{"id":"01KJNXJR043HKMJFFPZCFMR05T","cid":"bafkreih7hv4eiegz3dd6b7w4m5lqogzkhjvif6xko6uemclimdhxies6le","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":598241,"char_start":590364,"chunk_index":83,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1970,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"to be the whale’s, is to be found in the famous cavern-pagoda of\r\nElephanta, in India. The Brahmins maintain that in the almost endless\r\nsculptures of that immemorial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits,\r\nevery conceivable avocation of man, were prefigured ages before any of\r\nthem actually came into being. No wonder then, that in some sort our\r\nnoble profession of whaling should have been there shadowed forth. The\r\nHindoo whale referred to, occurs in a separate department of the wall,\r\ndepicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly\r\nknown as the Matse Avatar. But though this sculpture is half man and\r\nhalf whale, so as only to give the tail of the latter, yet that small\r\nsection of him is all wrong. It looks more like the tapering tail of an\r\nanaconda, than the broad palms of the true whale’s majestic flukes.\r\n\r\nBut go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian\r\npainter’s portrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better than the\r\nantediluvian Hindoo. It is Guido’s picture of Perseus rescuing\r\nAndromeda from the sea-monster or whale. Where did Guido get the model\r\nof such a strange creature as that? Nor does Hogarth, in painting the\r\nsame scene in his own “Perseus Descending,” make out one whit better.\r\nThe huge corpulence of that Hogarthian monster undulates on the\r\nsurface, scarcely drawing one inch of water. It has a sort of howdah on\r\nits back, and its distended tusked mouth into which the billows are\r\nrolling, might be taken for the Traitors’ Gate leading from the Thames\r\nby water into the Tower. Then, there are the Prodromus whales of old\r\nScotch Sibbald, and Jonah’s whale, as depicted in the prints of old\r\nBibles and the cuts of old primers. What shall be said of these? As for\r\nthe book-binder’s whale winding like a vine-stalk round the stock of a\r\ndescending anchor—as stamped and gilded on the backs and title-pages of\r\nmany books both old and new—that is a very picturesque but purely\r\nfabulous creature, imitated, I take it, from the like figures on\r\nantique vases. Though universally denominated a dolphin, I nevertheless\r\ncall this book-binder’s fish an attempt at a whale; because it was so\r\nintended when the device was first introduced. It was introduced by an\r\nold Italian publisher somewhere about the 15th century, during the\r\nRevival of Learning; and in those days, and even down to a\r\ncomparatively late period, dolphins were popularly supposed to be a\r\nspecies of the Leviathan.\r\n\r\nIn the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient books you\r\nwill at times meet with very curious touches at the whale, where all\r\nmanner of spouts, jets d’eau, hot springs and cold, Saratoga and\r\nBaden-Baden, come bubbling up from his unexhausted brain. In the\r\ntitle-page of the original edition of the “Advancement of Learning” you\r\nwill find some curious whales.\r\n\r\nBut quitting all these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at those\r\npictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific delineations,\r\nby those who know. In old Harris’s collection of voyages there are some\r\nplates of whales extracted from a Dutch book of voyages, A.D. 1671,\r\nentitled “A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the\r\nWhale, Peter Peterson of Friesland, master.” In one of those plates the\r\nwhales, like great rafts of logs, are represented lying among\r\nice-isles, with white bears running over their living backs. In another\r\nplate, the prodigious blunder is made of representing the whale with\r\nperpendicular flukes.\r\n\r\nThen again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one Captain\r\nColnett, a Post Captain in the English navy, entitled “A Voyage round\r\nCape Horn into the South Seas, for the purpose of extending the\r\nSpermaceti Whale Fisheries.” In this book is an outline purporting to\r\nbe a “Picture of a Physeter or Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale from\r\none killed on the coast of Mexico, August, 1793, and hoisted on deck.”\r\nI doubt not the captain had this veracious picture taken for the\r\nbenefit of his marines. To mention but one thing about it, let me say\r\nthat it has an eye which applied, according to the accompanying scale,\r\nto a full grown sperm whale, would make the eye of that whale a\r\nbow-window some five feet long. Ah, my gallant captain, why did ye not\r\ngive us Jonah looking out of that eye!\r\n\r\nNor are the most conscientious compilations of Natural History for the\r\nbenefit of the young and tender, free from the same heinousness of\r\nmistake. Look at that popular work “Goldsmith’s Animated Nature.” In\r\nthe abridged London edition of 1807, there are plates of an alleged\r\n“whale” and a “narwhale.” I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this\r\nunsightly whale looks much like an amputated sow; and, as for the\r\nnarwhale, one glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this\r\nnineteenth century such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon\r\nany intelligent public of schoolboys.\r\n\r\nThen, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Count de Lacépède, a great\r\nnaturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book, wherein are\r\nseveral pictures of the different species of the Leviathan. All these\r\nare not only incorrect, but the picture of the Mysticetus or Greenland\r\nwhale (that is to say, the Right whale), even Scoresby, a long\r\nexperienced man as touching that species, declares not to have its\r\ncounterpart in nature.\r\n\r\nBut the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business was\r\nreserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the famous\r\nBaron. In 1836, he published a Natural History of Whales, in which he\r\ngives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale. Before showing that\r\npicture to any Nantucketer, you had best provide for your summary\r\nretreat from Nantucket. In a word, Frederick Cuvier’s Sperm Whale is\r\nnot a Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of course, he never had the benefit of\r\na whaling voyage (such men seldom have), but whence he derived that\r\npicture, who can tell? Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor\r\nin the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions; that\r\nis, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with the\r\npencil those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us.\r\n\r\nAs for the sign-painters’ whales seen in the streets hanging over the\r\nshops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them? They are generally\r\nRichard III. whales, with dromedary humps, and very savage;\r\nbreakfasting on three or four sailor tarts, that is whaleboats full of\r\nmariners: their deformities floundering in seas of blood and blue\r\npaint.\r\n\r\nBut these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so very\r\nsurprising after all. Consider! Most of the scientific drawings have\r\nbeen taken from the stranded fish; and these are about as correct as a\r\ndrawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back, would correctly represent\r\nthe noble animal itself in all its undashed pride of hull and spars.\r\nThough elephants have stood for their full-lengths, the living\r\nLeviathan has never yet fairly floated himself for his portrait. The\r\nliving whale, in his full majesty and significance, is only to be seen\r\nat sea in unfathomable waters; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out\r\nof sight, like a launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that element\r\nit is a thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him bodily\r\ninto the air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations.\r\nAnd, not to speak of the highly presumable difference of contour\r\nbetween a young sucking whale and a full-grown Platonian Leviathan;\r\nyet, even in the case of one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a\r\nship’s deck, such is then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying\r\nshape of him, that his precise expression the devil himself could not\r\ncatch.\r\n\r\nBut it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded\r\nwhale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true form. Not at\r\nall."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.780Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.780Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}