{"id":"01KJNXJR1RZSG5V3BZ97931K8X","cid":"bafkreibchn5yh3m5aegde27mhgbz3x45k3llmp3e3ii7xyoik6yaeavh7y","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":697523,"char_start":689922,"chunk_index":97,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1901,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there\r\nwhen a stick was held. There’s your law of precedents; there’s your\r\nutility of traditions; there’s the story of your obstinate survival of\r\nold beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in\r\nthe air! There’s orthodoxy!\r\n\r\nThus, while in life the great whale’s body may have been a real terror\r\nto his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a\r\nworld.\r\n\r\nAre you a believer in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts than\r\nthe Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe\r\nin them.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 70. The Sphynx.\r\n\r\nIt should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping\r\nthe body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now, the beheading of the\r\nSperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon which experienced\r\nwhale surgeons very much pride themselves: and not without reason.\r\n\r\nConsider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a neck;\r\non the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that\r\nvery place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also, that the\r\nsurgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening\r\nbetween him and his subject, and that subject almost hidden in a\r\ndiscoloured, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear\r\nin mind, too, that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut\r\nmany feet deep in the flesh; and in that subterraneous manner, without\r\nso much as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus\r\nmade, he must skilfully steer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts,\r\nand exactly divide the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion\r\ninto the skull. Do you not marvel, then, at Stubb’s boast, that he\r\ndemanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm whale?\r\n\r\nWhen first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a\r\ncable till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small\r\nwhale it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a\r\nfull grown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale’s head\r\nembraces nearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend\r\nsuch a burden as that, even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this\r\nwere as vain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers’\r\nscales.\r\n\r\nThe Pequod’s whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head\r\nwas hoisted against the ship’s side—about half way out of the sea, so\r\nthat it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element. And\r\nthere with the strained craft steeply leaning over to it, by reason of\r\nthe enormous downward drag from the lower mast-head, and every yard-arm\r\non that side projecting like a crane over the waves; there, that\r\nblood-dripping head hung to the Pequod’s waist like the giant\r\nHolofernes’s from the girdle of Judith.\r\n\r\nWhen this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went\r\nbelow to their dinner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous but\r\nnow deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow\r\nlotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves\r\nupon the sea.\r\n\r\nA short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab alone\r\nfrom his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to\r\ngaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he took\r\nStubb’s long spade—still remaining there after the whale’s\r\ndecapitation—and striking it into the lower part of the half-suspended\r\nmass, placed its other end crutch-wise under one arm, and so stood\r\nleaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head.\r\n\r\nIt was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so\r\nintense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx’s in the desert. “Speak, thou vast\r\nand venerable head,” muttered Ahab, “which, though ungarnished with a\r\nbeard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty\r\nhead, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou\r\nhast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams,\r\nhas moved amid this world’s foundations. Where unrecorded names and\r\nnavies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous\r\nhold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the\r\ndrowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar\r\nhome. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many\r\na sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay\r\nthem down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their\r\nflaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true\r\nto each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the\r\nmurdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours\r\nhe fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his\r\nmurderers still sailed on unharmed—while swift lightnings shivered the\r\nneighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to\r\noutstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the\r\nplanets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”\r\n\r\n“Sail ho!” cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-head.\r\n\r\n“Aye? Well, now, that’s cheering,” cried Ahab, suddenly erecting\r\nhimself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow. “That\r\nlively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better\r\nman.—Where away?”\r\n\r\n“Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her breeze\r\nto us!\r\n\r\n“Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that way,\r\nand to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul of man!\r\nhow far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not the\r\nsmallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate\r\nin mind.”\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 71. The Jeroboam’s Story.\r\n\r\nHand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but the breeze came faster than\r\nthe ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock.\r\n\r\nBy and by, through the glass the stranger’s boats and manned mast-heads\r\nproved her a whale-ship. But as she was so far to windward, and\r\nshooting by, apparently making a passage to some other ground, the\r\nPequod could not hope to reach her. So the signal was set to see what\r\nresponse would be made.\r\n\r\nHere be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the ships\r\nof the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal; all which\r\nsignals being collected in a book with the names of the respective\r\nvessels attached, every captain is provided with it. Thereby, the whale\r\ncommanders are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at\r\nconsiderable distances and with no small facility.\r\n\r\nThe Pequod’s signal was at last responded to by the stranger’s setting\r\nher own; which proved the ship to be the Jeroboam of Nantucket.\r\nSquaring her yards, she bore down, ranged abeam under the Pequod’s lee,\r\nand lowered a boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as the side-ladder was\r\nbeing rigged by Starbuck’s order to accommodate the visiting captain,\r\nthe stranger in question waved his hand from his boat’s stern in token\r\nof that proceeding being entirely unnecessary. It turned out that the\r\nJeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her\r\ncaptain, was fearful of infecting the Pequod’s company. For, though\r\nhimself and boat’s crew remained untainted, and though his ship was\r\nhalf a rifle-shot off, and an incorruptible sea and air rolling and\r\nflowing between; yet conscientiously adhering to the timid quarantine\r\nof the land, he peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with\r\nthe Pequod.\r\n\r\nBut this did by no means prevent all communications."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3Z6GAC3QZ1MZC1PX63","peer_label":"pequod","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaling_ship","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKV7VCG1M1V2KKXZJD4A9","peer_label":"stubb","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKYGCZNXREK07X11VQXHV","peer_label":"sperm whale","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whale_species","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKW3DZQ5YTC2NQ9Q7VBWR","peer_label":"ahab","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMBR5H49E23M7S4R427K0","peer_label":"jeroboam","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"whaling_ship","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM423TTC0Y0A1Y0X78QFB","peer_label":"nantucket","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"place","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ3T7GFNS8BHHRTBWY7Q7","peer_label":"doctor johnson","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNFASPSY67S4BZ70FMN5T","peer_label":"judith","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"biblical_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNFRWP69412TJ1BDP63MM","peer_label":"chapter 70 the sphynx","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"document_section","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXPYTMNW3DZA5KK92C8R7B","peer_label":"cock-lane ghost","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"ghost_story","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNP8NGECFG1W97JFPS0C3","peer_label":"st paul","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"biblical_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNFG1Q8DRDQHF5G374V1C","peer_label":"whale surgeons","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"profession","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ245JT9PJMW2RX7MAAN1","peer_label":"chapter 71 the jeroboams story","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"document_section","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ357Y9J34ZX5069BQ65S","peer_label":"stubbs long spade","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"tool","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXN91EG8CGD13GF32V7HM5","peer_label":"mayhew","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"person","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ7KB6NCE7ZJ3F5YJR19H","peer_label":"ghosts","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNFH2D9YDATM84RNTAYWT","peer_label":"holofernes","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"historical_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQE22F3X9EJEC558M7KSE","peer_label":"private signal","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"entity","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXNMA6WZ68YZS7NTYDZ3MF","peer_label":"sphynx","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"mythological_creature","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ26E7WM85Z1H0K3HTXQR","peer_label":"american whale fleet","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"organization","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXQ35Y11QJ2VDG8YC0BC54","peer_label":"malignant epidemic","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"medical_condition","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:14.740Z"}}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.832Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:08:16.102Z","edited_by":{"method":"system","user_id":"01KJ60XQBHJ0GBGTP9X8HXAPPM"}}