{"id":"01KJNXJV72J2140QGN47DG8M6A","cid":"bafkreih2xpdjljdx5bij37eqdqla2k7xf535dvhi3azbafn5jm7lsfdw5m","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":803353,"char_start":795449,"chunk_index":112,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1976,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"flesh, on the lower part of the bunch before described. But as the\r\nstumps of harpoons are frequently found in the dead bodies of captured\r\nwhales, with the flesh perfectly healed around them, and no prominence\r\nof any kind to denote their place; therefore, there must needs have\r\nbeen some other unknown reason in the present case fully to account for\r\nthe ulceration alluded to. But still more curious was the fact of a\r\nlance-head of stone being found in him, not far from the buried iron,\r\nthe flesh perfectly firm about it. Who had darted that stone lance? And\r\nwhen? It might have been darted by some Nor’ West Indian long before\r\nAmerica was discovered.\r\n\r\nWhat other marvels might have been rummaged out of this monstrous\r\ncabinet there is no telling. But a sudden stop was put to further\r\ndiscoveries, by the ship’s being unprecedentedly dragged over sideways\r\nto the sea, owing to the body’s immensely increasing tendency to sink.\r\nHowever, Starbuck, who had the ordering of affairs, hung on to it to\r\nthe last; hung on to it so resolutely, indeed, that when at length the\r\nship would have been capsized, if still persisting in locking arms with\r\nthe body; then, when the command was given to break clear from it, such\r\nwas the immovable strain upon the timber-heads to which the\r\nfluke-chains and cables were fastened, that it was impossible to cast\r\nthem off. Meantime everything in the Pequod was aslant. To cross to the\r\nother side of the deck was like walking up the steep gabled roof of a\r\nhouse. The ship groaned and gasped. Many of the ivory inlayings of her\r\nbulwarks and cabins were started from their places, by the unnatural\r\ndislocation. In vain handspikes and crows were brought to bear upon the\r\nimmovable fluke-chains, to pry them adrift from the timberheads; and so\r\nlow had the whale now settled that the submerged ends could not be at\r\nall approached, while every moment whole tons of ponderosity seemed\r\nadded to the sinking bulk, and the ship seemed on the point of going\r\nover.\r\n\r\n“Hold on, hold on, won’t ye?” cried Stubb to the body, “don’t be in\r\nsuch a devil of a hurry to sink! By thunder, men, we must do something\r\nor go for it. No use prying there; avast, I say with your handspikes,\r\nand run one of ye for a prayer book and a pen-knife, and cut the big\r\nchains.”\r\n\r\n“Knife? Aye, aye,” cried Queequeg, and seizing the carpenter’s heavy\r\nhatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and steel to iron, began slashing\r\nat the largest fluke-chains. But a few strokes, full of sparks, were\r\ngiven, when the exceeding strain effected the rest. With a terrific\r\nsnap, every fastening went adrift; the ship righted, the carcase sank.\r\n\r\nNow, this occasional inevitable sinking of the recently killed Sperm\r\nWhale is a very curious thing; nor has any fisherman yet adequately\r\naccounted for it. Usually the dead Sperm Whale floats with great\r\nbuoyancy, with its side or belly considerably elevated above the\r\nsurface. If the only whales that thus sank were old, meagre, and\r\nbroken-hearted creatures, their pads of lard diminished and all their\r\nbones heavy and rheumatic; then you might with some reason assert that\r\nthis sinking is caused by an uncommon specific gravity in the fish so\r\nsinking, consequent upon this absence of buoyant matter in him. But it\r\nis not so. For young whales, in the highest health, and swelling with\r\nnoble aspirations, prematurely cut off in the warm flush and May of\r\nlife, with all their panting lard about them; even these brawny,\r\nbuoyant heroes do sometimes sink.\r\n\r\nBe it said, however, that the Sperm Whale is far less liable to this\r\naccident than any other species. Where one of that sort go down, twenty\r\nRight Whales do. This difference in the species is no doubt imputable\r\nin no small degree to the greater quantity of bone in the Right Whale;\r\nhis Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing more than a ton; from this\r\nincumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free. But there are instances\r\nwhere, after the lapse of many hours or several days, the sunken whale\r\nagain rises, more buoyant than in life. But the reason of this is\r\nobvious. Gases are generated in him; he swells to a prodigious\r\nmagnitude; becomes a sort of animal balloon. A line-of-battle ship\r\ncould hardly keep him under then. In the Shore Whaling, on soundings,\r\namong the Bays of New Zealand, when a Right Whale gives token of\r\nsinking, they fasten buoys to him, with plenty of rope; so that when\r\nthe body has gone down, they know where to look for it when it shall\r\nhave ascended again.\r\n\r\nIt was not long after the sinking of the body that a cry was heard from\r\nthe Pequod’s mast-heads, announcing that the Jungfrau was again\r\nlowering her boats; though the only spout in sight was that of a\r\nFin-Back, belonging to the species of uncapturable whales, because of\r\nits incredible power of swimming. Nevertheless, the Fin-Back’s spout is\r\nso similar to the Sperm Whale’s, that by unskilful fishermen it is\r\noften mistaken for it. And consequently Derick and all his host were\r\nnow in valiant chase of this unnearable brute. The Virgin crowding all\r\nsail, made after her four young keels, and thus they all disappeared\r\nfar to leeward, still in bold, hopeful chase.\r\n\r\nOh! many are the Fin-Backs, and many are the Dericks, my friend.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 82. The Honor and Glory of Whaling.\r\n\r\nThere are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the\r\ntrue method.\r\n\r\nThe more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my researches up\r\nto the very spring-head of it so much the more am I impressed with its\r\ngreat honorableness and antiquity; and especially when I find so many\r\ngreat demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other\r\nhave shed distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection\r\nthat I myself belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a\r\nfraternity.\r\n\r\nThe gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman; and to\r\nthe eternal honor of our calling be it said, that the first whale\r\nattacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent.\r\nThose were the knightly days of our profession, when we only bore arms\r\nto succor the distressed, and not to fill men’s lamp-feeders. Every one\r\nknows the fine story of Perseus and Andromeda; how the lovely\r\nAndromeda, the daughter of a king, was tied to a rock on the sea-coast,\r\nand as Leviathan was in the very act of carrying her off, Perseus, the\r\nprince of whalemen, intrepidly advancing, harpooned the monster, and\r\ndelivered and married the maid. It was an admirable artistic exploit,\r\nrarely achieved by the best harpooneers of the present day; inasmuch as\r\nthis Leviathan was slain at the very first dart. And let no man doubt\r\nthis Arkite story; for in the ancient Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Syrian\r\ncoast, in one of the Pagan temples, there stood for many ages the vast\r\nskeleton of a whale, which the city’s legends and all the inhabitants\r\nasserted to be the identical bones of the monster that Perseus slew.\r\nWhen the Romans took Joppa, the same skeleton was carried to Italy in\r\ntriumph. What seems most singular and suggestively important in this\r\nstory, is this: it was from Joppa that Jonah set sail.\r\n\r\nAkin to the adventure of Perseus and Andromeda—indeed, by some supposed\r\nto be indirectly derived from it—is that famous story of St. George and\r\nthe Dragon; which dragon I maintain to have been a whale; for in many\r\nold chronicles whales and dragons are strangely jumbled together, and\r\noften stand for each other. “Thou art as a lion of the waters, and as a\r\ndragon of the sea,” saith Ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale; in\r\ntruth, some versions of the Bible use that word itself. Besides, it\r\nwould much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but\r\nencountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle\r\nwith the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only\r\na Perseus, a St."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.074Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:19.074Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}