香的,有香味的 | |
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30 gale | |
n.大风,强风,一阵闹声(尤指笑声等) | |
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31 stranded | |
a.搁浅的,进退两难的 | |
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32 verdant | |
adj.翠绿的,青翠的,生疏的,不老练的 | |
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33 ribs | |
n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 );(船或屋顶等的)肋拱;肋骨状的东西;(织物的)凸条花纹 | |
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34 trophies | |
n.(为竞赛获胜者颁发的)奖品( trophy的名词复数 );奖杯;(尤指狩猎或战争中获得的)纪念品;(用于比赛或赛跑名称)奖 | |
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35 hieroglyphics | |
n.pl.象形文字 | |
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36 skull | |
n.头骨;颅骨 | |
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37 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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38 spout | |
v.喷出,涌出;滔滔不绝地讲;n.喷管;水柱 | |
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39 bough | |
n.大树枝,主枝 | |
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40 jaw | |
n.颚,颌,说教,流言蜚语;v.喋喋不休,教训 | |
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41 wondrous | |
adj.令人惊奇的,奇妙的;adv.惊人地;异乎寻常地;令人惊叹地 | |
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42 mosses | |
n. 藓类, 苔藓植物 名词moss的复数形式 | |
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43 haughty | |
adj.傲慢的,高傲的 | |
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44 industrious | |
adj.勤劳的,刻苦的,奋发的 | |
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45 weaver | |
n.织布工;编织者 | |
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46 loom | |
n.织布机,织机;v.隐现,(危险、忧虑等)迫近 | |
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47 warp | |
vt.弄歪,使翘曲,使不正常,歪曲,使有偏见 | |
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48 laden | |
adj.装满了的;充满了的;负了重担的;苦恼的 | |
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49 shrubs | |
灌木( shrub的名词复数 ) | |
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50 fabric | |
n.织物,织品,布;构造,结构,组织 | |
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51 deafened | |
使聋( deafen的过去式和过去分词 ); 使隔音 | |
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52 casements | |
n.窗扉( casement的名词复数 ) | |
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53 thereby | |
adv.因此,从而 | |
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54 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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55 ascending | |
adj.上升的,向上的 | |
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56 marvelled | |
v.惊奇,对…感到惊奇( marvel的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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57 chapel | |
n.小教堂,殡仪馆 | |
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58 twine | |
v.搓,织,编饰;(使)缠绕 | |
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59 eddied | |
起漩涡,旋转( eddy的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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60 winding | |
n.绕,缠,绕组,线圈 | |
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61 colonnades | |
n.石柱廊( colonnade的名词复数 ) | |
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62 naught | |
n.无,零 [=nought] | |
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63 hull | |
n.船身;(果、实等的)外壳;vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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64 specimens | |
n.样品( specimen的名词复数 );范例;(化验的)抽样;某种类型的人 | |
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65 proprietors | |
n.所有人,业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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66 constable | |
n.(英国)警察,警官 | |
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67 shutters | |
百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 ); (照相机的)快门 | |
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68 spinal | |
adj.针的,尖刺的,尖刺状突起的;adj.脊骨的,脊髓的 | |
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69 tattooed | |
v.刺青,文身( tattoo的过去式和过去分词 );连续有节奏地敲击;作连续有节奏的敲击 | |
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