From his mighty1 bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme whereon to enlarge, amplify2, and generally expatiate3. Would you, you could not compress him. By good rights he should only be treated of in imperial folio. Not to tell over again his furlongs from spiracle to tail, and the yards he measures about the waist; only think of the gigantic involutions of his intestines4, where they lie in him like great cables and hawsers5 coiled away in the subterranean6 orlop-deck of a line-of-battle-ship.
Since I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it behoves me to approve myself omnisciently7 exhaustive in the enterprise; not overlooking the minutest seminal8 germs of his blood, and spinning him out to the uttermost coil of his bowels9. Having already described him in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities11, it now remains12 to magnify him in an archaeological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian13 point of view. Applied14 to any other creature than the Leviathan--to an ant or a flea15-- such portly terms might justly be deemed unwarrantably grandiloquent16. But when Leviathan is the text, the case is altered. Fain am I to stagger to this enterprise under the weightiest words of the dictionary. And here be it said, that whenever it has been convenient to consult one in the course of these dissertations17, I have invariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased for that purpose; because that famous lexicographer's uncommon18 personal bulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon19 to be used by a whale author like me.
One often hears of writers that rise and swell20 with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor's quill21! Give me Vesuvius' crater22 for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere23 act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving24 panoramas25 of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue26 of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.
Ere entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales, I present my credentials27 as a geologist28, by stating that in my miscellaneous time I have been a stone-mason, and also a great digger of ditches, canals and wells, wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns29 of all sorts. Likewise, by way of preliminary, I desire to remind the reader, that while in the earlier geological strata30 there are found the fossils of monsters now almost completely extinct; the subsequent relics31 discovered in what are called the Tertiary formations seem the connecting, or at any rate intercepted32 links, between the antichronical creatures, and those whose remote posterity33 are said to have entered the Ark; all the Fossil Whales hitherto discovered belong to the Tertiary period, which is the last preceding the superficial formations. And though none of them precisely34 answer to any known species of the present time, they are yet sufficiently35 akin36 to them in general respects, to justify37 their taking ranks as Cetacean fossils.
Detached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales, fragments of their bones and skeletons, have within thirty years past, at various intervals38, been found at the base of the Alps, in Lombardy, in France, in England, in Scotland, and in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Among the more curious of such remains is part of a skull39, which in the year 1779 was disinterred in the Rue40 Dauphine in Paris, a short street opening almost directly upon the palace of the Tuileries; and bones disinterred in excavating41 the great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon's time. Cuvier pronounced these fragments to have belonged to some utterly42 unknown Leviathanic species.
But by far the most wonderful of all Cetacean relics was the almost complete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year 1842, on the plantation43 of Judge Creagh, in Alabama. The awe-stricken credulous44 slaves in the vicinity took it for the bones of one of the fallen angels. The Alabama doctors declared it a huge reptile45, and bestowed46 upon it the name of Basilosaurus. But some specimen47 bones of it being taken across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, it turned out that this alleged48 reptile was a whale, though of a departed species. A significant illustration of the fact, again and again repeated in this book, that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the shape of his fully49 invested body. So Owen rechristened the monster Zeuglodon; and in his paper read before the London Geological Society, pronounced it, in substance, one of the most extraordinary creatures which the mutations of the globe have blotted50 out of existence.
When I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons, skulls51, tusks52, jaws53, ribs54, and vertebrae, all characterized by partial resemblances to the existing breeds of sea-monsters; but at the same time bearing on the other hand similar affinities55 to the annihilated57 antichronical Leviathans, their incalculable seniors; I am, by a flood, borne back to that wondrous58 period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; for time began with man. Here Saturn's grey chaos59 rolls over me, and I obtain dim, shuddering60 glimpses into those Polar eternities; when wedged bastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics; and in all the 25,000 miles of this world's circumference61, not an inhabitable hand's breadth of land was visible. Then the whole world was the whale's; and, king of creation, he left his wake along the present lines of the Andes and the Himmalehs. Who can show a pedigree like Leviathan? Ahab's harpoon62 had shed older blood than the Pharaoh's. Methuselah seems a schoolboy. I look round to shake hands with Shem. I am horror-struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been before all time, must needs exist after all humane63 ages are over.
But not alone has this Leviathan left his pre-adamite traces in the stereotype64 plates of nature, and in limestone65 and marl bequeathed his ancient bust66; but upon Egyptian tablets, whose antiquity67 seems to claim for them an almost fossiliferous character, we find the unmistakable print of his fin56. In an apartment of the great temple of Denderah, some fifty years ago, there was discovered upon the granite68 ceiling a sculptured and painted planisphere, abounding69 in centaurs70, griffins, and dolphins, similar to the grotesque71 figures on the celestial72 globe of the moderns. Gliding73 among them, old Leviathan swam as of yore; was there swimming in that planisphere, centuries before Solomon was cradled.
Nor must there be omitted another strange attestation74 of the antiquity of the whale, in his own osseous postdiluvian reality, as set down by the venerable John Leo, the old Barbary traveller.
"Not far from the Sea-side, they have a Temple, the Rafters and Beams of which are made of Whale-Bones; for Whales of a monstrous75 size are oftentimes cast up dead upon that shore. The Common People imagine, that by a secret Power bestowed by God upon the Temple, no Whale can pass it without immediate76 death. But the truth of the Matter is, that on either side of the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot two Miles into the Sea, and wound the Whales when they light upon 'em. They keep a Whale's Rib10 of an incredible length for a Miracle, which lying upon the Ground with its convex part uppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of which cannot be reached by a Man upon a Camel's Back. This Rib (says John Leo) is said to have layn there a hundred Years before I saw it. Their Historians affirm, that a Prophet who prophesy'd of Mahomet, came from this Temple, and some do not stand to assert, that the Prophet Jonas was cast forth77 by the Whale at the Base of the Temple."
In this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you, reader, and if you be a Nantucketer, and a whaleman, you will silently worship there.
1 mighty | |
adj.强有力的;巨大的 | |
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2 amplify | |
vt.放大,增强;详述,详加解说 | |
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3 expatiate | |
v.细说,详述 | |
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4 intestines | |
n.肠( intestine的名词复数 ) | |
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5 hawsers | |
n.(供系船或下锚用的)缆索,锚链( hawser的名词复数 ) | |
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6 subterranean | |
adj.地下的,地表下的 | |
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7 omnisciently | |
无所不知的 | |
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8 seminal | |
adj.影响深远的;种子的 | |
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9 bowels | |
n.肠,内脏,内部;肠( bowel的名词复数 );内部,最深处 | |
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10 rib | |
n.肋骨,肋状物 | |
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11 peculiarities | |
n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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12 remains | |
n.剩余物,残留物;遗体,遗迹 | |
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13 antediluvian | |
adj.史前的,陈旧的 | |
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14 applied | |
adj.应用的;v.应用,适用 | |
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15 flea | |
n.跳蚤 | |
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16 grandiloquent | |
adj.夸张的 | |
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17 dissertations | |
专题论文,学位论文( dissertation的名词复数 ) | |
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18 uncommon | |
adj.罕见的,非凡的,不平常的 | |
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19 lexicon | |
n.字典,专门词汇 | |
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20 swell | |
vi.膨胀,肿胀;增长,增强 | |
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21 quill | |
n.羽毛管;v.给(织物或衣服)作皱褶 | |
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22 crater | |
n.火山口,弹坑 | |
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23 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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24 revolving | |
adj.旋转的,轮转式的;循环的v.(使)旋转( revolve的现在分词 );细想 | |
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25 panoramas | |
全景画( panorama的名词复数 ); 全景照片; 一连串景象或事 | |
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26 virtue | |
n.德行,美德;贞操;优点;功效,效力 | |
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27 credentials | |
n.证明,资格,证明书,证件 | |
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28 geologist | |
n.地质学家 | |
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29 cisterns | |
n.蓄水池,储水箱( cistern的名词复数 );地下储水池 | |
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30 strata | |
n.地层(复数);社会阶层 | |
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31 relics | |
[pl.]n.遗物,遗迹,遗产;遗体,尸骸 | |
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32 intercepted | |
拦截( intercept的过去式和过去分词 ); 截住; 截击; 拦阻 | |
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33 posterity | |
n.后裔,子孙,后代 | |
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34 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
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35 sufficiently | |
adv.足够地,充分地 | |
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36 akin | |
adj.同族的,类似的 | |
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37 justify | |
vt.证明…正当(或有理),为…辩护 | |
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38 intervals | |
n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 );间隔时间;[数学]区间;(戏剧、电影或音乐会的)幕间休息 | |
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39 skull | |
n.头骨;颅骨 | |
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40 rue | |
n.懊悔,芸香,后悔;v.后悔,悲伤,懊悔 | |
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41 excavating | |
v.挖掘( excavate的现在分词 );开凿;挖出;发掘 | |
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42 utterly | |
adv.完全地,绝对地 | |
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43 plantation | |
n.种植园,大农场 | |
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44 credulous | |
adj.轻信的,易信的 | |
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45 reptile | |
n.爬行动物;两栖动物 | |
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46 bestowed | |
赠给,授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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47 specimen | |
n.样本,标本 | |
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48 alleged | |
a.被指控的,嫌疑的 | |
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49 fully | |
adv.完全地,全部地,彻底地;充分地 | |
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50 blotted | |
涂污( blot的过去式和过去分词 ); (用吸墨纸)吸干 | |
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51 skulls | |
颅骨( skull的名词复数 ); 脑袋; 脑子; 脑瓜 | |
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52 tusks | |
n.(象等动物的)长牙( tusk的名词复数 );獠牙;尖形物;尖头 | |
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53 jaws | |
n.口部;嘴 | |
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54 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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55 affinities | |
n.密切关系( affinity的名词复数 );亲近;(生性)喜爱;类同 | |
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56 fin | |
n.鳍;(飞机的)安定翼 | |
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57 annihilated | |
v.(彻底)消灭( annihilate的过去式和过去分词 );使无效;废止;彻底击溃 | |
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58 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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59 chaos | |
n.混乱,无秩序 | |
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60 shuddering | |
v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 );发抖;(机器、车辆等)突然震动;颤动 | |
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61 circumference | |
n.圆周,周长,圆周线 | |
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62 harpoon | |
n.鱼叉;vt.用鱼叉叉,用鱼叉捕获 | |
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63 humane | |
adj.人道的,富有同情心的 | |
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64 stereotype | |
n.固定的形象,陈规,老套,旧框框 | |
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65 limestone | |
n.石灰石 | |
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66 bust | |
vt.打破;vi.爆裂;n.半身像;胸部 | |
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67 antiquity | |
n.古老;高龄;古物,古迹 | |
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68 granite | |
adj.花岗岩,花岗石 | |
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69 abounding | |
adj.丰富的,大量的v.大量存在,充满,富于( abound的现在分词 ) | |
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70 centaurs | |
n.(希腊神话中)半人半马怪物( centaur的名词复数 ) | |
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71 grotesque | |
adj.怪诞的,丑陋的;n.怪诞的图案,怪人(物) | |
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72 celestial | |
adj.天体的;天上的 | |
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73 gliding | |
v. 滑翔 adj. 滑动的 | |
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74 attestation | |
n.证词 | |
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75 monstrous | |
adj.巨大的;恐怖的;可耻的,丢脸的 | |
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76 immediate | |
adj.立即的;直接的,最接近的;紧靠的 | |
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77 forth | |
adv.向前;向外,往外 | |
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