Leonardo and the Whale excerpt shows the effect the Whale Fossil had on Leonardo at the end of the chapter.
Whale Fossils found near Tuscany
I used this as a speech material for Toastmasters.
In Florence, Leonardo Da Vinci chanced upon a dark cave and
pondered
Should I enter?
Having wandered some distance across gloomy rocks, he came
to the mouth of a great cavern.
He stood astonished in front of it for some time.
Bending back and forth, he tried to see if he could discover
anything inside, but the darkness within prevented that.
Suddenly he felt two contrary emotions
Fear – of the threatening dark cave
desire – to see whether there were any marvelous thing
within
Desire won.
His unstoppable curiosity triumphed and Leonardo went into
the cave.
Embedded in the wall is a fossil whale.
“Oh mighty and once-living instrument of nature
Your vast strength was to no avail
you must
abandon your tranquil life to obey the law which God and time gave to creative
nature.
Of no
avail are your branching, sturdy dorsal fins with which you pursue your prey,
plowing your way, tempestuously tearing open
the briny waves with your breast.”
Walter Isaac says that this whale fossil triggered a dark
vision of what would be throughout his life, one of his deepest forebodings,
that of an apocalyptic deluge.
Talking of the power held by the long dead-whale
Oh, how many a time the
terrified shoals of dolphins and big tuna fish were seen to flee before your
insensate fury,
“ You lashed with swift, branching fins and forked tail,
Creating in the sea sudden tempests that buffeted and
submerged ships”
“Oh time, swift despoiler of all things
How many kings
How many nations hast thou undone
And how many changes of states and of circumstances have
happened since this wondrous fish perished”
in this winding and cavernous recess? Now
unmade by time you lie patiently in this closed place with bones stripped and
bare, serving as an armature for the mountain placed over you
At this point Leonardo’s fears were about a realm far
different from whatever dangers might be lurking inside the cave. Instead they
were driven by an existential dread in the face of the destructive powers of
nature. He began scribbling rapidly, using a silverpoint on a red tinted page,
describing an apocalypse that begins with water and ends with fire.
“the rivers will be deprived of their waters,
the earth will no longer put forth her greenery
the fields will no more be decked with waving corn
all the animals, finding no fresh grass for pasture, will
die”
In this way the fertile and fruitful earth will be forced to
end
With the element of fire
And then its surface will be left burnt up to cinder
And this will be the end of all earthly nature”
The dark cave that Leonardo’s curiosity compelled him to
enter offered up both scientific discoveries and imaginative fantasies, strands
that would be interwoven throughout his life.
