若在鲸尸解剖的某一关头，你登上裴廓德号，又若你踱步到靠近起锚机的前甲板，我颇敢断定，你定会以不小的好奇，打量那里躺在背风舷沟里、顺着船身横放的一件十分古怪、莫测的物体。既不是鲸巨头颅中那奇妙的储油器，也不是它脱臼的下颌的异观，更不是它匀称尾巴的奇迹；这些都不会像那难以解释的圆锥体——比肯塔基人还长，底部直径近一尺，黑如魁魁格的乌木偶像约约——半露尊容那般令你惊诧。它确是一尊偶像；或不如说，古时它的形貌曾是。恰似在犹大玛迦女王秘林中所见之偶像；因其祭祀，她子亚撒王废黜其母，毁像，于汲沦溪焚为可憎之物，事载《列王纪上》第十五章幽晦之文。
且看那唤作切丁夫的水手，此时走来，得二助手相帮，重负那水手所谓“巨无霸”者后退，弓背耸肩，踉跄挪开，宛若掷弹兵自战场扛回死侣。置于前甲板，他如非洲猎手剥蟒皮般，循圆柱之式剥其黑鞘。既剥，翻皮向外，如裤管之反；尽力撑张，径几倍之；终展悬索具，以俟其干。未几取下；截去尖端约三尺，彼端割二孔以容臂，遂纵身长入。切丁夫立汝前，已披其职之全副法衣。亘古及于其辈，唯此装束足护其身，当其司特职之时。
其职乃将脂块切丁以入釜；事于趣致木马之前，马竖抵舷墙，下置巨桶，丁落如演说家疾书之纸页。衣端黑，立显座，注圣经；此切丁夫者，何殊主教之选、教皇之童！*
*圣经页！圣经页！此乃大副向切丁夫之常呼。戒其谨慎，务切薄片，盖如是则熬油速而增其量，或亦益其质。
Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of this
post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward nigh the
windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small
curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have seen
there, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers. Not the wondrous
cistern in the whale’s huge head; not the prodigy of his unhinged lower
jaw; not the miracle of his symmetrical tail; none of these would so
surprise you, as half a glimpse of that unaccountable cone,—longer than
a Kentuckian is tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and
jet-black as Yojo, the ebony idol of Queequeg. And an idol, indeed, it
is; or, rather, in old times, its likeness was. Such an idol as that
found in the secret groves of Queen Maachah in Judea; and for
worshipping which, King Asa, her son, did depose her, and destroyed the
idol, and burnt it for an abomination at the brook Kedron, as darkly
set forth in the 15th chapter of the First Book of Kings.
Look at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and
assisted by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the mariners
call it, and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a
grenadier carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the
forecastle deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt,
as an African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt
inside out, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as
almost to double its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in
the rigging, to dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some
three feet of it, towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two
slits for arm-holes at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself
bodily into it. The mincer now stands before you invested in the full
canonicals of his calling. Immemorial to all his order, this
investiture alone will adequately protect him, while employed in the
peculiar functions of his office.
That office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber for the
pots; an operation which is conducted at a curious wooden horse,
planted endwise against the bulwarks, and with a capacious tub beneath
it, into which the minced pieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt
orator’s desk. Arrayed in decent black; occupying a conspicuous pulpit;
intent on bible leaves; what a candidate for an archbishopric, what a
lad for a Pope were this mincer!*
*Bible leaves! Bible leaves! This is the invariable cry from the mates
to the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into as
thin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of
boiling out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably
increased, besides perhaps improving it in quality.
