In the first place, I wish to lay before you a particular, plain statement, touching1 the living bulk of this leviathan, whose skeleton we are briefly2 to exhibit. Such a statement may prove useful here.
According to a careful calculation I have made, and which I partly base upon Captain Scoresby's estimate, of seventy tons for the largest sized Greenland whale of sixty feet in length; according to my careful calculation, I say, a Sperm3 Whale of the largest magnitude, between eighty-five and ninety feet in length, and something less than forty feet in its fullest circumference4, such a whale will weigh at least ninety tons; so that, reckoning thirteen men to a ton, he would considerably5 outweigh6 the combined population of a whole village of one thousand one hundred inhabitants.
Think you not then that brains, like yoked7 cattle, should be put to this leviathan, to make him at all budge8 to any landsman's imagination?
Having already in various ways put before you his skull9, spout-hole, jaw10, teeth, tail, forehead, fins11, and divers12 other parts, I shall now simply point out what is most interesting in the general bulk of his unobstructed bones. But as the colossal13 skull embraces so very large a proportion of the entire extent of the skeleton; as it is by far the most complicated part; and as nothing is to be repeated concerning it in this chapter, you must not fail to carry it in your mind, or under your arm, as we proceed, otherwise you will not gain a complete notion of the general structure we are about to view.
In length, the Sperm Whale's skeleton at Tranque measured seventy-two feet: so that when fully14 invested and extended in life, he must have been ninety feet long; for in the whale, the skeleton loses about one fifth in length compared with the living body. Of this seventy-two feet, his skull and jaw comprised some twenty feet, leaving some fifty feet of plain backbone15. Attached to this back-bone, for something less than a third of its length, was the mighty16 circular basket of ribs17 which once enclosed his vitals.
To me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved spine19, extending far away from it in a straight line, not a little resembled the hull20 of a great ship new-laid upon the stocks, when only some twenty of her naked bow-ribs are inserted, and the keel is otherwise, for the time, but a long, disconnected timber.
The ribs were ten on a side. The first, to begin from the neck, was nearly six feet long; the second, third, and fourth were each successively longer, till you came to the climax21 of the fifth, or one of the middle ribs, which measured eight feet and some inches. From that part, the remaining ribs diminished, till the tenth and last only spanned five feet and some inches. In general thickness, they all bore a seemly correspondence to their length. The middle ribs were the most arched. In some of the Arsacides they are used for beams whereon to lay footpath22 bridges over small streams.
In considering these ribs, I could not but be struck anew with the circumstance, so variously repeated in this book, that the skeleton of the whale is by no means the mould of his invested form. The largest of the Tranque ribs, one of the middle ones, occupied that part of the fish which, in life, is greatest in depth. Now, the greatest depth of the invested body of this particular whale must have been at least sixteen feet; whereas, the corresponding rib18 measured but little more than eight feet. So that this rib only conveyed half of the true notion of the living magnitude of that part. Besides, for some way, where I now saw but a naked spine, all that had been once wrapped round with tons of added bulk in flesh, muscle, blood, and bowels23. Still more, for the ample fins, I here saw but a few disordered joints24; and in place of the weighty and majestic25, but boneless flukes, an utter blank!
How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled man to try to comprehend aright this wondrous26 whale, by merely poring over his dead attenuated27 skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood. No. Only in the heart of quickest perils28; only when within the eddyings of his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale be truly and livingly found out.
But the spine. For that, the best way we can consider it is, with a crane, to pile its bones high up on end. No speedy enterprise. But now it's done, it looks much like Pompey's Pillar.
There are forty and odd vertebrae in all, which in the skeleton are not locked together. They mostly lie like the great knobbed blocks on a Gothic spire29, forming solid courses of heavy masonry30. The largest, a middle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in depth more than four. The smallest, where the spine tapers31 away into the tail, is only two inches in width, and looks something like a white billiard-ball. I was told that there were still smaller ones, but they had been lost by some little cannibal urchins32, the priest's children, who had stolen them to play marbles with. Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple child's play.
1 touching | |
adj.动人的,使人感伤的 | |
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2 briefly | |
adv.简单地,简短地 | |
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3 sperm | |
n.精子,精液 | |
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4 circumference | |
n.圆周,周长,圆周线 | |
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5 considerably | |
adv.极大地;相当大地;在很大程度上 | |
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6 outweigh | |
vt.比...更重,...更重要 | |
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7 yoked | |
结合(yoke的过去式形式) | |
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8 budge | |
v.移动一点儿;改变立场 | |
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9 skull | |
n.头骨;颅骨 | |
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10 jaw | |
n.颚,颌,说教,流言蜚语;v.喋喋不休,教训 | |
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11 fins | |
[医]散热片;鱼鳍;飞边;鸭掌 | |
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12 divers | |
adj.不同的;种种的 | |
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13 colossal | |
adj.异常的,庞大的 | |
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14 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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15 backbone | |
n.脊骨,脊柱,骨干;刚毅,骨气 | |
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16 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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17 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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18 rib | |
n.肋骨,肋状物 | |
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19 spine | |
n.脊柱,脊椎;(动植物的)刺;书脊 | |
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20 hull | |
n.船身;(果、实等的)外壳;vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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21 climax | |
n.顶点;高潮;v.(使)达到顶点 | |
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22 footpath | |
n.小路,人行道 | |
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23 bowels | |
n.肠,内脏,内部;肠( bowel的名词复数 );内部,最深处 | |
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24 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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25 majestic | |
adj.雄伟的,壮丽的,庄严的,威严的,崇高的 | |
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26 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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27 attenuated | |
v.(使)变细( attenuate的过去式和过去分词 );(使)变薄;(使)变小;减弱 | |
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28 perils | |
极大危险( peril的名词复数 ); 危险的事(或环境) | |
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29 spire | |
n.(教堂)尖顶,尖塔,高点 | |
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30 masonry | |
n.砖土建筑;砖石 | |
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31 tapers | |
(长形物体的)逐渐变窄( taper的名词复数 ); 微弱的光; 极细的蜡烛 | |
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32 urchins | |
n.顽童( urchin的名词复数 );淘气鬼;猬;海胆 | |
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