Southern Fried Science

Chapter 32 of Herman Melville’s classic – Moby Dick. Read along with us and discuss this chapter or the book as a whole in the comments. Visit this page for the complete collection to date: Finding Melville’s Whale.

Cetology

Let this be the book of the whale,
chronicle of tortured naturalists.
For who could fathom those great depths
and plum the drum of waves on hull
without a loyal oath, Leviathan!
Lord tyrant of the sea, Sperm Whale!
and this is his kingdom, his loyal court.

Let it first be said, before numbering
the pages of his family
that as certain as they swim in the sea,
the whale is no more than a fish.
A fish remarkable in its warm blood
and lungs, that drive it to the surface,
but, Linnaeus be damned, it is a fish!

These are the three books of the whales’ novel.
Each divided again into
a bookbinder’s twisted taxonomy.
The largest of all, Folios,
those of middling magnitude, Octavoes,
the smallest, duodecimo.
Beyond them, the whales of myth and fable.

FOLIO, Chapter 1, Sperm Whale
          Most formidable of all whales
          and most valuable.
          Within his head, spermaceti,
          the richest oil.

FOLIO, Chapter 2, Right Whale
          The bearer of whalebone, baleen.
          First to be hunted.
          Its tortured taxonomy lies
          entangled with doubt.

FOLIO, Chapter 3, Fin Back
          This solitary, curse-ed Cain,
          swims always alone.
          The whales, in all their forms, deny
          classification.

FOLIO, Chapter 4, Hump Back
          Joyful, but worthless.

FOLIO, Chapter 5, Razor Back
          Unknown to Melville
          and an enigma to modern
          cetologists, none
          have seen anything but his back.

FOLIO, Chapter 6, Sulfur Bottom
          The Blue Whale, never
          chased by whale men of Nantucket.

OCTAVO, Chapter 1, Grampus
          Small in stature, rich in oil.
          His arrival heralds the sperm,
          His larger twin.

OCTAVO, Chapter 2, Black Fish
          Fine oil for a smaller whale.
          He approaches as a pilot
          over the shoals.

OCTAVO, Chapter 3, Narwhal
          The polar beast bears a lone horn
          to split the icy northern sea.
          Curious beast.

OCTAVO, Chapter 4, Killer
          “The killer is never hunted.”
          It is a poor choice for a name,
          for at sea, we are all killers.

OCTAVO, Chapter 5, Thresher
          A flogger of beasts,
          the leviathans’ task-master.

DOUDECIMOES – Porpoises
          The great whale in miniature.
          Some come rich in oil and meat,
          but of their families, nothing
          is certain.

This is but a poor system for naming
and many whales are yet to be counted,
nor will they ever be.

We shall number them as we boil them
and know them only by lamplight
and the stains left in our try-pots.