{"id":"01KJNXJV7JCEHH1Z97TT21KVQZ","cid":"bafkreihgak6sfuado6x642m6oosnskfih2ei2fhizturqytnm34xhgf75q","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":895100,"char_start":887210,"chunk_index":125,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1973,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"with that right. The law itself has already been set forth. But Plowdon\r\ngives us the reason for it. Says Plowdon, the whale so caught belongs\r\nto the King and Queen, “because of its superior excellence.” And by the\r\nsoundest commentators this has ever been held a cogent argument in such\r\nmatters.\r\n\r\nBut why should the King have the head, and the Queen the tail? A reason\r\nfor that, ye lawyers!\r\n\r\nIn his treatise on “Queen-Gold,” or Queen-pinmoney, an old King’s Bench\r\nauthor, one William Prynne, thus discourseth: “Ye tail is ye Queen’s,\r\nthat ye Queen’s wardrobe may be supplied with ye whalebone.” Now this\r\nwas written at a time when the black limber bone of the Greenland or\r\nRight whale was largely used in ladies’ bodices. But this same bone is\r\nnot in the tail; it is in the head, which is a sad mistake for a\r\nsagacious lawyer like Prynne. But is the Queen a mermaid, to be\r\npresented with a tail? An allegorical meaning may lurk here.\r\n\r\nThere are two royal fish so styled by the English law writers—the whale\r\nand the sturgeon; both royal property under certain limitations, and\r\nnominally supplying the tenth branch of the crown’s ordinary revenue. I\r\nknow not that any other author has hinted of the matter; but by\r\ninference it seems to me that the sturgeon must be divided in the same\r\nway as the whale, the King receiving the highly dense and elastic head\r\npeculiar to that fish, which, symbolically regarded, may possibly be\r\nhumorously grounded upon some presumed congeniality. And thus there\r\nseems a reason in all things, even in law.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 91. The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud.\r\n\r\n“In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this\r\nLeviathan, insufferable fetor denying not inquiry.” _Sir T. Browne,\r\nV.E._\r\n\r\nIt was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, and when\r\nwe were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapory, mid-day sea, that the\r\nmany noses on the Pequod’s deck proved more vigilant discoverers than\r\nthe three pairs of eyes aloft. A peculiar and not very pleasant smell\r\nwas smelt in the sea.\r\n\r\n“I will bet something now,” said Stubb, “that somewhere hereabouts are\r\nsome of those drugged whales we tickled the other day. I thought they\r\nwould keel up before long.”\r\n\r\nPresently, the vapors in advance slid aside; and there in the distance\r\nlay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must\r\nbe alongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French colours\r\nfrom his peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture sea-fowl that\r\ncircled, and hovered, and swooped around him, it was plain that the\r\nwhale alongside must be what the fishermen call a blasted whale, that\r\nis, a whale that has died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an\r\nunappropriated corpse. It may well be conceived, what an unsavory odor\r\nsuch a mass must exhale; worse than an Assyrian city in the plague,\r\nwhen the living are incompetent to bury the departed. So intolerable\r\nindeed is it regarded by some, that no cupidity could persuade them to\r\nmoor alongside of it. Yet are there those who will still do it;\r\nnotwithstanding the fact that the oil obtained from such subjects is of\r\na very inferior quality, and by no means of the nature of\r\nattar-of-rose.\r\n\r\nComing still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the Frenchman\r\nhad a second whale alongside; and this second whale seemed even more of\r\na nosegay than the first. In truth, it turned out to be one of those\r\nproblematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort of\r\nprodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies\r\nalmost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the\r\nproper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn up\r\nhis nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted\r\nwhales in general.\r\n\r\nThe Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed he\r\nrecognised his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines that were\r\nknotted round the tail of one of these whales.\r\n\r\n“There’s a pretty fellow, now,” he banteringly laughed, standing in the\r\nship’s bows, “there’s a jackal for ye! I well know that these Crappoes\r\nof Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery; sometimes lowering\r\ntheir boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes,\r\nand sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes of\r\ntallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they\r\nwill get won’t be enough to dip the Captain’s wick into; aye, we all\r\nknow these things; but look ye, here’s a Crappo that is content with\r\nour leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too\r\nwith scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there.\r\nPoor devil! I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let’s make him a\r\npresent of a little oil for dear charity’s sake. For what oil he’ll get\r\nfrom that drugged whale there, wouldn’t be fit to burn in a jail; no,\r\nnot in a condemned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I’ll agree to\r\nget more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours,\r\nthan he’ll get from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of\r\nit, it may contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes,\r\nambergris. I wonder now if our old man has thought of that. It’s worth\r\ntrying. Yes, I’m for it;” and so saying he started for the\r\nquarter-deck.\r\n\r\nBy this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so that whether\r\nor no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hope\r\nof escaping except by its breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin,\r\nStubb now called his boat’s crew, and pulled off for the stranger.\r\nDrawing across her bow, he perceived that in accordance with the\r\nfanciful French taste, the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in\r\nthe likeness of a huge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for\r\nthorns had copper spikes projecting from it here and there; the whole\r\nterminating in a symmetrical folded bulb of a bright red colour. Upon\r\nher head boards, in large gilt letters, he read “Bouton de\r\nRose,”—Rose-button, or Rose-bud; and this was the romantic name of this\r\naromatic ship.\r\n\r\nThough Stubb did not understand the _Bouton_ part of the inscription,\r\nyet the word _rose_, and the bulbous figure-head put together,\r\nsufficiently explained the whole to him.\r\n\r\n“A wooden rose-bud, eh?” he cried with his hand to his nose, “that will\r\ndo very well; but how like all creation it smells!”\r\n\r\nNow in order to hold direct communication with the people on deck, he\r\nhad to pull round the bows to the starboard side, and thus come close\r\nto the blasted whale; and so talk over it.\r\n\r\nArrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he\r\nbawled—“Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy! are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses that\r\nspeak English?”\r\n\r\n“Yes,” rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who turned out to be\r\nthe chief-mate.\r\n\r\n“Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the White Whale?”\r\n\r\n“_What_ whale?”\r\n\r\n“The _White_ Whale—a Sperm Whale—Moby Dick, have ye seen him?\r\n\r\n“Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blanche! White Whale—no.”\r\n\r\n“Very good, then; good bye now, and I’ll call again in a minute.”\r\n\r\nThen rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab leaning\r\nover the quarter-deck rail awaiting his report, he moulded his two\r\nhands into a trumpet and shouted—“No, Sir! No!” Upon which Ahab\r\nretired, and Stubb returned to the Frenchman.\r\n\r\nHe now perceived that the Guernsey-man, who had just got into the\r\nchains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his nose in a sort of\r\nbag.\r\n\r\n“What’s the matter with your nose, there?” said Stubb. “Broke it?”\r\n\r\n“I wish it was broken, or that I didn’t have any nose at all!” answered\r\nthe Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job he was at very\r\nmuch. “But what are you holding _yours_ for?”\r\n\r\n“Oh, nothing! It’s a wax nose; I have to hold it on. Fine day, ain’t\r\nit?"},"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":"2026-03-02T00:08:12.781Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM7X3F5SNHNMF6NX5Z6QJ","peer_label":"queen english law","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"royal_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:12.781Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM7X2NY646ZQFKT65SVNS","peer_label":"plowdon","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"legal_commentator","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:12.781Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXM9FE1XNQK9E8Q58E6VXR","peer_label":"royal 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