Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

by Herman Melville

  That whale of Stubb's, so dearly purchased, was duly broughtto the Pequod's side, where all those cutting and hoistingoperations previously detailed, were regularly gone through,even to the baling of the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case.

  While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employedin dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm;and when the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefullymanipulated ere going to the try-works, of which anon.

  It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when,with several others, I sat down before a large Constantine'sbath of it, I found it strangely concreted into lumps,here and there rolling about in the liquid part.It was our business to squeeze these lumps back into fluid.A sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in old times thissperm was such a favorite cosmetic. Such a clearer! sucha sweetener! such a softener; such a delicious mollifier!After having my hands in it for only a few minutes, my fingers feltlike eels, and began, as it were, to serpentine and spiralize.

  As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitterexertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the shipunder indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathedmy hands among those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues,woven almost within the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers,and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe grapestheir wine; as. I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma,--literally and truly, like the smell of spring violets;I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky meadow;I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible sperm,I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to creditthe old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtuein allaying the heat of anger; while bathing in that bath,I felt divinely free from all ill-will, or petulance, or malice,of any sort whatsoever.

  Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezedthat sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezedthat sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me;and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers'hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules.Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling didthis avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezingtheir hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally;as much as to say,--Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longercherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humoror envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let usall squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselvesuniversally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.

  Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever!For now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences,I have perceived that in all cases man must eventually lower,or at least shift, his conceit of attainable felicity;not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy;but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle,the fire-side; the country; now that I have perceived all this,I am ready to squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of thevisions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise,each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.

  Now, while discoursing of sperm it behooves to speak of other things akinto it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the try-works.

  First comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the taperingpart of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of his flukes.It is tough with congealed tendons--a wad of muscle--but still containssome oil. After being severed from the whale, the white-horseis first cut into portable oblongs ere going to the mincer.They look much like blocks of Berkshire marble.

  Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts ofthe whale's flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of blubber,and often participating to a considerable degree in its unctuousness.It is a most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object to behold.As its name imports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with abestreaked snowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of the deepestcrimson and purple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron.Spite of reason, it is hard to keep yourself from eating it.I confess, that once I stole behind the foremast to try it.It tasted something as I should conceive a royal cutlet fromthe thigh of Louis le Gros might have tasted, supposing himto have been killed the first day after the venison season,and that particular venison season contemporary with an unusuallyfine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne.

  There is another substance, and a very singular one, which turnsup in the course of this business, but which I feel it to bevery puzzling adequately to describe. It is called slobgollion;an appellation original with the whalemen, and even so isthe nature of the substance. It is an ineffably oozy,stringy affair, most frequently found in the tubs of sperm,after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting.I hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured membranesof the case, coalescing.

  Gurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right whalemen,but sometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen.It designates the dark, glutinous substance which is scraped offthe back of the Greenland or right whale, and much of which coversthe decks of those inferior souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan.

  Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale's vocabulary.But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A whaleman's nipperis a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the taperingpart of Leviathan's tail: it averages an inch in thickness,and for the rest, is about the size of the iron part of a hoe.Edgewise moved along the oily deck, it operates like a leathern squilgee;and by nameless blandishments, as of magic, allures along withit all impurities.

  But to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way is at onceto descend into the blubber-room, and have a long talk with its inmates.This place has previously been mentioned as the receptaclefor the blanket-pieces, when stript and hoisted from the whale.When the proper time arrives for cutting up its contents, this apartmentis a scene of terror to all tyros, especially by night. On one side,lit by a dull lantern, a space has been left clear for the workmen.They generally go in pairs,--a pike-and-gaffman and a spade-man. Thewhaling-pike is similar to a frigate's boarding-weapon of the same name.The gaff is something like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the gaffmanhooks on to a sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from slipping,as the ship pitches and lurches about. Meanwhile, the spade-man standson the sheet itself, perpendicularly chopping it into the portablehorse-pieces. This spade is sharp as hone can make it; the spademan'sfeet are shoeless; the thing he stands on will sometimes irresistiblyslide away from him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of his own toes,or one of his assistants', would you be very much astonished?Toes are scarce among veteran blubber-room men.