📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 43
1It should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now,
2the beheading of the Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon which experienced whale surgeons very much pride
3themselves: and not without reason. Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a neck; on the
4contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that very place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also,
5that the surgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening between him and his subject, and that
6subject almost hidden in a discoloured, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear in mind, too, that
7under these untoward circumstances he has to cut many feet deep in the flesh; and in that subterraneous manner, without
8so much as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus made, he must skilfully steer clear of all
9adjacent, interdicted parts, and exactly divide the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion into the skull. Do
10you not marvel, then, at Stubb's boast, that he demanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm whale? When first severed,
11the head is dropped astern and held there by a cable till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small whale
12it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a full grown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm
13whale's head embraces nearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend such a burden as that, even by the
14immense tackles of a whaler, this were as vain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers' scales. The
15Pequod's whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head was hoisted against the ship's side--about half way out
16of the sea, so that it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element. And there with the strained craft
17steeply leaning over to it, by reason of the enormous downward drag from the lower mast-head, and every yard-arm on that
18side projecting like a crane over the waves; there, that blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod's waist like the giant
19Holofernes's from the girdle of Judith. When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went below to
20their dinner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous but now deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal
21yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea. A short space elapsed, and up
22into this noiselessness came Ahab alone from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to gaze over
23the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he took Stubb's long spade--still remaining there after the whale's
24decapitation--and striking it into the lower part of the half-suspended mass, placed its other end crutch-wise under one
25arm, and so stood leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head. It was a black and hooded head; and hanging
26there in the midst of so intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx's in the desert. "Speak, thou vast and venerable head,"
27muttered Ahab, "which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty
28head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the
29upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes
30and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned;
31there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast
32slept by many a sailor's side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw'st the locked
33lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other,
34when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours
35he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed--while swift
36lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O
37head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!" "Sail
38ho!" cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-head. "Aye? Well, now, that's cheering," cried Ahab, suddenly erecting
39himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow. "That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost
40convert a better man.--Where away?" "Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her breeze to us! "Better
41and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that way, and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and
42O soul of man! how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not the smallest atom stirs or lives on matter,
43but has its cunning duplicate in mind."
🎉 全部完成！共 43 行