此刻，两条巨鲸正把头靠在一起；让我们也凑上前去，把我们的头与它们靠在一处。
在庞大的对开本巨兽之列，抹香鲸与露脊鲸无疑最值得注目。它们是唯一被人类定期捕猎的鲸类。对南塔基特人而言，它们呈现出所有已知鲸种的两个极端。由于它们之间的外在差异主要体现在头部；又由于此刻正各有一颗头悬挂在“裴廓德号”船侧；且我们只需跨过甲板，便可自由地从一颗头走到另一颗头前：——那么，倒想请教，除了此处，你还能上哪儿寻得比这更好的机会来研习实用的鲸类学？
首先，你便为这两颗头之间的整体反差所震撼。凭良心说，二者都够庞大；但抹香鲸的头具备某种数学般的对称，而露脊鲸的头可悲地缺乏这点。抹香鲸的头更有神韵。你一望见它，便不由自主地承认它在 pervasive 的尊严上远胜一筹。在眼前这例中，这尊严更因它头顶斑白相间的色泽而增色，显出年高德劭、阅历深广。简言之，它是渔夫行话里所谓“灰头鲸”。
现在，且留意这两颗头最不相似处何在——即两个最重要的器官，眼与耳。在头的侧后方、靠近每头鲸下颌角的低处，若仔细搜寻，你终会看见一只无睫的眼，你会以为那是小驹的眼；因它与头之巨大全不成比例。
由鲸眼这般独特的侧向位置，显然它绝看不见正前方的物体，正如它也看不见正后方的。一言以蔽之，鲸眼的位置相当于人的耳；你不妨自想，若你从耳侧去瞄物，会是何景况。你会发现，你只能在视线直侧线前 commanding 约三十度视野，其后亦约三十度。若你死敌白昼持匕首直向你走来，你无从看见，犹如他从背后潜近。一言以蔽之，你可谓有两副背；但同时又有两个正面（侧正面）：因何为人之前面——岂非他的眼？
此外，在我所能想到的多数动物中，眼之栽植使视觉力不知不觉融合，于脑中成一像而非两像；鲸眼之特异位置，被其间如巨山隔两谷湖般的许多立方尺实头有效分隔；这自必完全分离各独立器官所传之印象。故鲸必此侧见一清晰像，彼侧见另一清晰像；其间一切于它皆为浓黑与虚无。人可谓自哨亭以两扇相连窗看世界。鲸则两扇窗分嵌，成两分明窗，却可悲地损了视野。鲸眼此特性，捕鲸中恒须牢记；读者于后文数幕亦须记得。
关于这巨兽的视觉，或可起一奇而极惑之问。然我仅能暗示。人眼在光中睁开，见乃 involuntary；即他不能不对眼前物机械地见。然任何人经验皆教他，虽一瞥可漫扫不辨之物，却绝难于同一瞬专注尽察两物——无论大小——纵使比邻相触。然若分此两物，各围以浓黑之圈；则欲见其一以使心注之，另一必全然排除于你同时之觉外。然则鲸何如？诚，其两眼自身必同时动；但其脑果较人更宏、更合、更微，能于同时专注察两异景，一在身侧，一在正反？若能，则于它如人同时演欧几里得两异题般可惊。严究之，此比无不合。
或属闲念，然我恒觉，某些鲸被三四艇围时显异常游移；此类鲸常见怯而易怪惊；我以为皆间接出于意志之无助困惑，而其分割正反之视觉力必陷之于此。
然鲸耳与眼同奇。若你于其族全然陌生，可于此两头寻时数刻，终不见此官。耳全无外叶；孔本身你难插一羽管，以其微极。它栖于眼后稍处。关于耳，抹香鲸与露脊鲸间须察一重要异：前者耳有外孔，后者耳全平覆以膜，自外全然不可见。
岂不奇，鲸如此巨，竟以小眼观世，以小于兔耳之耳听雷？然若其眼广如赫歇尔大望远镜之镜，耳阔如教堂门廊；岂令其视更久、听更锐？绝不。——然则你何以欲“扩”心？精之可也。
今以手边杠杆蒸汽机，将抹香鲸头翻使底朝天； then 梯登顶，窥其口下；若身不全离，携灯可降入其胃之肯塔基巨穴。然且攀此齿立此观。何等真美而贞之口！自地至顶，衬或谓裱以辉白膜，滑如婚缎。
今出观此凶下颚，似长窄巨鼻烟盒盖，铰在一端非一侧。若撬使过头，露齿排，似恐怖闸门；渔中多可怜人，被此刺以刺力落于身。然更恐怖者，当深海数寻，见闷鲸悬浮，巨颚约十五尺，直垂身直角，如船艏斜桁。此鲸未死；唯沮；或不适；忧郁；懈至颚铰松，留此丑态，为族耻，其族必咒以锁颚。
多例中此下颚——易为熟手脱铰——卸吊甲板，取象牙齿，供硬白鲸骨，渔人制诸奇物，包括杖、伞柄、鞭柄。
以长疲吊，颚拽上如锚；待时——他工后数日——魁魁格、达古、塔斯帖戈，皆良牙医，被使拔牙。魁以利切铲割龈；颚缚环栓，上配索，拖齿如密歇根牛拖野林老栎桩。通四十二齿；老鲸多磨未腐；不补如人。颚后锯板，堆如建房梁。
Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together; let us
join them, and lay together our own.
Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right
Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales
regularly hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two
extremes of all the known varieties of the whale. As the external
difference between them is mainly observable in their heads; and as a
head of each is this moment hanging from the Pequod’s side; and as we
may freely go from one to the other, by merely stepping across the
deck:—where, I should like to know, will you obtain a better chance to
study practical cetology than here?
In the first place, you are struck by the general contrast between
these heads. Both are massive enough in all conscience; but there is a
certain mathematical symmetry in the Sperm Whale’s which the Right
Whale’s sadly lacks. There is more character in the Sperm Whale’s head.
As you behold it, you involuntarily yield the immense superiority to
him, in point of pervading dignity. In the present instance, too, this
dignity is heightened by the pepper and salt colour of his head at the
summit, giving token of advanced age and large experience. In short, he
is what the fishermen technically call a “grey-headed whale.”
Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads—namely, the two
most important organs, the eye and the ear. Far back on the side of the
head, and low down, near the angle of either whale’s jaw, if you
narrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye, which you would
fancy to be a young colt’s eye; so out of all proportion is it to the
magnitude of the head.
Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale’s eyes, it is
plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no more
than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position of the whale’s
eyes corresponds to that of a man’s ears; and you may fancy, for
yourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways survey objects
through your ears. You would find that you could only command some
thirty degrees of vision in advance of the straight side-line of sight;
and about thirty more behind it. If your bitterest foe were walking
straight towards you, with dagger uplifted in broad day, you would not
be able to see him, any more than if he were stealing upon you from
behind. In a word, you would have two backs, so to speak; but, at the
same time, also, two fronts (side fronts): for what is it that makes
the front of a man—what, indeed, but his eyes?
Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of, the eyes
are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so as to
produce one picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar position of
the whale’s eyes, effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of
solid head, which towers between them like a great mountain separating
two lakes in valleys; this, of course, must wholly separate the
impressions which each independent organ imparts. The whale, therefore,
must see one distinct picture on this side, and another distinct
picture on that side; while all between must be profound darkness and
nothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be said to look out on the
world from a sentry-box with two joined sashes for his window. But with
the whale, these two sashes are separately inserted, making two
distinct windows, but sadly impairing the view. This peculiarity of the
whale’s eyes is a thing always to be borne in mind in the fishery; and
to be remembered by the reader in some subsequent scenes.
A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this
visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content with a
hint. So long as a man’s eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing
is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing
whatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one’s experience
will teach him, that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of
things at one glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and
completely, to examine any two things—however large or however small—at
one and the same instant of time; never mind if they lie side by side
and touch each other. But if you now come to separate these two
objects, and surround each by a circle of profound darkness; then, in
order to see one of them, in such a manner as to bring your mind to
bear on it, the other will be utterly excluded from your contemporary
consciousness. How is it, then, with the whale? True, both his eyes, in
themselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more
comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man’s, that he can at the
same moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on
one side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction? If he
can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able
simultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct
problems in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any
incongruity in this comparison.
It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the
extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when
beset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer
frights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly
proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their
divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them.
But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you are an
entire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these two heads for
hours, and never discover that organ. The ear has no external leaf
whatever; and into the hole itself you can hardly insert a quill, so
wondrously minute is it. It is lodged a little behind the eye. With
respect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed
between the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of the former has
an external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered
over with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without.
Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the
world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear
which is smaller than a hare’s? But if his eyes were broad as the lens
of Herschel’s great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of
cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of
hearing? Not at all.—Why then do you try to “enlarge” your mind?
Subtilize it.
Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand, cant
over the sperm whale’s head, that it may lie bottom up; then, ascending
by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and were it not
that the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we
might descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But
let us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we are. What
a really beautiful and chaste-looking mouth! from floor to ceiling,
lined, or rather papered with a glistening white membrane, glossy as
bridal satins.
But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems
like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box, with the hinge at one
end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to get it overhead,
and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific portcullis; and such,
alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these
spikes fall with impaling force. But far more terrible is it to behold,
when fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky whale, floating there
suspended, with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long, hanging
straight down at right-angles with his body, for all the world like a
ship’s jib-boom. This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited; out of
sorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his
jaw have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a
reproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws upon
him.
In most cases this lower jaw—being easily unhinged by a practised
artist—is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose of extracting
the ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that hard white whalebone
with which the fishermen fashion all sorts of curious articles,
including canes, umbrella-stocks, and handles to riding-whips.
With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it were an
anchor; and when the proper time comes—some few days after the other
work—Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego, being all accomplished dentists,
are set to drawing teeth. With a keen cutting-spade, Queequeg lances
the gums; then the jaw is lashed down to ringbolts, and a tackle being
rigged from aloft, they drag out these teeth, as Michigan oxen drag
stumps of old oaks out of wild wood lands. There are generally
forty-two teeth in all; in old whales, much worn down, but undecayed;
nor filled after our artificial fashion. The jaw is afterwards sawn
into slabs, and piled away like joists for building houses.
