- 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
gives us the reason for it. Says Plowdon, the whale so caught belongs
to the King and Queen, “because of its superior excellence.” And by the
soundest commentators this has ever been held a cogent argument in such
matters.
But why should the King have the head, and the Queen the tail? A reason
for that, ye lawyers!
In his treatise on “Queen-Gold,” or Queen-pinmoney, an old King’s Bench
author, one William Prynne, thus discourseth: “Ye tail is ye Queen’s,
that ye Queen’s wardrobe may be supplied with ye whalebone.” Now this
was written at a time when the black limber bone of the Greenland or
Right whale was largely used in ladies’ bodices. But this same bone is
not in the tail; it is in the head, which is a sad mistake for a
sagacious lawyer like Prynne. But is the Queen a mermaid, to be
presented with a tail? An allegorical meaning may lurk here.
There are two royal fish so styled by the English law writers—the whale
and the sturgeon; both royal property under certain limitations, and
nominally supplying the tenth branch of the crown’s ordinary revenue. I
know not that any other author has hinted of the matter; but by
inference it seems to me that the sturgeon must be divided in the same
way as the whale, the King receiving the highly dense and elastic head
peculiar to that fish, which, symbolically regarded, may possibly be
humorously grounded upon some presumed congeniality. And thus there
seems a reason in all things, even in law.
CHAPTER 91. The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud.
“In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this
Leviathan, insufferable fetor denying not inquiry.” _Sir T. Browne,
V.E._
It was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, and when
we were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapory, mid-day sea, that the
many noses on the Pequod’s deck proved more vigilant discoverers than
the three pairs of eyes aloft. A peculiar and not very pleasant smell
was smelt in the sea.
“I will bet something now,” said Stubb, “that somewhere hereabouts are
some of those drugged whales we tickled the other day. I thought they
would keel up before long.”
Presently, the vapors in advance slid aside; and there in the distance
lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must
be alongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French colours
from his peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture sea-fowl that
circled, and hovered, and swooped around him, it was plain that the
whale alongside must be what the fishermen call a blasted whale, that
is, a whale that has died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an
unappropriated corpse. It may well be conceived, what an unsavory odor
such a mass must exhale; worse than an Assyrian city in the plague,
when the living are incompetent to bury the departed. So intolerable
indeed is it regarded by some, that no cupidity could persuade them to
moor alongside of it. Yet are there those who will still do it;
notwithstanding the fact that the oil obtained from such subjects is of
a very inferior quality, and by no means of the nature of
attar-of-rose.
Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the Frenchman
had a second whale alongside; and this second whale seemed even more of
a nosegay than the first. In truth, it turned out to be one of those
problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort of
prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies
almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the
proper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn up
his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted
whales in general.
The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed he
recognised his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines that were
knotted round the tail of one of these whales.
“There’s a pretty fellow, now,” he banteringly laughed, standing in the
ship’s bows, “there’s a jackal for ye! I well know that these Crappoes
of Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery; sometimes lowering
their boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes,
and sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes of
tallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they
will get won’t be enough to dip the Captain’s wick into; aye, we all
know these things; but look ye, here’s a Crappo that is content with
our leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too
with scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there.
Poor devil! I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let’s make him a
present of a little oil for dear charity’s sake. For what oil he’ll get
from that drugged whale there, wouldn’t be fit to burn in a jail; no,
not in a condemned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I’ll agree to
get more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours,
than he’ll get from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of
it, it may contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes,
ambergris. I wonder now if our old man has thought of that. It’s worth
trying. Yes, I’m for it;” and so saying he started for the
quarter-deck.
By this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so that whether
or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hope
of escaping except by its breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin,
Stubb now called his boat’s crew, and pulled off for the stranger.
Drawing across her bow, he perceived that in accordance with the
fanciful French taste, the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in
the likeness of a huge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for
thorns had copper spikes projecting from it here and there; the whole
terminating in a symmetrical folded bulb of a bright red colour. Upon
her head boards, in large gilt letters, he read “Bouton de
Rose,”—Rose-button, or Rose-bud; and this was the romantic name of this
aromatic ship.
Though Stubb did not understand the _Bouton_ part of the inscription,
yet the word _rose_, and the bulbous figure-head put together,
sufficiently explained the whole to him.
“A wooden rose-bud, eh?” he cried with his hand to his nose, “that will
do very well; but how like all creation it smells!”
Now in order to hold direct communication with the people on deck, he
had to pull round the bows to the starboard side, and thus come close
to the blasted whale; and so talk over it.
Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he
bawled—“Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy! are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses that
speak English?”
“Yes,” rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who turned out to be
the chief-mate.
“Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the White Whale?”
“_What_ whale?”
“The _White_ Whale—a Sperm Whale—Moby Dick, have ye seen him?
“Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blanche! White Whale—no.”
“Very good, then; good bye now, and I’ll call again in a minute.”
Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab leaning
over the quarter-deck rail awaiting his report, he moulded his two
hands into a trumpet and shouted—“No, Sir! No!” Upon which Ahab
retired, and Stubb returned to the Frenchman.
He now perceived that the Guernsey-man, who had just got into the
chains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his nose in a sort of
bag.
“What’s the matter with your nose, there?” said Stubb. “Broke it?”
“I wish it was broken, or that I didn’t have any nose at all!” answered
the Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job he was at very
much. “But what are you holding _yours_ for?”
“Oh, nothing! It’s a wax nose; I have to hold it on. Fine day, ain’t
it?