Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a neck; on the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that very place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also, that the surgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening between him and his subject, and that subject almost hidden in a discolored, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear in mind, too, that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut many feet deep in the flesh; and in that subterraneous manner, without so much as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus made, he must skillfully steer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts, and exactly divide the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion into the skull. Do you not marvel, then, at Stubb's boast, that he demanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm whale?
When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a cable till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small whale it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a full grown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale's head embraces nearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend such a burden as that, even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this were as vain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers' scales.
The Pequod's whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head was hoisted against the ship's side- about half way out of the sea, so that it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element. And there with the strained craft steeply leaning over it, by reason of the enormous downward drag from the lower mast-head, and every yard-arm on that side projecting like a crane over the waves; there, that blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod's waist like the giant Holofernes's from the girdle of Judith.
When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went below to their dinner.
Silence reigned over the before tumultuous but now deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea.
A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab alone from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he took Stubb's long spade still remaining there after the whale's decapitation and striking it into the lower part of the half-suspended mass, placed its other end crutchwise under one arm, and so stood leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head.
It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx's in the desert. "Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor's side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed- while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou has seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!"
"Sail ho!" cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-head.
"Aye? Well, now, that's cheering," cried Ahab, suddenly erecting himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow. "That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better man.- Where away?"
"Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her breeze to us!
"Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that way, and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies; not the smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind."
Another rather unpleasant chapter. Whaling was not a profession for the weak of constitution. It wasn't for those who had any empathy for living things, either. As this chapter demonstrates, sailors on whaling ships did not see their quarry as anything more than a commodity. A pod of whales swimming through the ocean was simply opportunity and money. That was all. There was no time to think about beauty or awe or anything spiritual.
Again, Melville lived in a different time and culture. I don't think we can condemn him for the sheer brutality of what he writes. That would be like criticizing Kurt Vonnegut for describing the firebombing of Dresden in detail. Those things go hand-in-hand. Vonnegut wrote a book about being a prisoner of war in Dresden. Melville wrote a book about 19th-century whalers. Violence was a part of both of those worlds.
I can say that I have written poems that I've shared with very few people, simply because of their subject matter. It's never my goal, as a poet and essayist, to harm anyone. Therefore, I choose to keep some of my work private, for the time being. To protect some of the people in my life from the truth, as I see it.
That doesn't mean that I censor myself. On the contrary, I consider very little in the way of subject matter as off limits. There is a kind of power in giving word to painful experiences. In the past, I've written about some very difficult things in my life--mental illness, sexual and pornography addiction, marital separation, death, abandonment, guilt. I think that, by talking about these subjects, I have been able to retake control of my life in times of crisis. Poetry helped me do that.
However, it's very dangerous to assume that everything I write about in my poems is taken directly from my life. That would be engaging in the fallacy of thinking that the speaker in a poem and the poet are one and the same. That every detail in the poem is true.
As most poets can tell you, there is truth in every single poem that is written. Emily Dickinson's speaker DID hear a fly buzz when she died. Robert Frost's speaker DID stand at a crossroads in a yellow wood. My Bigfoot speaker DID skinny dip with Jim Harrison. All of those experiences are true because they speak to a deeper, universal meaning in each and every one of us. That is poetic truth.
So, you may ask why I choose not to share some of the poems that I've written. That's a legitimate question. My answer isn't simple. The subject matter is difficult. It cuts very close to the bone for some of the people in my life. Therefore, I save those poems. Go back to them every once in a while to see if they have ripened on the branch. If they are ready to be picked and eaten.
This practice works for me. I believe in truth, but I also believe in compassion. I will absolutely not knowingly hurt anyone with my writing. Above all, kindness rules my choices. Don't get me wrong, though. I'm not poet Bob Ross, painting happy little poetic accidents. Anyone who has read my work knows that I very seldomly write easy poems. In fact, I may write a poem tonight about a decapitated whale. Who knows?
Saint Marty is thankful this evening for truth and compassion.
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