Overview of Chapter 92: Ambergris
In this short but richly layered chapter, Ishmael pauses the narrative to deliver a digression on ambergris, the rare and valuable substance found in the intestines of sperm whales. He explains that ambergris was so commercially important that in 1791 a Nantucket captain named Coffin was summoned to testify before the English House of Commons about it. Despite its association with whale sickness and decay, ambergris is prized as a soft, waxy, fragrant material used extensively in perfumery, candles, hair powders, and even cooking among the Turks. Some wine merchants even add grains of it to claret for flavoring.
The Paradox of Beauty from Decay
Ishmael marvels at the irony that fine ladies and gentlemen perfume themselves with a substance extracted from the bowels of a sick whale. He notes that whether ambergris is the cause or the effect of the whale's dyspepsia remains debated, and jokes that curing such an ailment would require boatloads of Brandreth's pills. Hard, round bony plates found within the ambergris turn out to be pieces of small squid bones, hinting at the whale's diet. Ishmael then elevates this paradox to a spiritual meditation, invoking St. Paul's words in Corinthians about being sown in dishonor and raised in glory, and citing Paracelsus on the origins of musk, to suggest that beauty and incorruption can emerge from the heart of decay.
Defending the Reputation of Whalemen
The chapter shifts to a vigorous defense of the whaling profession against the common slander that whales and whalemen always smell bad. Ishmael traces this misconception to the arrival of Greenland whaling ships in London over two centuries earlier. Unlike Southern whalers who rendered their oil at sea, Greenland whalers cut fresh blubber into small pieces, stuffed it into casks, and carried it home unprocessed due to the short Arctic season and violent storms. When these casks were opened at the Greenland dock, the stench was comparable to excavating an old city graveyard. Ishmael also points to the Dutch village of Smeerenberg on the Greenland coast, a collection of furnaces and fat-kettles that gave off an unpleasant odor during operations.
The Fragrance of the Sperm Whale
Ishmael contrasts these malodorous Greenland practices with the South Sea sperm whaler, whose oil is nearly scentless when properly casked. He insists that whales, living or dead, are by no means creatures of ill odor when decently treated. In an exuberant flourish, he declares that the motion of a sperm whale's flukes above water dispenses a perfume like a musk-scented lady rustling her dress in a warm parlor. He concludes by likening the sperm whale's fragrance to the famous jeweled elephant, redolent with myrrh, that was led from an Indian town to honor Alexander the Great.