Floppyshop 2/Floppyshop - 2.zip/Floppyshop - 2.iso/diskmags/3565-4.665/dmg-4321/mobyd-2.txt

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MOBY DICK - PART 2

.. <p 261 >
.. < chapter lv 7  OF THE MONSTROUS PICTURES OF WHALES >

     I shall ere long
paint to you as well as one can without canvas, something like the true form
of the whale as he actually appears to the eye of the whaleman when in his own
absolute body the whale is moored alongside the whale-ship so that he can be
fairly stepped upon there.  It may be worth while, therefore, previously to
advert to those curious imaginary portraits of him which even down to the
present day confidently challenge the faith of the landsman.  It is time to
set the world right in this matter, by proving such pictures of the whale all
wrong.  It may be that the primal source of all those pictorial delusions will
be found among the oldest Hindoo, Egyptian, and Grecian sculptures.  For ever
since those inventive but unscrupulous times when on the marble panellings of
temples, the pedestals of statues, and on shields, medallions, cups, and
coins, the dolphin was drawn in scales of chain-armor like Saladin's, and a
helmeted head like St.  George's; ever since then has something of the same
sort of license prevailed, not only in most popular pictures of the whale,
but in many scientific presentations of him.  Now, by all odds, the most
ancient extant portrait anyways purporting to be the whale's, is to be found
in the famous cavern-pagoda of Elephanta, in India.  The Brahmins maintain
that in the almost endless sculptures of that immemorial pagoda, all the
trades and pursuits, every conceivable avocation of man, were prefigured ages
before any of them actually came into being.  No wonder then, that in some
sort our noble profession
.. <p 262 >
of whaling should have been there shadowed forth.  The Hindoo whale referred
to, occurs in a separate department of the wall, depicting the incarnation of
Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly known as the Matse Avatar.  But
though this sculpture is half man and half whale, so as only to give the tail
of the latter, yet that small section of him is all wrong.  It looks more
like the tapering tail of an anaconda, than the broad palms of the true
whale's majestic flukes.  But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great
Christian painter's portrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better than the

     antediluvian Hindoo.  It is Guido's picture of Perseus rescuing Andromeda
from the sea-monster or whale.  Where did Guido get the model of such a
strange creature as that?  Nor does Hogarth, in painting the same scene in
his own Perseus Descending, make out one whit better.  The huge corpulence
of that Hogarthian monster undulates on the surface, scarcely drawing one
inch of water.  It has a sort of howdah on its back, and its distended tusked
mouth into which the billows are rolling, might be taken for the Traitors'
Gate leading from the Thames by water into the Tower.  Then, there are the
Prodromus whales of the old Scotch Sibbald, and Jonah's whale, as depicted
in the prints of old Bibles and the cuts of old primers.  What shall be said
of these?  As for the book-binder's whale winding like a vine-stalk round the
stock of a descending anchor --as stamped and gilded on the backs and
title-pages of many books both old and new --that is a very picturesque but
purely fabulous creature, imitated, I take it, from the like figures on
antique vases.  Though universally denominated a dolphin, I nevertheless call
this book-binder's fish an attempt at a whale; because it was so intended
when the device was first introduced.  It was introduced by an old Italian
publisher somewhere about the 15th century, during the Revival of Learning;
and in those days, and even down to a comparatively late period, dolphins
were popularly supposed to be a species of the Leviathan.  In the vignettes
and other embellishments of some ancient books you will at times meet with
very curious touches at the whale, where all manner of spouts, jets d'eau,
hot springs and cold, Saratoga and Baden-Baden, come bubbling up from his

.. <p 263 >
unexhausted brain.  In the title-page of the original edition of the

     Advancement of Learning you will find some curious whales.  But quitting all
these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at those pictures of leviathan
purporting to be sober, scientific delineations, by those who know.  In old
Harris's collection of voyages there are some plates of whales extracted from
a Dutch book of voyages, A. D.
, entitled A Whaling Voyage to
Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the Whale, Peter Peterson of Friesland,
master.  In one of those plates the whales, like great rafts of logs, are
represented lying among ice-isles, with white bears running over their living
backs.  In another plate, the prodigious blunder is made of representing the
whale with perpendicular flukes.  Then again, there is an imposing quarto,
written by one Captain Colnett, a Post Captain in the English navy, entitled

     A Voyage round Cape Horn into the South Seas, for the purpose of extending
the Spermaceti Whale Fisheries.  In this book is an outline purporting to be
a Picture of a Physeter or Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale from one killed
on the coast of Mexico, August,
, and hoisted on deck.  I doubt not the
captain had this veracious picture taken for the benefit of his marines.  To
mention but one thing about it, let me say that it has an eye which applied,
according to the accompanying scale, to a full grown sperm whale, would make
the eye of that whale a bow-window some five feet long.  Ah, my gallant
captain, why did ye not give us Jonah looking out of that eye!  Nor are the
most conscientious compilations of Natural History for the benefit of the
young and tender, free from the same heinousness of mistake.  Look at that
popular work Goldsmith's Animated Nature.  In the abridged London edition of

, there are plates of an alleged whale and a narwhale.  I do not wish
to seem inelegant, but this unsightly whale looks much like an amputated sow;

     and, as for the narwhale, one glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in
this nineteenth century such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon any

     intelligent public of schoolboys.  Then, again, in
, Bernard Germain,
Count de Lacepede,
.. <p 264 >
a great naturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book, wherein are
several pictures of the different species of the Leviathan.  All these are
not only incorrect, but the picture of the Mysticetus or Greenland whale
(that is to say, the Right whale), even Scoresby, a long experienced man as
touching that species, declares not to have its counterpart in nature.  But
the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business was reserved for
the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the famous Baron.  In
, he
published a Natural History of Whales, in which he gives what he calls a
picture of the Sperm Whale.  Before showing that picture to any Nantucketer,
you had best provide for your summary retreat from Nantucket.  In a word,
Frederick Cuvier's Sperm Whale is not a Sperm Whale, but a squash.  Of course,
he never had the benefit of a whaling voyage (such men seldom have), but
whence he derived that picture, who can tell?  Perhaps he got it as his
scientific predecessor in the same field, Desmarest, got one of his
authentic abortions; that is, from a Chinese drawing.  And what sort of
lively lads with the pencil those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers
inform us.  As for the sign-painters' whales seen in the streets hanging over
the shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them?  They are generally
Richard III.  whales, with dromedary humps, and very savage; breakfasting on
three or four sailor tarts, that is whaleboats full of mariners: their
deformities floundering in seas of blood and blue paint.  but these manifold
mistakes in depicting the whale are not so very surprising after all.
Consider!  Most of the scientific drawings have been taken from the
stranded fish; and these are about as correct as a drawing of a wrecked ship,

     with broken back, would correctly represent the noble animal itself in all
its undashed pride of hull and spars.  Though elephants have stood for their
full-lengths, the living Leviathan has never yet fairly floated himself for
his portrait.  The living whale, in his full majesty and significance, is
only to be seen at sea in unfathomable waters; and afloat the vast bulk of
him is out of sight, like a launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that
element it is a thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist
.. <p 265 >
him bodily into the air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and
undulations.  And, not to speak of the highly presumable difference of
contour between a young sucking whale and a full-grown Platonian Leviathan;
yet, even in the case of one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a ship's
deck, such is then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying shape of him,
that his precise expression the devil himself could not catch.  But it may be
fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded whale, accurate hints
may be derived touching his true form.  Not at all.  For it is one of the more
curious things about this Leviathan, that his skeleton gives very little idea
of his general shape.  Though Jeremy Bentham's skeleton, which hangs for
candelabra in the library of one of his executors, correctly conveys the idea
of a burly-browed utilitarian old gentleman, with all Jeremy's other leading
personal characteristics; yet nothing of this kind could be inferred from
any leviathan's articulated bones.  In fact, as the great Hunter says, the
mere skeleton of the whale bears the same relation to the fully invested and
padded animal as the insect does to the chrysalis that so roundingly envelopes
it.  This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the head, as in some part of
this book will be incidentally shown.  It is also very curiously displayed in
the side fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer to the bones of the
human hand, minus only the thumb.  This fin has four regular bone-fingers,
the index, middle, ring, and little finger.  But all these are permanently
lodged in their fleshy covering, as the human fingers in an artificial
covering.  However recklessly the whale may sometimes serve us, said
humorous Stubb one day, he can never be truly said to handle us without
mittens.  For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must
needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world
which must remain unpainted to the last.  True, one portrait may hit the mark
much nearer than another, but none can hit it with any very considerable
degree of exactness.  So there is no earthly way of finding out precisely what
the whale really looks like.  And the only mode in which you can derive even a
tolerable idea of his living contour, is by
.. <p 266 >
going a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small risk of being
eternally stove and sunk by him.  Wherefore, it seems to me you had best not
be too fastidious in your curiosity touching this Leviathan.
.. <p 266 >
.. < chapter lvi 6  OF THE LESS ERRONEOUS PICTURES OF WHALES, AND THE TRUE >



     PICTURES OF WHALING SCENES In connexion with the monstrous pictures of
whales, I am strongly tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous
stories of them which are to be found in certain books, both ancient and
modern, especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, etc.  But I
pass that matter by.  i know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm

     Whale; Colnett's, Huggins's, Frederick Cuvier's, and Beale's.  In the
previous chapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred to.  Huggins's is far
better than theirs; but, by great odds, Beale's is the best.  All Beale's
drawings of this whale are good, excepting the middle figure in the picture of
three whales in various attitudes, capping his second chapter.  His
frontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales, though no doubt calculated to
excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is admirably correct and
life-like in its general effect.  Some of the Sperm Whale drawings in J. Ross
Browne are pretty correct in contour; but they are wretchedly engraved.  That
is not his fault though.  Of the Right Whale, the best outline pictures are in
Scoresby; but they are drawn on too small a scale to convey a desirable
impression.  He has but one picture of whaling scenes, and this is a sad
deficiency, because it is by such pictures only, when at all well done,
that you can derive anything like a truthful idea of the living whale as seen
by his living hunters.  But, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though
in some details not the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling
.. <p 267 >
scenes to be anywhere found, are two large French engravings, well executed,
and taken from paintings by one Garnery.  Respectively, they represent
attacks on the Sperm and Right Whale.  In the first engraving a noble Sperm
Whale is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath the boat from
the profundities of the ocean, and bearing high in the air upon his back the
terrific wreck of the stoven planks.  The prow of the boat is partially
unbroken, and is drawn just balancing upon the monster's spine; and standing
in that prow, for that one single incomputable flash of time, you behold an
oarsman, half shrouded by the incensed boiling spout of the whale, and in
the act of leaping, as if from a precipice.  The action of the whole thing is
wonderfully good and true.  The half-emptied line-tub floats on the whitened
sea; the wooden poles of the spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it; the heads
of the swimming crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting expressions
of affright; while in the black stormy distance the ship is bearing down upon
the scene.  Serious fault might be found with the anatomical details of this
whale, but let that pass; since, for the life of me, I could not draw so
good a one.  In the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing
alongside the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale, that rolls his
black weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-slide from the Patagonian
cliffs.  His jets are erect, full, and black like soot; so that from so
abounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there must be a brave
supper cooking in the great bowels below.  Sea fowls are pecking at the small
crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the Right Whale
sometimes carries on his pestilent back.  And all the while the thick-lipped
leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of tumultuous white curds
in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock in the swells like a skiff
caught nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean steamer.  Thus, the foreground is
all raging commotion; but behind, in admirable artistic contrast, is the
glassy level of a sea becalmed, the drooping unstarched sails of the
powerless ship, and the inert mass of a dead whale, a conquered fortress,
with the flag of capture lazily hanging from the whale-pole inserted into his
spout-hole.
.. <p 268 >
Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not.  But my life for it he was
either practically conversant with his subject, or else marvellously tutored
by some experienced whaleman.  The French are the lads for painting action.
Go and gaze upon all the paintings in Europe, and where will you find such a
gallery of living and breathing commotion on canvas, as in that triumphal
hall at Versailles; where the beholder fights his way, pell-mell, through the
consecutive great battles of France; where every sword seems a flash of the
Northern Lights, and the successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a
charge of crowned centaurs?  Not wholly unworthy of a place in that gallery,
are these sea battle-pieces of Garnery.  The natural aptitude of the French for
seizing the picturesqueness of things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what
paintings and engravings they have of their whaling scenes.  With not one
tenth of England's experience in the fishery, and not the thousandth part of
that of the Americans, they have nevertheless furnished both nations with the
only finished sketches at all capable of conveying the real spirit of the
whale hunt.  For the most part, the English and American whale draughtsmen
seem entirely content with presenting the mechanical outline of things, such
as the vacant profile of the whale; which, so far as picturesqueness of
effect is concerned, is about tantamount to sketching the profile of a
pyramid.  Even Scoresby, the justly renowned Right whaleman, after giving us
a stiff full length of the Greenland whale, and three or four delicate
miniatures of narwhales and porpoises, treats us to a series of classical
engravings of boat hooks, chopping knives, and grapnels; and with the
microscopic diligence of a Leuwenhoeck submits to the inspection of a
shivering world ninety-six fac-similes of magnified Arctic snow crystals.  I
mean no disparagement to the excellent voyager (I honor him for a veteran),
but in so important a matter it was certainly an oversight not to have
procured for every crystal a sworn affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice
of the Peace.  In addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are
two other French engravings worthy of note, by some one who subscribes
himself h.  durand.  one of them, though not precisely
.. <p 269 >
adapted to our present purpose, nevertheless deserves mention on other
accounts.  It is a quiet noon-scene among the isles of the Pacific; a French
whaler anchored, inshore, in a calm, and lazily taking water on board; the
loosened sails of the ship, and the long leaves of the palms in the
background, both drooping together in the breezeless air.  The effect is very
fine, when considered with reference to its presenting the hardy fishermen
under one of their few aspects of oriental repose.  The other engraving is
quite a different affair: the ship hove-to upon the open sea, and in the
very heart of the Leviathanic life, with a Right Whale alongside; the vessel
 (in the act of cutting-in) hove over to the monster as if to a quay; and a
boat, hurriedly pushing off from this scene of activity, is about giving
chase to whales in the distance.  The harpoons and lances lie levelled for
use; three oarsmen are just setting the mast in its hole; while from a
sudden roll of the sea, the little craft stands half-erect out of the water,
like a rearing horse.  From the ship, the smoke of the torments of the boiling
whale is going up like the smoke over a village of smithies; and to
windward, a black cloud, rising up with earnest of squalls and rains, seems
to quicken the activity of the excited seamen.
.. <p 269 >
.. < chapter lvii 23  OF WHALES IN PAINT; IN TEETH; IN WOOD; IN >


SHEET-IRON; IN STONE; IN MOUNTAINS; IN STARS On Tower-hill, as you go down
to the London docks, you may have seen a crippled beggar (or kedger, as the
sailors say) holding a painted board before him, representing the tragic
scene in which he lost his leg.  There are three whales and three boats; and
one of the boats (presumed to contain the missing leg in all its original
integrity) is being crunched by the jaws of the foremost whale.  Any time
these ten years, they tell me, has that man held up that picture, and
exhibited
.. <p 270 >
that stump to an incredulous world.  But the time of his justification has now
come.  His three whales are as good whales as were ever published in Wapping,
at any rate; and his stump as unquestionable a stump as any you will find in
the western clearings.  But, though for ever mounted on that stump, never a
stump-speech does the poor whaleman make; but, with downcast eyes, stands
ruefully contemplating his own amputation.  Throughout the Pacific, and also
in Nantucket, and New Bedford, and Sag Harbor, you will come across lively
sketches of whales and whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on
Sperm Whale-teeth, or ladies' busks wrought out of the Right Whale-bone, and
other like skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the numerous little
ingenious contrivances they elaborately carve out of the rough material, in
their hours of ocean leisure.  Some of them have little boxes of
dentistical-looking implements, specially intended for the skrimshandering
business.  But, in general, they toil with their jack-knives alone; and, with
that almost omnipotent tool of the sailor, they will turn you out anything
you please, in the way of a mariner's fancy.  Long exile from Christendom and
civilization inevitably restores a man to that condition in which God placed
him, i.  e.  what is called savagery.  Your true whale-hunter is as much a
savage as an Iroquois.  I myself am a savage; owning no allegiance but to the
King of the Cannibals; and ready at any moment to rebel against him.  Now,
one of the peculiar characteristics of the savage in his domestic hours, is
his wonderful patience of industry.  An ancient Hawaiian war-club or
spear-paddle, in its full multiplicity and elaboration of carving, is as
great a trophy of human perseverance as a Latin lexicon.  For, with but a bit
of broken sea-shell or a shark's tooth, that miraculous intricacy of wooden
net-work has been achieved; and it has cost steady years of steady
application.  As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the white sailor-savage.
With the same marvellous patience, and with the same single shark's tooth,
of his one poor jack-knife, he will carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not
quite as workmanlike, but as close
.. <p 271 >
packed in its maziness of design, as the Greek savage, Achilles's shield;
and full of barbaric spirit and suggestiveness, as the prints of that fine
old Dutch savage, Albert Durer.  Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile out
of the small dark slabs of the noble South Sea war-wood, are frequently met
with in the forecastles of American whalers.  Some of them are done with much
accuracy.  At some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass whales
hung by the tail for knockers to the road-side door.  When the porter is
sleepy, the anvil-headed whale would be best.  But these knocking whales are
seldom remarkable as faithful essays.  On the spires of some old-fashioned
churches you will see sheet-iron whales placed there for weather-cocks; but
they are so elevated, and besides that are to all intents and purposes so
labelled with Hands off!  you cannot examine them closely enough to decide
upon their merit.  In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of
high broken cliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the
plain, you will often discover images as of the petrified forms of the
Leviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against them in
a surf of green surges.  Then, again, in mountainous countries where the
traveller is continually girdled by amphitheatrical heights; here and there
from some lucky point of view you will catch passing glimpses of the profiles
of whales defined along the undulating ridges.  But you must be a thorough
whaleman, to see these sights; and not only that, but if you wish to return
to such a sight again, you must be sure and take the exact intersecting
latitude and longitude of your first stand-point, else so chance-like are
such observations of the hills, that your precise, previous stand-point would
require a laborious re-discovery; like the Solomon islands, which still
remain incognita, though once high-ruffed Mendanna trod them and old Figuera
chronicled them.  Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to

     trace out great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them;
as when long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations saw armies locked
in battle among the clouds.  Thus at the North have I chased Leviathan round
and round
.. <p 272 >
the Pole with the revolutions of the bright points that first defined him to
me.  And beneath the effulgent Antarctic skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis,
and joined the chase against the starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of
Hydrus and the Flying Fish.  With a frigate's anchors for my bridle-bitts and
fasces of harpoons for spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the
topmost skies, to see whether the fabled heavens with all their countless
tents really lie encamped beyond my mortal sight!
.. <p 272 >
.. < chapter lviii 11  BRIT >

     Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we
fell in with vast meadows of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which
the Right Whale largely feeds.  For leagues and leagues it undulated round us,

     so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden
wheat.  On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure
from the attack of a Sperm Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws sluggishly
swam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing fibres of that wondrous
Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner separated from the water
that escaped at the lip.  As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and
seethingly advance their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads;
even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and
leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.
.. <p 273 >
But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at all
reminded one of mowers.  Seen from the mast-heads, especially when they paused
and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms looked more like
lifeless masses of rock than anything else.  And as in the great hunting
countries of India, the stranger at a distance will sometimes pass on the
plains recumbent elephants without knowing them to be such, taking them for
bare, blackened elevations of the soil; even so, often, with him, who for the
first time beholds this species of the leviathans of the sea.  And even when
recognised at last, their immense magnitude renders it very hard really to
believe that such bulky masses of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all
parts, with the same sort of life that lives in a dog or a horse.  Indeed, in
other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of the deep with the same
feelings that you do those of the shore.  For though some old naturalists have
maintained that all creatures of the land are of their kind in the sea; and
though taking a broad general view of the thing, this may very well be; yet
coming to specialties, where, for example, does the ocean furnish any fish
that in disposition answers to the sagacious kindness of the dog?  The
accursed shark alone can in any generic respect be said to bear comparative
analogy to him.  But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants
of the seas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and
repelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita, so
that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his one
superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific of all mortal
disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen tens and hundreds
of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; though but a moment's
consideration will teach, that however baby man may brag of his science and
skill, and however much, in a flattering future, that science and skill may
augment; yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will
insult and murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can
make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of these
.. <p 274 >
very impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulness of the sea
which aboriginally belongs to it.  The first boat we read of, floated on an
ocean, that with Portuguese vengeance had whelmed a whole world without
leaving so much as a widow.  That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean
destroyed the wrecked ships of last year.  Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood
is not yet subsided; two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.  Wherein
differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is not a miracle upon
the other?  Preternatural terrors rested upon the Hebrews, when under the
feet of Korah and his company the live ground opened and swallowed them up for
ever; yet not a modern sun ever sets, but in precisely the same manner the
live sea swallows up ships and crews.  But not only is the sea such a foe to
man who is an alien to it, but it is also a fiend to its own offspring;
worse than the Persian host who murdered his own guests; sparing not the
creatures which itself hath spawned.  Like a savage tigress that tossing in
the jungle overlays her own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales
against the rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks
of ships.  No mercy, no power but its own controls it.  Panting and snorting
like a mad battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean
overruns the globe.  Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded
creatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously
hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure.  Consider also the devilish
brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the dainty
embellished shape of many species of sharks.  Consider, once more, the
universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other,
carrying on eternal war since the world began.  Consider all this; and then
turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the
sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in
yourself?  For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the
soul of man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but
encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.
.. <p 275 >
God keep thee!  Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!
.. <p 272n. >
That part of the sea known among whalemen as the Brazil Banks does not bear
that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of there being shallows
and soundings there, but because of this remarkable meadow-like appearance,

     caused by the vast drifts of brit continually floating in those latitudes,
where the Right Whale is often chased.
.. <p 275 >
.. < chapter lix 4  SQUID >

     Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the
Pequod still held on her way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a
gentle air impelling her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three
tall tapering masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild palms
on a plain.  And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely,
alluring jet would be seen.  But one transparent blue morning, when a
stillness almost preternatural spread over the sea, however unattended with
any stagnant calm; when the long burnished sun-glade on the waters seemed a
golden finger laid across them, enjoining some secresy; when the slippered
waves whispered together as they softly ran on; in this profound hush of the
visible sphere a strange spectre was seen by Daggoo from the main-mast-head.
In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher and
higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed before our
prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills.  Thus glistening for a
moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank.  Then once more arose, and silently
gleamed.  It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick?  thought Daggoo.
Again the phantom went down, but on re-appearing once more, with a
stiletto-like cry that startled every man from his nod, the negro yelled out
-- There!  there again!  there she breaches!  right ahead!  The White Whale,
the White Whale!  Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in
swarming-time the bees rush to the boughs.  Bare-headed in the sultry sun,
Ahab stood on the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind in readiness
to wave his orders to the helmsman, cast
.. <p 276 >
his eager glance in the direction indicated aloft by the outstretched
motionless arm of Daggoo.  Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and
solitary jet had gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to
connect the ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the
particular whale he pursued; however this was, or whether his eagerness
betrayed him; whichever way it might have been, no sooner did he distinctly
perceive the white mass, than with a quick intensity he instantly gave orders
for lowering.  The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab's in advance, and
all swiftly pulling towards their prey.  Soon it went down, and while, with
oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo!  in the same spot where
it sank, once more it slowly rose.  Almost forgetting for the moment all
thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous phenomenon which the
secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind.  A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in
length and breadth, of a glancing cream-color, lay floating on the water,
innumerable long arms radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like
a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within
reach.  No perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable token of
either sensation or instinct; but undulated there on the billows, an
unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.  As with a low sucking
sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still gazing at the agitated
waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice exclaimed -- Almost rather had I
seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to have seen thee, thou white ghost!

     What was it, Sir?  said Flask.  The great live squid, which they say, few
whale-ships ever beheld, and returned to their ports to tell of it.  But
Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel; the rest
as silently following.  Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general
have connected with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse
of it being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it with
portentousness.  So rarely is it beheld, that though one and all of them
declare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean, yet very few of
them have any but
.. <p 277 >
the most vague ideas concerning its true nature and form;  notwithstanding,
they believe it to furnish to the sperm whale his only food.  For though other
species of whales find their food above water, and may be seen by man in the
act of feeding, the spermaceti whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones
below the surface; and only by inference is it that any one can tell of what,
precisely, that food consists.  At times, when closely pursued, he will
disgorge what are supposed to be the detached arms of the squid; some of them
thus exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length.  They fancy that
the monster to which these arms belonged ordinarily clings by them to the bed
of the ocean; and that the sperm whale, unlike other species, is supplied
with teeth in order to attack and tear it.  There seems some ground to imagine
that the great Kraken of Bishop Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into
Squid.  The manner in which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising
and sinking, with some other particulars he narrates, in all this the two
correspond.  But much abatement is necessary with respect to the incredible
bulk he assigns it.  By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the
mysterious creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of
cuttle-fish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would seem to
belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe.
.. <p 277 >
.. < chapter lx 26  THE LINE >

     With reference to the whaling scene shortly to
be described, as well as for the better understanding of all similar scenes
elsewhere presented, I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible
whale-line.  The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp,
slightly vapored with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the
.. <p 278 >
case of ordinary ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp
more pliable to the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more
convenient to the sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary
quantity too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which it
must be subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general
by no means adds to the rope's durability or strength, however much it may
give it compactness and gloss.  Of late years the Manilla rope has in the
American fishery almost entirely superseded hemp as a material for
whale-lines; for, though not so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far
more soft and elastic; and I will add (since there is an aesthetics in all
things), is much more handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp.  Hemp is
a dusky, dark fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired
Circassian to behold.  The whale line is only two thirds of an inch in
thickness.  At first sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is.
By experiment its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one
hundred and twenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly
equal to three tons.  In length, the common sperm whale-line measures
something over two hundred fathoms.  Towards the stern of the boat it is
spirally coiled away in the tub, not like the worm-pipe of a still though,
but so as to form one round, cheese-shaped mass of densely bedded sheaves,
or layers of concentric spiralizations, without any hollow but the heart,
or minute vertical tube formed at the axis of the cheese.  As the least tangle
or kink in the coiling would, in running out, infallibly take somebody's arm,
leg, or entire body off, the utmost precaution is used in stowing the line in
its tub.  Some harpooneers will consume almost an entire morning in this
business, carrying the line high aloft and then reeving it downwards through a
block towards the tub, so as in the act of coiling to free it from all
possible wrinkles and twists.  In the English boats two tubs are used instead
of one; the same line being continuously coiled in both tubs.  There is
some advantage in this; because these twin-tubs being so small they fit more
readily into the boat, and do not strain it so much; whereas, the American
tub, nearly three feet in diameter and
.. <p 279 >
of proportionate depth, makes a rather bulky freight for a craft whose planks
are but one half-inch in thickness; for the bottom of the whale-boat is like
critical ice, which will bear up a considerable distributed weight, but
not very much of a concentrated one.  When the painted canvas cover is clapped
on the american line-tub, the boat looks as if it were pulling off with a
prodigious great wedding-cake to present to the whales.  Both ends of the line
are exposed; the lower end terminating in an eye-splice or loop coming up
from the bottom against the side of the tub, and hanging over its edge
completely disengaged from everything.  This arrangement of the lower end is
necessary on two accounts.  First: In order to facilitate the fastening to
it of an additional line from a neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale
should sound so deep as to threaten to carry off the entire line originally
attached to the harpoon.  In these instances, the whale of course is shifted
like a mug of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other; though the
first boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort.  Second: This
arrangement is indispensable for common safety's sake; for were the lower end
of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the whale then to run
the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking minute as he sometimes
does, he would not stop there, for the doomed boat would infallibly be
dragged down after him into the profundity of the sea; and in that case no
town-crier would ever find her again.  Before lowering the boat for the chase,
the upper end of the line is taken aft from the tub, and passing round the
logger-head there, is again carried forward the entire length of the boat,
resting crosswise upon the loom or handle of every man's oar, so that it jogs
against his wrist in rowing; and also passing between the men, as they
alternately sit at the opposite gunwales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in
the extreme pointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size
of a common quill, prevents it from slipping out.  From the chocks it hangs
in a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the boat again;
and some ten or twenty fathoms (called box-line) being coiled upon the box in
the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale still a little further aft,
and is then
.. <p 280 >
attached to the short-warp --the rope which is immediately connected with the
harpoon; but previous to that connexion, the short-warp goes through sundry
mystifications too tedious to detail.  Thus the whale-line folds the whole
boat in its complicated coils, twisting and writhing around it in almost
every direction.  All the oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so
that to the timid eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with
the deadliest snakes sportively festooning their limbs.  Nor can any son of
mortal woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen
intricacies, and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at
any unknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible
contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings; he cannot be thus
circumstanced without a shudder that makes the very marrow in his bones to
quiver in him like a shaken jelly.  Yet habit --strange thing!  what cannot
habit accomplish? --Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter
repartees, you never heard over your mahogany, than you will hear over the
half-inch white cedar of the whale-boat, when thus hung in hangman's nooses;
and, like the six burghers of Calais before King Edward, the six men
composing the crew pull into the jaws of death, with a halter around every
neck, as you may say.  Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to
account for those repeated whaling disasters --some few of which are casually
chronicled --of this man or that man being taken out of the boat by the line,
and lost.  For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in the boat,
is like being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings of a steam-engine
in full play, when every flying beam, and shaft, and wheel, is grazing you.
It is worse; for you cannot sit motionless in the heart of these perils,
because the boat is rocking like a cradle, and you are pitched one way and
the other, without the slightest warning; and only by a certain
self-adjusting buoyancy and simultaneousness of volition and action, can you
escape being made a Mazeppa of, and run away with where the all-seeing sun
himself could never pierce you out.  Again: as the profound calm which only
apparently precedes
.. <p 281 >
and prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself;
for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm; and
contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal powder,

     and the ball, and the explosion; so the graceful repose of the line, as it
silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought into actual play --

     this is a thing which carries more of true terror than any other aspect of
this dangerous affair.  But why say more?  All men live enveloped in
whale-lines.  All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only
when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the
silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life.  And if you be a philosopher,
though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of

     terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a
harpoon, by your side.
.. <p 281 >
.. < chapter lxi 17  STUBB KILLS A WHALE >

     If to Starbuck the apparition of
the Squid was a thing of portents, to Queequeg it was quite a different
object.  When you see him 'quid, said the savage, honing his harpoon in the
bow of his hoisted boat, then you quick see him 'parm whale.  The next day
was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing special to engage them,
the Pequod's crew could hardly resist the spell of sleep induced by such a
vacant sea.  For this part of the Indian Ocean through which we then were
voyaging is not what whalemen call a lively ground; that is, it affords
fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flying-fish, and other vivacious
denizens of more stirring waters, than those off the Rio de la Plata, or the
in-shore ground off Peru.  It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and
with my shoulders leaning against the slackened royal shrouds, to and
.. <p 282 >
fro I idly swayed in what seemed an enchanted air.  No resolution could
withstand it; in that dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last my soul
went out of my body; though my body still continued to sway as a pendulum
will, long after the power which first moved it is withdrawn.  Ere
forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that the seamen at the
main and mizen mast-heads were already drowsy.  So that at last all three of
us lifelessly swung from the spars, and for every swing that we made there
was a nod from below from the slumbering helmsman.  The waves, too, nodded
their indolent crests; and across the wide trance of the sea, east nodded to
west, and the sun over all.  Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my
closed eyes; like vices my hands grasped the shrouds; some invisible,
gracious agency preserved me; with a shock I came back to life.  And lo!
close under our lee, not forty fathoms off, a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling
in the water like the capsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy back, of
an Ethiopian hue, glistening in the sun's rays like a mirror.  But lazily
undulating in the trough of the sea, and ever and anon tranquilly spouting
his vapory jet, the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of a
warm afternoon.  But that pipe, poor whale, was thy last.  As if struck by
some enchanter's wand, the sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all at once
started into wakefulness; and more than a score of voices from all parts of
the vessel, simultaneously with the three notes from aloft, shouted forth the
accustomed cry, as the great fish slowly and regularly spouted the sparkling
brine into the air.  clear away the boats!  luff!  cried Ahab.  And obeying
his own order, he dashed the helm down before the helmsman could handle the
spokes.  The sudden exclamations of the crew must have alarmed the whale; and
ere the boats were down, majestically turning, he swam away to the leeward,
but with such a steady tranquillity, and making so few ripples as he swam,
that thinking after all he might not as yet be alarmed, Ahab gave orders that
not an oar should be used, and no man must speak but in whispers.  So seated
like Ontario Indians on the gunwales of the boats,
.. <p 283 >
we swiftly but silently paddled along; the calm not admitting of the
noiseless sails being set.  Presently, as we thus glided in chase, the
monster perpendicularly flitted his tail forty feet into the air, and then
sank out of sight like a tower swallowed up.  There go flukes!  was the cry,
an announcement immediately followed by Stubb's producing his match and
igniting his pipe, for now a respite was granted.  After the full interval of
his sounding had elapsed, the whale rose again, and being now in advance of
the smoker's boat, and much nearer to it than to any of the others, Stubb
counted upon the honor of the capture.  It was obvious, now, that the whale
had at length become aware of his pursuers.  All silence of cautiousness was
therefore no longer of use.  Paddles were dropped, and oars came loudly into
play.  And still puffing at his pipe, Stubb cheered on his crew to the
assault.  Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish.  All alive to his
jeopardy, he was going head out; that part obliquely projecting from the
mad yeast which he brewed.  Start her, start her, my men!  Don't hurry
yourselves; take plenty of time --but start her; start her like
thunder-claps,  that's all, cried Stubb, spluttering out the smoke as he
spoke.  start her, now; give 'em the long and strong stroke, tashtego.
Start her, Tash, my boy --start her, all; but keep cool, keep cool--
cucumbers is the word --easy, easy --only start her like grim death and
grinning devils, and raise the buried dead perpendicular out of their graves,
boys --that's all.  Start her!  Woo-hoo!  Wa-hee!  screamed the Gay-Header in
reply, raising some old war-whoop to the skies; as every oarsman in the
strained boat involuntarily bounced forward with the one tremendous leading
stroke which the eager Indian gave.
.. <p 284 >
But his wild screams were answered by others quite as wild.  Kee-hee!
Kee-hee!  yelled Daggoo, straining forwards and backwards on his seat,
like a pacing tiger in his cage.  Ka-la!  Koo-loo!  howled Queequeg, as if
smacking his lips over a mouthful of Grenadier's steak.  And thus with oars
and yells the keels cut the sea.  Meanwhile, Stubb retaining his place in the
van, still encouraged his men to the onset, all the while puffing the smoke
from his mouth.  Like desperadoes they tugged and they strained, till the
welcome cry was heard -- Stand up, Tashtego! --give it to him!  The harpoon was
hurled.  Stern all!  The oarsmen backed water; the same moment something
went hot and hissing along every one of their wrists.  It was the magical
line.  An instant before, Stubb had swiftly caught two additional turns with
it round the loggerhead, whence, by reason of its increased rapid circlings,
a hempen blue smoke now jetted up and mingled with the steady fumes from his
pipe.  As the line passed round and round the loggerhead; so also, just
before reaching that point, it blisteringly passed through and through both
of Stubb's hands, from which the hand-cloths, or squares of quilted canvas
sometimes worn at these times, had accidentally dropped.  It was like holding
an enemy's sharp two-edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all the time
striving to wrest it out of your clutch.  Wet the line!  wet the line!  cried
stubb to the tub oarsman (him seated by the tub) who, snatching off his hat,
dashed the sea-water into it.  More turns were taken, so that the line began
holding its place.  The boat now flew through the boiling water like a shark
all fins.  Stubb and Tashtego here changed places -- stem for stern --a
staggering business truly in that rocking commotion.  From the vibrating line
extending the entire length of the upper part of the boat, and from its now
being more tight than a harpstring, you would have thought the craft had two
keels -- one cleaving the water, the other the air --as the boat churned
.. <p 285 >
on through both opposing elements at once.  A continual cascade played at the
bows; a ceaseless whirling eddy in her wake; and, at the slightest motion
from within, even but of a little finger, the vibrating, cracking craft
canted over her spasmodic gunwale into the sea.  Thus they rushed; each man
with might and main clinging to his seat, to prevent being tossed to the
foam; and the tall form of Tashtego at the steering oar crouching almost
double, in order to bring down his centre of gravity.  Whole Atlantics and
Pacifics seemed passed as they shot on their way, till at length the whale
somewhat slackened his flight.  Haul in --haul in!  cried Stubb to the
bowsman!  and, facing round towards the whale, all hands began pulling the
boat up to him, while yet the boat was being towed on.  Soon ranging up by
his flank, Stubb, firmly planting his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted dart
after dart into the flying fish; at the word of command, the boat
alternately sterning out of the way of the whale's horrible wallow, and then
ranging up for another fling.  The red tide now poured from all sides of the
monster like brooks down a hill.  His tormented body rolled not in brine but
in blood, which bubbled and seethed for furlongs behind in their wake.  The
slanting sun playing upon this crimson pond in the sea, sent back its
reflection into every face, so that they all glowed to each other like red
men.  And all the while, jet after jet of white smoke was agonizingly shot
from the spiracle of the whale, and vehement puff after puff from the mouth
of the excited headsman; as at every dart, hauling in upon his crooked
lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again and again,
by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and again sent it into
the whale.  Pull up --pull up!  he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning
whale relaxed in his wrath.  Pull up! --close to!  and the boat ranged along
the fish's flank.  When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned his
long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully churning and
churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after some gold watch that the
whale might have swallowed, and which he was fearful of breaking ere he
could hook it out.  But that gold watch he sought was the innermost life of
the fish.  And now it is struck; for, starting
.. <p 286 >
from his trance into that unspeakable thing called his flurry, the monster
horribly wallowed in his blood, over-wrapped himself in impenetrable, mad,
boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft, instantly dropping astern, had
much ado blindly to struggle out from that phrensied twilight into the clear
air of the day.  And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled
out into view; surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and
contracting his spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations.  At
last, gush after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees
of red wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, ran dripping
down his motionless flanks into the sea.  His heart had burst!  He's dead,
Mr. Stubb, said Daggoo.  Yes; both pipes smoked out!  and withdrawing his
own from his mouth, Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for
a moment, stood thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made.
.. <p 283n. >
It will be seen in some other place of what a very light substance the entire
interior of the sperm whale's enormous head consists.  Though apparently the
most massive, it is by far the most buoyant part about him.  So that with ease
he elevates it in the air, and invariably does so when going at his utmost
speed.  Besides, such is the breadth of the upper part of the front of his
head, and such the tapering cut-water formation of the lower part, that by
obliquely elevating his head, he thereby may be said to transform himself
from a bluff-bowed sluggish galliot into a sharp-pointed New York
pilot-boat.
.. <p 284n. >
Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may here be stated,
that, in the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to dash the running line with
water; in many other ships, a wooden piggin, or bailer, is set apart for
that purpose.  Your hat, however, is the most convenient.
.. <p 286 >
.. < chapter lxii 19  THE DART >

     A word concerning an incident in the last
chapter.  According to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whale-boat
pushes off from the ship, with the headsman or whale-killer as temporary
steersman, and the harpooneer or whale-fastener pulling the foremost oar,
the one known as the harpooneer-oar.  Now it needs a strong, nervous arm to
strike the first iron into the fish; for often, in what is called a long
dart, the heavy implement has to be flung to the distance of twenty or thirty
feet.  But however prolonged and exhausting the chase, the harpooneer is
expected to pull his oar meanwhile to the uttermost; indeed, he is expected
to set an example of superhuman activity to the rest, not only by incredible
rowing, but by repeated loud and intrepid exclamations; and what it is to
keep shouting at the top of one's compass, while all the other

.. <p 287 >
muscles are strained and half started --what that is none know but those who
have tried it.  For one, I cannot bawl very heartily and work very recklessly
at one and the same time.  In this straining, bawling state, then, with his
back to the fish, all at once the exhausted harpooneer hears the exciting cry
-- Stand up, and give it to him!  He now has to drop and secure his oar,
turn round on his centre half way, seize his harpoon from the crotch, and
with what little strength may remain, he essays to pitch it somehow into the
whale.  No wonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen in a body, that out of
fifty fair chances for a dart, not five are successful; no wonder that so
many hapless harpooneers are madly cursed and disrated; no wonder that some
of them actually burst their blood-vessels in the boat; no wonder that some
sperm whalemen are absent four years with four barrels; no wonder that to
many ship owners, whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the harpooneer
that makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his body how can
you expect to find it there when most wanted!  Again, if the dart be
successful, then at the second critical instant, that is, when the whale
starts to run, the boat-header and harpooneer likewise start to running fore
and aft, to the imminent jeopardy of themselves and every one else.  It is
then they change places; and the headsman, the chief officer of the little
craft, takes his proper station in the bows of the boat.  Now, I care not who
maintains the contrary, but all this is both foolish and unnecessary.  The
headsman should stay in the bows from first to last; he should both dart the
harpoon and the lance, and no rowing whatever should be expected of him,
except under circumstances obvious to any fisherman.  I know that this would
sometimes involve a slight loss of speed in the chase; but long experience in
various whalemen of more than one nation has convinced me that in the vast
majority of failures in the fishery, it has not by any means been so much
the speed of the whale as the before described exhaustion of the harpooneer
that has caused them.  To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the
harpooneers of this world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and
not from out of toil.
.. <p 288 >
.. < chapter lxiii 2  THE CROTCH >

     Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out
of them, the twigs.  So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters.  The crotch
alluded to on a previous page deserves independent mention.  It is a notched
stick of a peculiar form, some two feet in length, which is perpendicularly
inserted into the starboard gunwale near the bow, for the purpose of
furnishing a rest for the wooden extremity of the harpoon, whose other
naked, barbed end slopingly projects from the prow.  Thereby the weapon is
instantly at hand to its hurler, who snatches it up as readily from its rest
as a backwoodsman swings his rifle from the wall.  It is customary to have two
harpoons reposing in the crotch, respectively called the first and second
irons.  But these two harpoons, each by its own cord, are both connected with
the line; the object being this: to dart them both, if possible, one
instantly after the other into the same whale; so that if, in the coming drag,
one should draw out, the other may still retain a hold.  It is a doubling of
the chances.  But it very often happens that owing to the instantaneous,
violent, convulsive running of the whale upon receiving the first iron, it
becomes impossible for the harpooneer, however lightning-like in his
movements, to pitch the second iron into him.  Nevertheless, as the second
iron is already connected with the line, and the line is running, hence that
weapon must, at all events, be anticipatingly tossed out of the boat,
somehow and somewhere; else the most terrible jeopardy would involve all
hands.  Tumbled into the water, it accordingly is in such cases; the spare
coils of box line (mentioned in a preceding chapter) making this feat, in
most instances, prudently practicable.  But this critical act is not always
unattended with the saddest and most fatal casualties.  Furthermore: you must
know that when the second iron is thrown overboard, it thenceforth becomes a
dangling, sharp-edged
.. <p 289 >
terror, skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines,
or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions.  Nor,
in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale is fairly
captured and a corpse.  Consider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats
all engaging one unusually strong, active, and knowing whale; when owing to
these qualities in him, as well as to the thousand concurring accidents of
such an audacious enterprise, eight or ten loose second irons may be
simultaneously dangling about him.  For, of course, each boat is supplied with
several harpoons to bend on to the line should the first one be ineffectually
darted without recovery.  All these particulars are faithfully narrated here,
as they will not fail to elucidate several most important, however intricate
passages, in scenes hereafter to be painted.
.. <p 289 >
.. < chapter lxiv 16  STUBB'S SUPPER >

     Stubb's whale had been killed some
distance from the ship.  It was a calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats,
we commenced the slow business of towing the trophy to the Pequod.  And now,
as we eighteen men with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty
thumbs and fingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish
corpse in the sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long
intervals; good evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness of the mass
we moved.  For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whatever they call it, in
China, four or five laborers on the foot-path will draw a bulky freighted
junk at the rate of a mile an hour; but this grand argosy we towed heavily
forged along, as if laden with pig-lead in bulk.  Darkness came on; but
three lights up and down in the Pequod's main-rigging dimly guided our way;
till drawing nearer we saw Ahab dropping one of several more lanterns over the

.. <p 290 >
bulwarks.  Vacantly eyeing the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual
orders for securing it for the night, and then handing his lantern to a
seaman, went his way into the cabin, and did not come forward again until
morning.  Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab had
evinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that the creature was
dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or despair, seemed working
in him; as if the sight of that dead body reminded him that Moby Dick was
yet to be slain; and though a thousand other whales were brought to his ship,

     all that would not one jot advance his grand, monomaniac object.  Very soon
you would have thought from the sound on the Pequod's decks, that all hands
were preparing to cast anchor in the deep; for heavy chains are being dragged
along the deck, and thrust rattling out of the port-holes.  But by those
clanking links, the vast corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored.  Tied
by the head to the stern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies
with its black hull close to the vessel's, and seen through the darkness of
the night, which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two --ship and
whale, seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one reclines
while the other remains standing.  If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at
least so far as could be known on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with
conquest, betrayed an unusual but still good-natured excitement.  Such an
unwonted bustle was he in that the staid Starbuck, his
.. <p 291 >
official superior, quietly resigned to him for the time the sole management
of affairs.  One small, helping cause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was
soon made strangely manifest.  Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat
intemperately fond of the whale as a flavorish thing to his palate.  A steak,

     a steak, ere I sleep!  You, Daggoo!  overboard you go, and cut me one from
his small!  Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a
general thing, and according to the great military maxim, make the enemy
defray the current expenses of the war (at least before realizing the
proceeds of the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketers
who have a genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale
designated by Stubb; comprising the tapering extremity of the body.  About
midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by two lanterns of sperm
oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper at the capstan-head,
as if that capstan were a sideboard.  Nor was Stubb the only banqueter on
whale's flesh that night.  Mingling their mumblings with his own mastications,

     thousands on thousands of sharks, swarming round the dead leviathan,
smackingly feasted on its fatness.  The few sleepers below in their bunks were
often startled by the sharp slapping of their tails against the hull, within
a few inches of the sleepers' hearts.  Peering over the side you could just
see them (as before you heard them) wallowing in the sullen, black waters,
and turning over on their backs as they scooped out huge globular pieces of
the whale of the bigness of a human head.  This particular feat of the shark
seems all but miraculous.  How, at such an apparently unassailable surface,
they contrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains a part of the
universal problem of all things.  The mark they thus leave on the whale, may
best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter in countersinking for a
screw.  Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight,
sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs
round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed
man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiant butchers over the
deck-table are
.. <p 292 >
thus cannibally carving each other's live meat with carving-knives all gilded
and tasselled, the sharks, also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are
quarrelsomely carving away under the table at the dead meat; and though, were
you to turn the whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the
same thing, that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all
parties; and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave
ships crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy
in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to be decently
buried; and though one or two other like instances might be set down,
touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do most socially
congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there no conceivable time or
occasion when you will find them in such countless numbers, and in gayer or
more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a
whale-ship at sea.  If you have never seen that sight, then suspend your
decision about the propriety of devil-worship, and the expediency of
conciliating the devil.  But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the
banquet that was going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the
smacking of his own epicurean lips.  Cook, cook! --where's that old Fleece?
he cried at length, widening his legs still further, as if to form a more
secure base for his supper; and, at the same time darting his fork into the
dish, as if stabbing with his lance; cook, you cook! --sail this way, cook!
the old black, not in any very high glee at having been previously routed from
his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour, came shambling along from his
galley, for, like many old blacks, there was something the matter with his
knee-pans, which he did not keep well scoured like his other pans; this old
Fleece, as they called him, came shuffling and limping along, assisting his
step with his tongs, which, after a clumsy fashion, were made of straightened
iron hoops; this old Ebony floundered along, and in obedience to the word of
command, came to a dead stop on the opposite side of Stubb's sideboard;
when,
.. <p 293 >
with both hands folded before him, and resting on his two-legged cane, he
bowed his arched back still further over, at the same time sideways inclining
his head, so as to bring his best ear into play.  Cook, said Stubb, rapidly
lifting a rather reddish morsel to his mouth, don't you think this steak is
rather overdone?  You've been beating this steak too much, cook; it's too
tender.  Don't I always say that to be good, a whale-steak must be tough?
There are those sharks now over the side, don't you see they prefer it tough
and rare?  What a shindy they are kicking up!  Cook, go and talk to 'em; tell
'em they are welcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they
must keep quiet.  Blast me, if I can hear my own voice.  Away, cook, and
deliver my message.  Here, take this lantern, snatching one from his
sideboard; now then, go and preach to 'em!  Sullenly taking the offered
lantern, old Fleece limped across the deck to the bulwarks; and then, with
one hand dropping his light low over the sea, so as to get a good view of
his congregation, with the other hand he solemnly flourished his tongs, and
leaning far over the side in a mumbling voice began addressing the sharks,
while Stubb, softly crawling behind, overheard all that was said.

     Fellow-critters: I'se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat dam noise
dare.  you hear?  stop dat dam smackin' ob de lip!  massa Stubb say dat you
can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by Gor!  you must stop dat
dam racket!  Cook, here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a
sudden slap on the shoulder, -- Cook!  why, damn your eyes, you mustn't swear
that way when you're preaching.  That's no way to convert sinners, Cook!

     Who dat?  Den preach to him yourself, sullenly turning to go.  No, Cook;
go on, go on.  Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters: -- Right!  exclaimed
Stubb, approvingly, coax 'em to it; try that, and Fleece continued.  Do
you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I
.. <p 294 >
zay to you, fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness --'top dat dam slappin' ob
de tail!  How you tink to hear, 'spose you keep up such a dam slappin' and
bitin' dare?  Cook, cried Stubb, collaring him, I wont have that swearing.

     Talk to 'em gentlemanly.  Once more the sermon proceeded.  Your
woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don't blame ye so much for; dat is natur,
and can't be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de pint.  You is
sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den you be angel; for
all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned.  Now, look here,
bred'ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping yourselbs from dat whale.
Don't be tearin' de blubber out your neighbour's mout, I say.  Is not one
shark dood right as toder to dat whale?  And, by Gor, none on you has de right
to dat whale; dat whale belong to some one else.  I know some o' you has
berry brig mout, brigger dan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de
small bellies; so dat de brigness ob de mout is not to swallar wid, but to
bite off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can't get into de scrouge
to help demselves.  Well done, old Fleece!  cried Stubb, that's
Christianity; go on.  No use goin' on; de dam willains will keep a
scrougin' and slappin' each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don't hear one word; no
use a-preachin' to such dam g'uttons as you call 'em, till dare bellies is
full, and dare bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get em full, dey wont
hear you den; for den dey sink in de sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and
can't hear not'ing at all, no more, for eber and eber.  Upon my soul, I am
about of the same opinion; so give the benediction, Fleece, and I'll away to
my supper.  Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised
his shrill voice, and cried -- Cussed fellow-critters!  Kick up de damndest
row as ever you can; fill your dam' bellies 'till dey bust --and den die.

     Now, cook, said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan; Stand just where
you stood before, there, over against me, and pay particular attention.
.. <p 295 >

     All dention, said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs in the
desired position.  Well, said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; I
shall now go back to the subject of this steak.  In the first place, how old
are you, cook?  What dat do wid de 'teak, said the old black, testily.

     Silence!  How old are you, cook? 'Bout ninety, dey say, he gloomily
muttered.  And have you lived in this world hard upon one hundred years,
cook, and don't know yet how to cook a whale-steak?  rapidly bolting another
mouthful at the last word, so that that morsel seemed a continuation of the
question.  Where were you born, cook? 'Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat,
goin' ober de Roanoke.  Born in a ferry-boat!  That's queer, too.  But I want
to know what country you were born in, cook?  Didn't I say de Roanoke
country?  he cried, sharply.  No, you didn't, cook; but I'll tell you what
I'm coming to, cook.  You must go home and be born over again; you don't
know how to cook a whale-steak yet.  Bress my soul, if I cook noder one, he
growled, angrily, turning round to depart.  Come back, cook; --here, hand me
those tongs; --now take that bit of steak there, and tell me if you think that
steak cooked as it should be?  Take it, I say --holding the tongs towards him
-- take it, and taste it.  Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a
moment, the old negro muttered, Best cooked 'teak I eber taste; joosy,
berry joosy.  Cook, said Stubb, squaring himself once more; do you
belong to the church?  Passed one once in Cape-Down, said the old man
sullenly.  And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town,
where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as his
beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook!  And yet you come here, and tell
me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh?  said Stubb.  Where do you
expect to go to, cook?
.. <p 296 >

     Go to bed berry soon, he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke.  Avast!  heave
to!  I mean when you die, cook.  It's an awful question.  Now what's your
answer?  When dis old brack man dies, said the negro slowly, changing his
whole air and demeanor, he hisself won't go nowhere; but some bressed angel
will come and fetch him.  Fetch him?  How?  In a coach and four, as they
fetched Elijah?  And fetch him where?  Up dere, said Fleece, holding his
tongs straight over his head, and keeping it there very solemnly.  So, then,
you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook, when you are dead?
But don't you know the higher you climb, the colder it gets?  Main-top, eh?

     Didn't say dat t'all, said Fleece, again in the sulks.  You said up there,
didn't you, and now look yourself, and see where your tongs are pointing.
But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by crawling through the lubber's
hole, cook; but no, no, cook, you don't get there, except you go the
regular way, round by the rigging.  It's a ticklish business, but must be
done, or else it's no go.  But none of us are in heaven yet.  Drop your
tongs, cook, and hear my orders.  Do ye hear?  Hold your hat in one hand, and
clap t'other a'top of your heart, when I'm giving my orders, cook.  What!
that your heart, there? --that's your gizzard!  Aloft!  aloft! --that's it --now
you have it.  Hold it there now, and pay attention.  All 'dention, said
the old black, with both hands placed as desired, vainly wriggling his
grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at one and the same time.

     Well then, cook; you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad, that I
have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that, don't you?  Well,
for the future, when you cook another whale-steak for my private table here,
the capstan, I'll tell you what to do so as not to spoil it by overdoing.
Hold the steak in one hand, and show a live coal to it with the other; that
done, dish it; d'ye hear?  And now to-morrow, cook, when we are cutting in
the fish, be sure you stand by to get the tips of his fins; have them put in
pickle.  As for the ends of the flukes, have them soused, cook.  There, now
ye may go.
.. <p 297 >
But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled.  Cook, give
me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch.  D'ye hear?  away you
sail, then. --Halloa!  stop!  make a bow before you go. --Avast heaving again!

     Whale-balls for breakfast --don't forget.  Wish, by gor!  whale eat him,
'stead of him eat whale.  I'm bressed if he ain't more of shark dan Massa
Shark hisself, muttered the old man, limping away; with which sage
ejaculation he went to his hammock.
.. <p 290n. >
A little item may as well be related here.  The strongest and most reliable
hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside, is by the flukes
or tail; and as from its greater density that part is relatively heavier
than any other (excepting the side-fins), its flexibility even in death,
causes it to sink low beneath the surface; so that with the hand you
cannot get at it from the boat, in order to put the chain round it.  But
this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a small, strong line is prepared
with a wooden float at its outer end, and a weight in its middle, while the

     other end is secured to the ship.  By adroit management the wooden float is

     to rise on the other side of the mass, so that now having girdled the made
whale, the chain is readily made to follow suit; and being slipped along the

     body, is at last locked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the
point of junction with its broad flukes or lobes.
.. <p 297 >
.. < chapter lxv 12  THE WHALE AS A DISH >

     That mortal man should feed upon
the creature that feeds his lamp, and, like Stubb, eat him by his own light,
as you may say; this seems so outlandish a thing that one must needs go a
little into the history and philosophy of it.  It is upon record, that three
centuries ago the tongue of the Right Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in
France, and commanded large prices there.  Also, that in Henry VIIIth's
time, a certain cook of the court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an
admirable sauce to be eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember,
are a species of whale.  Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine
eating.  The meat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and
being well seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls or veal balls.

     The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them.  They had a great
porpoise grant from the crown.  The fact is, that among his hunters at least,
the whale would by all hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so
much of him; but when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one
hundred feet long, it takes away your appetite.  Only the most unprejudiced
of men like Stubb, nowadays partake of

.. <p 298 >
cooked whales; but the Esquimaux are not so fastidious.  We all know how they
live upon whales, and have rare old vintages of prime old train oil.
Zogranda, one of their most famous doctors, recommends strips of blubber for
infants, as being exceedingly juicy and nourishing.  And this reminds me
that certain Englishmen, who long ago were accidentally left in Greenland by
a whaling vessel --that these men actually lived for several months on the
mouldy scraps of whales which had been left ashore after trying out the
blubber.  Among the Dutch whalemen these scraps are called fritters; which,
indeed, they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling
something like old Amsterdam housewives' dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh.

     They have such an eatable look that the most self-denying stranger can hardly
keep his hands off.  But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized
dish, is his exceeding richness.  He is the great prize ox of the sea, too
fat to be delicately good.  Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating
as the buffalo's (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solid
pyramid of fat.  But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy that is;
like the transparent, half-jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the third
month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for butter.
Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into some other
substance, and then partaking of it.  In the long try watches of the night it
is a common thing for the seamen to dip their ship-biscuit into the huge
oil-pots and let them fry there awhile.  Many a good supper have I thus made.
In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a fine dish.  The
casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the two plump, whitish
lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large puddings), they are
then mixed with flour, and cooked into a most delectable mess, in flavor
somewhat resembling calves' head, which is quite a dish among some epicures;
and every one knows that some young bucks among the epicures, by continually
dining upon calves' brains, by and by get to have a little brains of their
own, so as to be able to tell a calf's head from their own heads; which,
indeed, requires uncommon discrimination.  And that is the reason why
.. <p 299 >
a young buck with an intelligent looking calf's head before him, is somehow
one of the saddest sights you can see.  The head looks a sort of reproachfully
at him, with an Et tu Brute!  expression.  It is not, perhaps, entirely
because the whale is so excessively unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the
eating of him with abhorrence; that appears to result, in some way, from the

     consideration before mentioned: i.  e.  that a man should eat a newly murdered
thing of the sea, and eat it too by its own light.  But no doubt the first
man that ever murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung;
and if he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been;
and he certainly deserved it if any murderer does.  Go to the meat-market of
a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the long rows
of dead quadrupeds.  Does not that sight take a tooth out of the cannibal's
jaw?  Cannibals?  who is not a cannibal?  I tell you it will be more tolerable
for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in his cellar against a
coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that provident Fejee, I say, in
the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized and enlightened gourmand, who
nailest geese to the ground and feastest on their bloated livers in thy
pate-de-foie-gras.  But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he?
and that is adding insult to injury, is it?  Look at your knife-handle,
there, my civilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef,
what is that handle made of? --what but the bones of the brother of the very ox
you are eating?  And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring that
fat goose?  With a feather of the same fowl.  And with what quill did the
Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to Ganders formally
indite his circulars?  It is only within the last month or two that that
society passed a resolution to patronize nothing but steel pens.
.. <p 300 >
.. < chapter lxvi 2  THE SHARK MASSACRE >

     When in the Southern Fishery, a
captured Sperm Whale, after long and weary toil, is brought alongside late at
night, it is not, as a general thing at least, customary to proceed at once
to the business of cutting him in.  For that business is an exceedingly
laborious one; is not very soon completed; and requires all hands to set
about it.  Therefore, the common usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm
a'lee; and then send every one below to his hammock till daylight, with the
reservation that, until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is,
two and two for an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the
deck to see that all goes well.  But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the
Pacific, this plan will not answer at all; because such incalculable hosts
of sharks gather round the moored carcase, that were he left so for six
hours, say, on a stretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by
morning.  In most other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not
so largely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerably
diminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades, a
procedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to tickle
them into still greater activity.  But it was not thus in the present case
with the Pequod's sharks; though, to be sure, any man unaccustomed to such
sights, to have looked over her side that night, would have almost thought
the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and those sharks the maggots in it.
nevertheless, upon stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper was
concluded; and when, accordingly, Queequeg and a forecastle seaman came on
deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks; for immediately
suspending the cutting stages over the side, and lowering three lanterns, so

     that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid sea, these
.. <p 301 >
two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up an incessant
murdering of the sharks, by striking the keen steel deep into their skulls,
seemingly their only vital part.  But in the foamy confusion of their mixed
and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not always hit their mark; and this
brought about new revelations of the incredible ferocity of the foe.  They
viciously snapped, not only at each other's disembowelments, but like
flexible bows, bent round, and bit their own; till those entrails seemed
swallowed over and over again by the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by
the gaping wound.  Nor was this all.  It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses
and ghosts of these creatures.  A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality
seemed to lurk in their very joints and bones, after what might be called the
individual life had departed.  Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his
skin, one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg's hand off, when he
tried to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw.  Queequeg no care what
god made him shark, said the savage, agonizingly lifting his hand up and
down; wedder Fejee god or Nantucket god; but de god wat made shark must be
one dam Ingin.
.. <p 301n. >
The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel; is about
the bigness of a man's spread hand; and in general shape, corresponds to
the garden implement after which it is named; only its sides are perfectly
flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than the lower.  This weapon
is always kept as sharp as possible; and when being used is occasionally
honed, just like a razor.  In its socket, a stiff pole, from twenty to
thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle.
.. <p 301 >
.. < chapter lxvii 23  CUTTING IN >

     It was a Saturday night, and such a
Sabbath as followed!  Ex officio professors of Sabbath breaking are all
whalemen.  The ivory Pequod was turned into what seemed a shamble;
.. <p 302 >
every sailor a butcher.  You would have thought we were offering up ten
thousand red oxen to the sea gods.  In the first place, the enormous cutting
tackles, among other ponderous things comprising a cluster of blocks generally
painted green, and which no single man can possibly lift --this vast bunch of
grapes was swayed up to the main-top and firmly lashed to the lower mast-head,

     the strongest point anywhere above a ship's deck.  The end of the hawser-like
rope winding through these intricacies, was then conducted to the windlass,
and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over the whale; to this
block the great blubber hook, weighing some one hundred pounds, was attached.
And now suspended in stages over the side, Starbuck and Stubb, the mates,
armed with their long spades, began cutting a hole in the body for the
insertion of the hook just above the nearest of the two side-fins.  This done,

     a broad, semicircular line is cut round the hole, the hook is inserted, and
the main body of the crew striking up a wild chorus, now commence heaving in
one dense crowd at the windlass.  When instantly, the entire ship careens over
on her side; every bolt in her starts like the nail-heads of an old house in
frosty weather; she trembles, quivers, and nods her frighted mast-heads to
the sky.  More and more she leans over to the whale, while every gasping
heave of the windlass is answered by a helping heave from the billows; till
at last, a swift, startling snap is heard; with a great swash the ship rolls
upwards and backwards from the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises into
sight dragging after it the disengaged semicircular end of the first strip of
blubber.  Now as the blubber envelopes the whale precisely as the rind does an
orange, so is it stripped off from the body precisely as an orange is
sometimes stripped by spiralizing it.  For the strain constantly kept up by
the windlass continually keeps the whale rolling over and over in the water,
and as the blubber in one strip uniformly peels off along the line called the

     scarf, simultaneously cut by the spades of Starbuck and Stubb, the mates;
and just as fast as it is thus peeled off, and indeed by that very act itself,

     it is all the time being hoisted higher and higher aloft till its upper end
grazes the main-top; the men at the windlass then cease heaving, and for a
moment
.. <p 303 >
or two the prodigious blood-dripping mass sways to and fro as if let down from
the sky, and every one present must take good heed to dodge it when it
swings, else it may box his ears and pitch him headlong overboard.  One of
the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weapon called a
boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexterously slices out a
considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass.  Into this hole, the
end of the second alternating great tackle is then hooked so as to retain a
hold upon the blubber, in order to prepare for what follows.  Whereupon, this
accomplished swordsman, warning all hands to stand off, once more makes a
scientific dash at the mass, and with a few sidelong, desperate, lunging
slicings, severs it completely in twain; so that while the short lower part
is still fast, the long upper strip, called a blanket-piece, swings clear,
and is all ready for lowering.  The heavers forward now resume their song,
and while the one tackle is peeling and hoisting a second strip from the
whale, the other is slowly slackened away, and down goes the first strip
through the main hatchway right beneath, into an unfurnished parlor called the
blubber-room.  Into this twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep coiling
away the long blanket-piece as if it were a great live mass of plaited
serpents.  And thus the work proceeds; the two tackles hoisting and lowering
simultaneously; both whale and windlass heaving, the heavers singing, the
blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the mates scarfing, the ship straining, and
all hands swearing occasionally, by way of assuaging the general friction.
.. <p 303 >
.. < chapter lxviii 29  THE BLANKET >

     I have given no small attention to that
not unvexed subject, the skin of the whale.  I have had controversies about it
with experienced whalemen afloat, and learned naturalists ashore.
.. <p 304 >
My original opinion remains unchanged; but it is only an opinion.  The
question is, what and where is the skin of the whale?  Already you know what
his blubber is.  That blubber is something of the consistence of firm,
close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and ranges from
eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness.  Now, however
preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature's skin as being of
that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point of fact these are no
arguments against such a presumption; because you cannot raise any other
dense enveloping layer from the whale's body but that same blubber; and the
outermost enveloping layer of any animal, if reasonably dense, what can that
be but the skin?  True, from the unmarred dead body of the whale, you may
scrape off with your hand an infinitely thin, transparent substance, somewhat
resembling the thinnest shreds of isinglass, only it is almost as flexible
and soft as satin; that is, previous to being dried, when it not only
contracts and thickens, but becomes rather hard and brittle.  I have several
such dried bits, which I use for marks in my whale-books.  It is
transparent, as I said before; and being laid upon the printed page, I have
sometimes pleased myself with fancying it exerted a magnifying influence.  At
any rate, it is pleasant to read about whales through their own spectacles,
as you may say.  But what I am driving at here is this.  That same infinitely
thin, isinglass substance, which, I admit, invests the entire body of the
whale, is not so much to be regarded as the skin of the creature, as the
skin of the skin, so to speak; for it were simply ridiculous to say, that
the proper skin of the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender than the
skin of a new-born child.  But no more of this.  Assuming the blubber to be the
skin of the whale; then, when this skin, as in the case of a very large
Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one hundred barrels of oil; and, when it
is considered that, in quantity, or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed
state, is only three fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some
idea may hence be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part
of whose mere
.. <p 305 >
integument yields such a lake of liquid as that.  Reckoning ten barrels to the
ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three quarters of the stuff
of the whale's skin.  In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not
the least among the many marvels he presents.  Almost invariably it is all
over obliquely crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick
array, something like those in the finest Italian line engravings.  But these
marks do not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above
mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved upon the
body itself.  Nor is this all.  In some instances, to the quick, observant
eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but afford the ground
for far other delineations.  These are hieroglyphical; that is, if you call
those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids hieroglyphics, then that is
the proper word to use in the present connexion.  By my retentive memory of
the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm Whale in particular, I was much struck with
a plate representing the old Indian characters chiselled on the famous
hieroglyphic palisades on the banks of the Upper Mississippi.  Like those
mystic rocks, too, the mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable.  This
allusion to the Indian rocks reminds me of another thing.  Besides all the
other phenomena which the exterior of the Sperm Whale presents, he not
seldom displays the back, and more especially his flanks, effaced in great
part of the regular linear appearance, by reason of numerous rude scratches,
altogether of an irregular, random aspect.  I should say that those New
England rocks on the sea-coast, which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks of
violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergs --I should say, that
those rocks must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this particular.  It
also seems to me that such scratches in the whale are probably made by hostile
contact with other whales; for I have most remarked them in the large,
full-grown bulls of the species.  A word or two more concerning this matter
of the skin or blubber of the whale.  It has already been said, that it is
stript from him in long pieces, called blanket-pieces.  Like most sea-terms,
this one is very happy and significant.  For the whale is
.. <p 306 >
indeed wrapt up in his blubber as in a real blanket or counterpane; or, still
better, an Indian poncho slipt over his head, and skirting his extremity.  It
is by reason of this cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to
keep himself comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides.
What would become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy seas of
the north, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout?  True, other fish are found
exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but these, be it observed, are
your cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very bellies are refrigerators;
creatures, that warm themselves under the lee of an iceberg, as a traveller
in winter would bask before an inn fire; whereas, like man, the whale has
lungs and warm blood.  Freeze his blood, and he dies.  How wonderful is it
then --except after explanation --that this great monster, to whom corporeal
warmth is as indispensable as it is to man; how wonderful that he should be
found at home, immersed to his lips for life in those Arctic waters!  where,
when seamen fall overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards,
perpendicularly frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found
glued in amber.  But more surprising is it to know, as has been proved by
experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a Borneo
negro in summer.  It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a

     strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare
virtue of interior spaciousness.  Oh, man!  admire and model thyself after the
whale!  Do thou, too, remain warm among ice.  Do thou, too, live in this world
without being of it.  Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the
Pole.  Like the great dome of St.  Peter's, and like the great whale, retain,

     O man!  in all seasons a temperature of thine own.  But how easy and how
hopeless to teach these fine things!  Of erections, how few are domed like St.
Peter's!  of creatures, how few vast as the whale!
.. <p 307 >
.. < chapter lxix 2  THE FUNERAL >

     Haul in the chains!  Let the carcase go
astern!  The vast tackles have now done their duty.  The peeled white body of
the beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though changed in hue, it
has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk.  it is still colossal.  slowly it
floats more and more away, the water round it torn and splashed by the
insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed with rapacious flights of screaming

     fowls, whose beaks are like so many insulting poniards in the whale.  The
vast white headless phantom floats further and further from the ship, and
every rod that it so floats, what seem square roods of sharks and cubic roods
of fowls, augment the murderous din.  For hours and hours from the almost
stationary ship that hideous sight is seen.  Beneath the unclouded and mild
azure sky, upon the fair face of the pleasant sea, wafted by the joyous
breezes, that great mass of death floats on and on, till lost in infinite
perspectives.  There's a most doleful and most mocking funeral!  The
sea-vultures all in pious mourning, the air-sharks all punctiliously in
black or speckled.  In life but few of them would have helped the whale, I
ween, if peradventure he had needed it; but upon the banquet of his funeral
they most piously do pounce.  Oh, horrible vultureism of earth!  from which
not the mightiest whale is free.  Nor is this the end.  Desecrated as the body
is, a vengeful ghost survives and hovers over it to scare.  Espied by some
timid man-of-war or blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance
obscuring the swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass
floating in the sun, and the white spray heaving high against it;
straightway the whale's unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down
in the log -- shoals, rocks, and breakers hereabouts: beware!  And for
years afterwards,
.. <p 308 >
perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly sheep leap over a
vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there when a stick was held.
There's your law of precedents; there's your utility of traditions; there's
the story of your obstinate survival of old beliefs never bottomed on the
earth, and now not even hovering in the air!  There's orthodoxy!  Thus, while
in life the great whale's body may have been a real terror to his foes, in
his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a world.  Are you a believer
in ghosts, my friend?  There are other ghosts than the Cock-Lane one, and far
deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe in them.
.. <p 308 >
.. < chapter lxx 14  THE SPHYNX >

     It should not have been omitted that
previous to completely stripping the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded.
Now, the beheading of the Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon
which experienced whale surgeons very much pride themselves; and not without
reason.  Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a
neck; on the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that
very place, is the thickest part of him.  Remember, also, that the surgeon must
operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening between him and his
subject, and that subject almost hidden in a discolored, rolling, and
oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea.  Bear in mind, too, that under these
untoward circumstances he has to cut many feet deep in the flesh; and in that
subterraneous manner, without so much as getting one single peep into the
ever-contracting gash thus made, he must skilfully steer clear of all
adjacent, interdicted parts, and exactly divide the spine at a critical
point hard by its insertion into the skull.  Do you not marvel,
.. <p 309 >
then, at Stubb's boast, that he demanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm
whale?  When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a
cable till the body is stripped.  That done, if it belong to a small whale it
is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of.  But, with a full grown
leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale's head embraces nearly one
third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend such a burden as that,
even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this were as vain a thing as to
attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers' scales The Pequod's whale being
decapitated and the body stripped, the head was hoisted against the ship's
side --about half way out of the sea, so that it might yet in great part be
buoyed up by its native element.  And there with the strained craft steeply
leaning over to it, by reason of the enormous downward drag from the lower
mast-head, and every yard-arm on that side projecting like a crane over the
waves; there, that blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod's waist like the
giant Holofernes's from the girdle of Judith.  When this last task was
accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went below to their dinner.  Silence
reigned over the before tumultuous but now deserted deck.  An intense copper
calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its
noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea.  A short space elapsed, and up into
this noiselessness came Ahab alone from his cabin.  Taking a few turns on the
quarter-deck, he paused to gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the
main-chains he took Stubb's long spade --still remaining there after the
whale's decapitation --and striking it into the lower part of the
half-suspended mass, placed its other end crutch-wise under one arm, and so
stood leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head.  It was a black
and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so intense a calm, it
seemed the Sphynx's in the desert.  Speak, thou vast and venerable head,
muttered Ahab, which, though ungarnished with a beard, yet here and there
lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, and tell us the secret thing
that is in thee.  Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest.
.. <p 310 >
that head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's
foundations.  Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and
anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with
bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was
thy most familiar home.  Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast
slept by many a sailor's side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives
to lay them down.  Thou saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their
flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to
each other, when heaven seemed false to them.  Thou saw'st the murdered mate
when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the
deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on
unharmed --while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have
borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms.  O head!  thou hast
seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one
syllable is thine!  Sail ho!  cried a triumphant voice from the
main-masthead.  Aye?  Well, now, that's cheering, cried Ahab, suddenly
erecting himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow.

     That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better man.
--Where away?  Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her
breeze to us!  Better and better, man.  Would now St.  Paul would come along
that way, and to my breezelessness bring his breeze!  O Nature, and O soul of
man!  how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies!  not the
smallest atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in
mind.
.. <p 311 >
.. < chapter lxxi 2  THE JEROBOAM'S STORY >

     Hand in hand, ship and breeze
blew on; but the breeze came faster than the ship, and soon the Pequod began
to rock.  By and by, through the glass the stranger's boats and manned
mast-heads proved her a whale-ship.  but as she was so far to windward, and
shooting by, apparently making a passage to some other ground, the Pequod
could not hope to reach her.  So the signal was set to see what response would
be made.  Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the
ships of the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal; all which
signals being collected in a book with the names of the respective vessels
attached, every captain is provided with it.  Thereby, the whale commanders
are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at considerable
distances, and with no small facility.  The Pequod's signal was at last
responded to by the stranger's setting her own; which proved the ship to be
the Jeroboam of Nantucket.  Squaring her yards, she bore down, ranged abeam
under the Pequod's lee, and lowered a boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as the
side-ladder was being rigged by Starbuck's order to accommodate the visiting
captain, the stranger in question waved his hand from his boat's stern in
token of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary.  It turned out that the
Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her captain,
was fearful of infecting the Pequod's company.  For, though himself and boat's
crew remained untainted, and though his ship was half a rifle-shot off, and
an incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing between; yet conscientiously
adhering to the timid quarantine of the land, he peremptorily refused to come
into direct contact with the Pequod.  But this did by no means prevent all
communication.  Preserving an interval of some few yards between itself and
the
.. <p 312 >
ship, the Jeroboam's boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep
parallel to the Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this
time it blew very fresh), with her main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at
times by the sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed
some way ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings
again.  Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now and then, a
conversation was sustained between the two parties; but at intervals not
without still another interruption of a very different sort.  Pulling an oar
in the Jeroboam's boat, was a man of a singular appearance, even in that wild
whaling life where individual notabilities make up all totalities.  He was a
small, short, youngish man, sprinkled all over his face with freckles, and
wearing redundant yellow hair.  A long-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a
faded walnut tinge enveloped him; the overlapping sleeves of which were
rolled up on his wrists.  A deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes.
So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had exclaimed -- That's
he!  that's he!  the long-togged scaramouch the Town-Ho's company told us of!

     Stubb here alluded to a strange story told of the Jeroboam, and a certain
man among her crew, some time previous when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho.
According to this account and what was subsequently learned, it seemed that
the scaramouch in question had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost
everybody in the Jeroboam.  His story was this: He had been originally
nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna Shakers, where he had been a
great prophet; in their cracked, secret meetings having several times
descended from heaven by the way of a trap-door, announcing the speedy
opening of the seventh vial, which he carried in his vest-pocket; but, which,
instead of containing gunpowder, was supposed to be charged with laudanum.  A
strange, apostolic whim having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for
Nantucket, where, with that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a
steady, common sense exterior and offered himself as a green-hand candidate
for the Jeroboam's whaling voyage.  They engaged him;
.. <p 313 >
but straightway upon the ship's getting out of sight of land, his insanity
broke out in a freshet.  He announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and
commanded the captain to jump overboard.  He published his manifesto, whereby
he set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and
vicar-general of all Oceanica.  The unflinching earnestness with which he
declared these things; --the dark, daring play of his sleepless, excited
imagination, and all the preternatural terrors of real delirium, united to
invest this Gabriel in the minds of the majority of the ignorant crew, with
an atmosphere of sacredness.  Moreover, they were afraid of him.  As such a
man, however, was not of much practical use in the ship, especially as he
refused to work except when he pleased, the incredulous captain would fain
have been rid of him; but apprised that that individual's intention was to
land him in the first convenient port, the archangel forthwith opened all his
seals and vials -- devoting the ship and all hands to unconditional perdition,
in case this intention was carried out.  So strongly did he work upon his
disciples among the crew, that at last in a body they went to the captain and
told him if Gabriel was sent from the ship, not a man of them would remain.
He was therefore forced to relinquish his plan.  Nor would they permit Gabriel
to be any way maltreated, say or do what he would; so that it came to pass
that Gabriel had the complete freedom of the ship.  The consequence of all
this was, that the archangel cared little or nothing for the captain and
mates; and since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand than
ever; declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole command;
nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleasure.  The sailors,
mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before him; in
obedience to his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal homage, as to
a god.  Such things may seem incredible; but, however wondrous, they are
true.  Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the
measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless power
of deceiving and bedevilling so many others.  But it is time to return to the
Pequod.  I fear not thy epidemic, man, said Ahab from the bulwarks
.. <p 314 >
to Captain Mayhew, who stood in the boat's stern; come on board.  But now
Gabriel started to his feet.  Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious!
Beware of the horrible plague!  Gabriel, Gabriel!  cried Captain Mayhew;

     thou must either-- But that instant a headlong wave shot the boat far
ahead, and its seethings drowned all speech.  Hast thou seen the White Whale?
demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted back.  Think, think of thy whale-boat,
stoven and sunk!  Beware of the horrible tail!  I tell thee again, Gabriel,
that-- But again the boat tore ahead as if dragged by fiends.  Nothing was
said for some moments, while a succession of riotous waves rolled by, which
by one of those occasional caprices of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it.

     Meantime, the hoisted sperm whale's head jogged about very violently, and
Gabriel was seen eyeing it with rather more apprehensiveness than his
archangel nature seemed to warrant.  When this interlude was over, Captain
Mayhew began a dark story concerning Moby Dick; not, however, without
frequent interruptions from Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned, and
the crazy sea that seemed leagued with him.  It seemed that the Jeroboam had
not long left home, when upon speaking a whale-ship, her people were
reliably apprised of the existence of Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made.
Greedily sucking in this intelligence, Gabriel solemnly warned the captain
against attacking the white whale, in case the monster should be seen; in his
gibbering insanity, pronouncing the White Whale to be no less a being than the
Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving the Bible.  But when, some year
or two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the mast-heads, Macey,
the chief mate, burned with ardor to encounter him; and the captain himself
being not unwilling to let him have the opportunity, despite all the
archangel's denunciations and forewarnings, Macey succeeded in persuading
five men to man his boat.  With them he pushed off; and, after
.. <p 315 >
much weary pulling, and many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last
succeeded in getting one iron fast.  Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to the
main-royal mast-head, was tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and hurling
forth prophecies of speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants of his
divinity.  Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing up in his boat's bow, and
with all the reckless energy of his tribe was venting his wild exclamations
upon the whale, and essaying to get a fair chance for his poised lance, lo!
a broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its quick, fanning motion,
temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies of the oarsmen.  Next instant,
the luckless mate, so full of furious life, was smitten bodily into the air,

     and making a long arc in his descent, fell into the sea at the distance of
about fifty yards.  Not a chip of the boat was harmed, nor a hair of any
oarsman's head; but the mate for ever sank.  It is well to parenthesize here,

     that of the fatal accidents in the Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps
almost as frequent as any.  Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is
thus annihilated; oftener the boat's bow is knocked off, or the
thigh-board, in which the headsman stands, is torn from its place and
accompanies the body.  But strangest of all is the circumstance, that in more
instances than one, when the body has been recovered, not a single mark of
violence is discernible; the man being stark dead.  The whole calamity, with
the falling form of Macey, was plainly descried from the ship.  Raising a
piercing shriek -- The vial!  the vial!  Gabriel called off the
terror-stricken crew from the further hunting of the whale.  This terrible
event clothed the archangel with added influence; because his credulous
disciples believed that he had specifically fore-announced it, instead of
only making a general prophecy, which any one might have done, and so have
chanced to hit one of many marks in the wide margin allowed.  He became a
nameless terror to the ship.  Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put
such questions to him, that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring
whether he intended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer.  To
which Ahab answered -- Aye.  Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started to
his feet, glaring
.. <p 316 >
upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with downward pointed finger
-- Think, think of the blasphemer --dead, and down there! --beware of the
blasphemer's end!  Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew,

     Captain, I have just bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for
one of thy officers, if I mistake not.  Starbuck, look over the bag.  Every
whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for various ships, whose
delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed, depends upon the mere
chance of encountering them in the four oceans.  Thus, most letters never
reach their mark; and many are only received after attaining an age of two
or three years or more.  Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand.  It
was sorely tumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in
consequence of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin.  Of such a letter,
Death himself might well have been the post-boy.  Can'st not read it?  cried
ahab.  give it me, man.  aye, aye it's but a dim scrawl; --what's this?  As
he was studying it out, Starbuck took a long cutting-spade pole, and with his
knife slightly split the end, to insert the letter there, and in that way,
hand it to the boat, without its coming any closer to the ship.  Meantime, Ahab
holding the letter, muttered, Mr. Har--yes, Mr. Harry--(a woman's pinny hand,
--the man's wife, I'll wager) -- Aye --Mr. Harry Macey, Ship Jeroboam; --why
it's Macey, and he's dead!  Poor fellow!  poor fellow!  and from his wife,
sighed Mayhew; but let me have it.  Nay, keep it thyself, cried Gabriel to
Ahab; thou art soon going that way.  Curses throttle thee!  yelled Ahab.

     Captain Mayhew, stand by now to receive it; and taking the fatal missive
from Starbuck's hands, he caught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it
over towards the boat.  But as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted
from rowing; the boat drifted a little towards the ship's stern; so that, as
if by magic, the letter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel's eager hand.  He
clutched it in an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling the letter on
it, sent it thus loaded back into the ship.  It fell at Ahab's feet.  Then
Gabriel
.. <p 317 >
shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their oars, and in that manner
the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the Pequod.  As, after this
interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket of the whale, many
strange things were hinted in reference to this wild affair.
.. <p 317 >
.. < chapter lxxiii 23  STUBB AND FLASK KILL A RIGHT WHALE; AND THEN HAVE >


A TALK OVER HIM It must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm
Whale's prodigious head hanging to the Pequod's side.  But we must let it
continue hanging there a while till we can get a chance to attend to it.  For
the present other matters press, and the best we can do now for the head, is
to pray heaven the tackles may hold.  Now, during the past night and forenoon,

     the Pequod had gradually drifted into a sea, which, by its occasional
patches of
.. <p 322 >
yellow brit, gave unusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales, a species
of the Leviathan that but few supposed to be at this particular time lurking
anywhere near.  And though all hands commonly disdained the capture of those
inferior creatures; and though the Pequod was not commissioned to cruise for
them at all, and though she had passed numbers of them near the Crozetts
without lowering a boat; yet now that a Sperm Whale had been brought
alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the announcement was made
that a Right Whale should be captured that day, if opportunity offered.  Nor
was this long wanting.  Tall spouts were seen to leeward; and two boats,
Stubb's and Flask's, were detached in pursuit.  Pulling further and further
away, they at last became almost invisible to the men at the mast-head.  But
suddenly in the distance, they saw a great heap of tumultuous white water,
and soon after news came from aloft that one or both the boats must be fast.
An interval passed and the boats were in plain sight, in the act of being
dragged right towards the ship by the towing whale.  So close did the monster
come to the hull, that at first it seemed as if he meant it malice; but
suddenly going down in a maelstrom, within three rods of the planks, he
wholly disappeared from view, as if diving under the keel.  Cut, cut!  was
the cry from the ship to the boats, which, for one instant, seemed on the
point of being brought with a deadly dash against the vessel's side.  But
having plenty of line yet in the tubs, and the whale not sounding very
rapidly, they paid out abundance of rope, and at the same time pulled with
all their might so as to get ahead of the ship.  For a few minutes the
struggle was intensely critical; for while they still slacked out the
tightened line in one direction, and still plied their oars in another, the
contending strain threatened to take them under.  But it was only a few feet
advance they sought to gain.  And they stuck to it till they did gain it;
when instantly, a swift tremor was felt running like lightning along the keel,

     as the strained line, scraping beneath the ship, suddenly rose to view under
her bows, snapping and quivering; and so flinging off its drippings, that
the drops fell like bits of broken glass on the water, while the whale
beyond also rose to sight, and once more the boats were free
.. <p 323 >
to fly.  But the fagged whale abated his speed, and blindly altering his
course, went round the stern of the ship towing the two boats after him, so
that they performed a complete circuit.  Meantime, they hauled more and more
upon their lines, till close flanking him on both sides, Stubb answered
Flask with lance for lance; and thus round and round the Pequod the battle
went, while the multitudes of sharks that had before swum round the Sperm
Whale's body, rushed to the fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking
at every new gash, as the eager Israelites did at the new bursting fountains
that poured from the smitten rock.  At last his spout grew thick, and with a
frightful roll and vomit, he turned upon his back a corpse.  While the two
headsmen were engaged in making fast cords to his flukes, and in other ways
getting the mass in readiness for towing, some conversation ensued between
them.  I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard, said
Stubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having to do with so
ignoble a leviathan.  Wants with it?  said Flask, coiling some spare line in
the boat's bow, did you never hear that the ship which but once has a Sperm
Whale's head hoisted on her starboard side, and at the same time a Right
Whale's on the larboard; did you never hear, Stubb, that that ship can never
afterwards capsize?  Why not?  I don't know, but I heard that gamboge
ghost of a Fedallah saying so, and he seems to know all about ships' charms.
But I sometimes think he'll charm the ship to no good at last.  I don't half
like that chap, Stubb.  Did you ever notice how that tusk of his is a sort of
carved into a snake's head, Stubb?  Sink him!  I never look at him at all;
but if ever I get a chance of a dark night, and he standing hard by the
bulwarks, and no one by; look down there, Flask --pointing into the sea with
a peculiar motion of both hands -- Aye, will I!  Flask, I take that Fedallah to
be the devil in disguise.  Do you believe that cock and bull story about his
having been stowed away on board ship?  He's the devil, I say.  The reason why
you don't see his tail, is because he tucks it up out of sight; he carries
it
.. <p 324 >
coiled away in his pocket, I guess.  Blast him!  now that I think of it, he's
always wanting oakum to stuff into the toes of his boots.  He sleeps in his
boots, don't he?  He hasn't got any hammock; but I've seen him lay of nights
in a coil of rigging.  No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail; he
coils it down, do ye see, in the eye of the rigging.  What's the old man
have so much to do with him for?  Striking up a swap or a bargain, I
suppose.  Bargain? --about what?  Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent
after that White Whale, and the devil there is trying to come round him, and

     get him to swap away his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that
sort, and then he'll surrender Moby Dick.  Pooh!  Stubb, you are
skylarking; how can Fedallah do that?  I don't know, Flask, but the devil
is a curious chap, and a wicked one, I tell ye.  Why, they say as how he
went a sauntering into the old flag-ship once, switching his tail about
devilish easy and gentlemanlike, and inquiring if the old governor was at
home.  Well, he was at home, and asked the devil what he wanted.  The devil,
switching his hoofs, up and says, "I want John." "What for?" says the old
governor, "What business is that of yours," says the devil, getting mad, --"I
want to use him." "Take him," says the governor --and by the Lord, Flask, if
the devil didn't give John the Asiatic cholera before he got through with
him, I'll eat this whale in one mouthful.  But look sharp-- aint you all ready
there?  Well, then, pull ahead, and let's get the whale alongside.  I think
I remember some such story as you were telling, said Flask, when at last the
two boats were slowly advancing with their burden towards the ship, but I
can't remember where.  Three Spaniards?  Adventures of those three
bloody-minded soldadoes?  Did ye read it there, Flask?  I guess ye did?  No;

     never saw such a book; heard of it, though.  But now, tell me, Stubb, do you
suppose that that devil you was speaking of just now, was the same you say is
now on board the Pequod?
.. <p 325 >

     Am I the same man that helped kill this whale?  Doesn't the devil live for
ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead?  Did you ever see any parson a
wearing mourning for the devil?  And if the devil has a latch-key to get into
the admiral's cabin, don't you suppose he can crawl into a port-hole?  Tell me
that, Mr. Flask?  How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?  Do you see
that mainmast there?  pointing to the ship; well, that's the figure one;
now take all the hoops in the Pequod's hold, and string 'em along in a row
with that mast, for oughts, do you see; well, that wouldn't begin to be
Fedallah's age.  Nor all the coopers in creation couldn't show hoops enough to
make oughts enough.  but see here, stubb, i thought you a little boasted
just now, that you meant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good
chance.  Now, if he's so old as all those hoops of yours come to, and if he
is going to live for ever, what good will it do to pitch him overboard --tell
me that?  Give him a good ducking, anyhow.  But he'd crawl back.  Duck
him again; and keep ducking him.  Suppose he should take it into his head to
duck you, though -- yes, and drown you --what then?  I should like to see him
try it; I'd give him such a pair of black eyes that he wouldn't dare to show
his face in the admiral's cabin again for a long while, let alone down in the
orlop there, where he lives, and hereabouts on the upper decks where he
sneaks so much.  Damn the devil, Flask; do you suppose I'm afraid of the
devil?  Who's afraid of him, except the old governor who daresn't catch him
and put him in double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him go about
kidnapping people; aye, and signed a bond with him, that all the people the
devil kidnapped, he'd roast for him?  There's a governor!  Do you suppose
Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab?  Do I suppose it?  You'll know it
before long, Flask.  But I am going now to keep a sharp look-out on him; and
if I see anything very suspicious going on, I'll just take him by the nape
of his neck, and say --Look here, Beelzebub, you don't do
.. <p 326 >
it; and if he makes any fuss, by the Lord I'll make a grab into his pocket
for his tail, take it to the capstan, and give him such a wrenching and
heaving, that his tail will come short off at the stump --do you see; and
then, I rather guess when he finds himself docked in that queer fashion,
he'll sneak off without the poor satisfaction of feeling his tail between his
legs.  And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?  Do with it?  Sell it for
an ox whip when we get home; -- what else?  Now, do you mean what you say,
and have been saying all along, stubb?  Mean or not mean, here we are at
the ship.  The boats were here hailed, to tow the whale on the larboard
side, where fluke chains and other necessaries were already prepared for
securing him.  Didn't I tell you so?  said Flask; yes, you'll soon see this
right whale's head hoisted up opposite that parmacetti's.  In good time,
Flask's saying proved true.  As before, the Pequod steeply leaned over towards
the sperm whale's head, now, by the counterpoise of both heads, she regained
her even keel; though sorely strained, you may well believe.  So, when on one
side you hoist in Locke's head, you go over that way; but now, on the other
side, hoist in Kant's and you come back again; but in very poor plight.
Thus, some minds for ever keep trimming boat.  Oh, ye foolish!  throw all
these thunder-heads overboard, and then you will float light and right.  In
disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought alongside the ship, the
same preliminary proceedings commonly take place as in the case of a sperm
whale; only, in the latter instance, the head is cut off whole, but in the
former the lips and tongue are separately removed and hoisted on deck, with
all the well known black bone attached to what is called the crown-piece.
But nothing like this, in the present case, had been done.  The carcases of
both whales had dropped astern; and the head-laden ship not a little resembled
a mule carrying a pair of overburdening panniers.  Meantime, Fedallah was
calmly eyeing the right whale's head, and ever and anon glancing from the deep
wrinkles there to the
.. <p 327 >
lines in his own hand.  And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the Parsee
occupied his shadow; while, if the Parsee's shadow was there at all it seemed
only to blend with, and lengthen Ahab's.  As the crew toiled on, Laplandish
speculations were bandied among them, concerning all these passing things.
.. <p 327 >
.. < chapter lxxiv 7  THE SPERM WHALE'S HEAD--CONTRASTED VIEW >

     Here, now, are
two great whales, laying their heads together; let us join them, and lay
together our own.  Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and

     the Right Whale are by far the most noteworthy.  They are the only whales
regularly hunted by man.  To the Nantucketer, they present the two extremes of
all the known varieties of the whale.  As the external difference between them
is mainly observable in their heads; and as a head of each is this moment
hanging from the Pequod's side; and as we may freely go from one to the
other, by merely stepping across the deck: --where, I should like to know,
will you obtain a better chance to study practical cetology than here?  In the
first place, you are struck by the general contrast between these heads.
Both are massive enough in all conscience; but there is a certain mathematical
symmetry in the Sperm Whale's which the Right Whale's sadly lacks.  There is
more character in the Sperm Whale's head.  As you behold it, you
involuntarily yield the immense superiority to him, in point of pervading
dignity.  In the present instance, too, this dignity is heightened by the
pepper and salt color of his head at the summit, giving token of advanced age
and large experience.  In short, he is what the fishermen technically call a

     grey-headed whale.  Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads
-- namely, the two most important organs, the eye and the ear.
.. <p 328 >
Far back on the side of the head, and low down, near the angle of either
whale's jaw, if you narrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye,
which you would fancy to be a young colt's eye; so out of all proportion is it
to the magnitude of the head.  Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the
whale's eyes, it is plain that he can never see an object which is exactly
ahead, no more than he can one exactly astern.  in a word, the position of
the whale's eyes corresponds to that of a man's ears; and you may fancy, for
yourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways survey objects through
your ears.  You would find that you could only command some thirty degrees of
vision in advance of the straight side-line of sight; and about thirty more
behind it.  If your bitterest foe were walking straight towards you, with
dagger uplifted in broad day, you would not be able to see him, any more
than if he were stealing upon you from behind.  In a word, you would have two
backs, so to speak; but, at the same time, also, two fronts (side fronts):
for what is it that makes the front of a man --what, indeed, but his eyes?
Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of, the eyes are so
planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so as to produce one
picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar position of the whale's eyes,
effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of solid head, which
towers between them like a great mountain separating two lakes in valleys;
this, of course, must wholly separate the impressions which each independent
organ imparts.  The whale, therefore, must see one distinct picture on this
side, and another distinct picture on that side; while all between must be
profound darkness and nothingness to him.  Man may, in effect, be said to look
out on the world from a sentry-box with two joined sashes for his window.
But with the whale, these two sashes are separately inserted, making two
distinct windows, but sadly impairing the view.  This peculiarity of the
whale's eyes is a thing always to be borne in mind in the fishery; and to be
remembered by the reader in some subsequent scenes.  A curious and most
puzzling question might be started concerning
.. <p 329 >
this visual matter as touching the Leviathan.  But I must be content with a
hint.  so long as a man's eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing is
involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing whatever
objects are before him.  Nevertheless, any one's experience will teach him,
that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of things at one glance,
it is quite impossible for him, attentively, and completely, to examine any
two things --however large or however small --at one and the same instant of
time; never mind if they lie side by side and touch each other.  But if you
now come to separate these two objects, and surround each by a circle of
profound darkness; then, in order to see one of them, in such a manner as to
bring your mind to bear on it, the other will be utterly excluded from your
contemporary consciousness.  How is it, then, with the whale?  True, both his
eyes, in themselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more
comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man's, that he can at the same
moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on one side of
him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction?  If he can, then is it as
marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able simultaneously to go through
the demonstrations of two distinct problems in Euclid.  Nor, strictly
investigated, is there any incongruity in this comparison.  It may be but an
idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the extraordinary
vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when beset by three or four
boats; the timidity and liability to queer frights, so common to such whales;

     I think that all this indirectly proceeds from the helpless perplexity of
volition, in which their divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision
must involve them.  But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye.  If
you are an entire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these two
heads for hours, and never discover that organ.  The ear has no external leaf
whatever; and into the hole itself you can hardly insert a quill, so
wondrously minute is it.  It is lodged a little behind the eye.  With respect
to their ears, this important difference is to be observed between the sperm
whale and the
.. <p 330 >
right.  While the ear of the former has an external opening, that of the
latter is entirely and evenly covered over with a membrane, so as to be quite
imperceptible from without.  Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the
whale should see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder
through an ear which is smaller than a hare's?  But if his eyes were broad as
the lens of Herschel's great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches
of cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of
hearing?  Not at all. -- Why then do you try to enlarge your mind?  Subtilize
it.  Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand, cant
over the sperm whale's head, so that it may lie bottom up; then, ascending
by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and were it not that
the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we might descend

     into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach.  But let us hold on here
by this tooth, and look about us where we are.  What a really beautiful and
chaste-looking mouth!  from floor to ceiling, lined, or rather papered with a
glistening white membrane, glossy as bridal satins.  But come out now, and
look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems like the long narrow lid of an
immense snuff-box, with a hinge at one end, instead of one side.  If you pry
it up, so as to get it overhead, and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a
terrific portcullis; and such, alas!  it proves to many a poor wight in the
fishery, upon whom these spikes fall with impaling force.  But far more
terrible is it to behold, when fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky
whale, floating there suspended, with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet
long, hanging straight down at right-angles with his body, for all the world
like a ship's jib-boom.  This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited; out
of sorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his jaw
have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a reproach
to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws upon him.  In most
cases this lower jaw --being easily unhinged by a practised artist --is
disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose of extracting the ivory teeth,
and furnishing a supply of
.. <p 331 >
that hard white whalebone with which the fishermen fashion all sorts of
curious articles, including canes, umbrella-stocks, and handles to
riding-whips.  With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it
were an anchor; and when the proper time comes --some few days after the other
work --Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego, being all accomplished dentists, are set
to drawing teeth.  With a keen cutting-spade, Queequeg lances the gums; then
the jaw is lashed down to ringbolts, and a tackle being rigged from aloft,
they drag out these teeth, as Michigan oxen drag stumps of old oaks out of
wild wood-lands.  There are generally forty-two teeth in all; in old whales,
much worn down, but undecayed; nor filled after our artificial fashion.  The
jaw is afterwards sawn into slabs, and piled away like joists for building
houses.
.. <p 331 >
.. < chapter lxxv 17  THE RIGHT WHALE'S HEAD--CONTRASTED VIEW >

     Crossing the
deck, let us now have a good long look at the Right Whale's head.  As in
general shape the noble Sperm Whale's head may be compared to a Roman
war-chariot (especially in front, where it is so broadly rounded); so, at a
broad view, the Right Whale's head bears a rather inelegant resemblance to a
gigantic galliot-toed shoe.  Two hundred years ago an old Dutch voyager
likened its shape to that of a shoemaker's last.  And in this same last or
shoe, that old woman of the nursery tale, with the swarming brood, might
very comfortably be lodged, she and all her progeny.  But as you come nearer
to this great head it begins to assume different aspects, according to your
point of view.  If you stand on its summit and look at these two f-shaped
spout-holes, you would take the whole head for an enormous bass-viol, and
these
.. <p 332 >
spiracles, the apertures in its sounding-board.  Then, again, if you fix your
eye upon this strange, crested, comb-like incrustation on the top of the mass
--this green, barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the crown, and
the Southern fishers the bonnet of the Right Whale; fixing your eyes solely
on this, you would take the head for the trunk of some huge oak, with a
bird's nest in its crotch.  At any rate, when you watch those live crabs that
nestle here on this bonnet, such an idea will be almost sure to occur to you;

     unless, indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the technical term crown also
bestowed upon it; in which case you will take great interest in thinking how
this mighty monster is actually a diademed king of the sea, whose green
crown has been put together for him in this marvellous manner.  But if this
whale be a king, he is a very sulky looking fellow to grace a diadem.  Look
at that hanging lower lip!  what a huge sulk and pout is there!  a sulk and
pout, by carpenter's measurement, about twenty feet long and five feet deep;
a sulk and pout that will yield you some 500 gallons of oil and more.  A great
pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be hare-lipped.  The fissure is
about a foot across.  Probably the mother during an important interval was
sailing down the Peruvian coast, when earthquakes caused the beach to gape.
Over this lip, as over a slippery threshold, we now slide into the mouth.
Upon my word were I at Mackinaw, I should take this to be the inside of an
Indian wigwam.  Good Lord!  is this the road that Jonah went?  The roof is
about twelve feet high, and runs to a pretty sharp angle, as if there were a
regular ridge-pole there; while these ribbed, arched, hairy sides, present us
with those wondrous, half vertical, scimetar-shaped slats of whale-bone, say
three hundred on a side, which depending from the upper part of the head or
crown bone, form those Venetian blinds which have elsewhere been cursorily
mentioned.  The edges of these bones are fringed with hairy fibres, through
which the Right Whale strains the water, and in whose intricacies he retains
the small fish, when open-mouthed he goes through the seas of brit in feeding
time.  In the central blinds of bone, as they stand in their natural order,
there are certain curious marks, curves, hollows, and ridges, whereby some
whalemen calculate
.. <p 333 >
the creature's age, as the age of an oak by its circular rings.  Though the
certainty of this criterion is far from demonstrable, yet it has the savor of
analogical probability.  At any rate, if we yield to it, we must grant a far
greater age to the Right Whale than at first glance will seem reasonable.  In
old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies concerning
these blinds.  One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous whiskers
inside of the whale's mouth; another, hogs' bristles; a third old gentleman
in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language: There are about two hundred

     and fifty fins growing on each side of his upper chop, which arch over his
tongue on each side of his mouth.  As every one knows, these same hogs'
bristles, fins, whiskers, blinds, or whatever you please, furnish to
the ladies their busks and other stiffening contrivances.  But in this
particular, the demand has long been on the decline.  It was in Queen Anne's
time that the bone was in its glory, the farthingale being then all the
fashion.  And as those ancient dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of
the whale, as you may say; even so, in a shower, with the like
thoughtlessness, do we nowadays fly under the same jaws for protection; the
umbrella being a tent spread over the same bone.  But now forget all about
blinds and whiskers for a moment, and, standing in the Right Whale's mouth,
look around you afresh.  Seeing all these colonnades of bone so methodically
ranged about, would you not think you were inside the great Haarlem organ,
and gazing upon its thousand pipes?  For a carpet to the organ we have a rug
of the softest Turkey --the tongue, which is glued, as it were, to the floor of
the mouth.  It is very fat and tender, and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting
it on deck.  This particular tongue now before us; at a passing glance I
should say it was a six-barreler; that is, it will yield you about that
amount of oil.  Ere this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I
.. <p 334 >
started with --that the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely
different heads.  To sum up, then; in the Right Whale's there is no great
well of sperm; no ivory teeth at all; no long, slender mandible of a lower
jaw, like the Sperm Whale's.  Nor in the Sperm Whale are there any of those
blinds of bone; no huge lower lip; and scarcely anything of a tongue.  Again,

     the Right Whale has two external spout-holes, the Sperm Whale only one.
Look your last, now, on these venerable hooded heads, while they yet lie
together; for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea; the other will not
be very long in following.  Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's
there?  It is the same he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the
forehead seem now faded away.  I think his broad brow to be full of a
prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death.
But mark the other head's expression.  See that amazing lower lip, pressed by
accident against the vessel's side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw.  Does
not this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in
facing death?  This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm
Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years.
.. <p 333n. >
This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of whisker, or rather
a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white hairs on the upper part of
the outer end of the lower jaw.  Sometimes these tufts impart a rather
brigandish expression to his otherwise solemn countenance.
.. <p 334 >
.. < chapter lxxvi 24  THE BATTERING-RAM >

     Ere quitting, for the nonce, the
Sperm Whale's head, I would have you, as a sensible physiologist, simply
--particularly remark its front aspect, in all its compacted collectedness.  I
would have you investigate it now with the sole view of forming to yourself
some unexaggerated, intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power may
be lodged there.  Here is a vital point; for you must either satisfactorily
settle this matter with yourself, or for ever remain an infidel as to one of
the most appalling,
.. <p 335 >
but not the less true events, perhaps anywhere to be found in all recorded
history.  You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm
Whale, the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane to the
water; you observe that the lower part of that front slopes considerably
backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat for the long socket which
receives the boom-like lower jaw; you observe that the mouth is entirely
under the head, much in the same way, indeed, as though your own mouth were
entirely under your chin.  Moreover you observe that the whale has no external
nose; and that what nose he has --his spout hole --is on the top of his head;
you observe that his eyes and ears are at the sides of his head, nearly one
third of his entire length from the front.  Wherefore, you must now have
perceived that the front of the Sperm Whale's head is a dead, blind wall,
without a single organ or tender prominence of any sort whatsoever.
Furthermore, you are now to consider that only in the extreme, lower, backward
sloping part of the front of the head, is there the slightest vestige of bone;

     and not till you get near twenty feet from the forehead do you come to the
full cranial development.  So that this whole enormous boneless mass is as one
wad.  Finally, though, as will soon be revealed, its contents partly comprise
the most delicate oil; yet, you are now to be apprised of the nature of the
substance which so impregnably invests all that apparent effeminacy.  In some
previous place I have described to you how the blubber wraps the body of the
whale, as the rind wraps an orange.  Just so with the head; but with this
difference: about the head this envelope, though not so thick, is of a
boneless toughness,  inestimable by any man who has not handled it.  The
severest pointed harpoon, the sharpest lance darted by the strongest human
arm, impotently rebounds from it.  It is as though the forehead of the Sperm
Whale were paved with horses' hoofs.  I do not think that any sensation lurks
in it.  Bethink yourself also of another thing.  When two large, loaded
Indiamen chance to crowd and crush towards each other in the docks, what do
the sailors do?  They do not suspend between them, at the point of coming
contact, any merely hard substance,
.. <p 336 >
like iron or wood.  No, they hold there a large, round wad of tow and cork,
enveloped in the thickest and toughest of ox-hide.  That bravely and uninjured
takes the jam which would have snapped all their oaken handspikes and iron
crowbars.  By itself this sufficiently illustrates the obvious fact I drive
at.  But supplementary to this, it has hypothetically occurred to me, that
as ordinary fish possess what is called a swimming bladder in them, capable,
at will, of distension or contraction; and as the Sperm Whale, as far as I
know, has no such provision in him; considering, too, the otherwise
inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his head altogether beneath the
surface, and anon swims with it high elevated out of the water; considering
the unobstructed elasticity of its envelop; considering the unique interior
of his head; it has hypothetically occurred to me, I say, that those mystical
lung-celled honeycombs there may possibly have some hitherto unknown and
unsuspected connexion with the outer air, so as to be susceptible to
atmospheric distension and contraction.  If this be so, fancy the
irresistibleness of that might, to which the most impalpable and destructive
of all elements contributes.  Now, mark.  Unerringly impelling this dead,
impregnable, uninjurable wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there
swims behind it all a mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately
estimated as piled wood is --by the cord; and all obedient to one volition, as
the smallest insect.  So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the
specialities and concentrations of potency everywhere lurking in this
expansive monster; when I shall show you some of his more inconsiderable
braining feats; I trust you will have renounced all ignorant incredulity,
and be ready to abide by this; that though the Sperm Whale stove a passage
through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic with the Pacific, you
would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow.  For unless you own the whale,
you are but a provincial and sentimentalist in Truth.  But clear Truth is a
thing for salamander giants only to encounter; how small the chances for the
provincials then?  What befel the weakling youth lifting the dread goddess's
veil at Sais?
.. <p 337 >
.. < chapter lxxvii 2  THE GREAT HEIDELBURGH TUN >

     Now comes the Baling of
the Case.  But to comprehend it aright, you must know something of the
curious internal structure of the thing operated upon.  Regarding the Sperm
whale's head as a solid oblong, you may, on an inclined plane, sideways
divide it into two quoins, whereof the lower is the bony structure, forming
the cranium and jaws, and the upper an unctuous mass wholly free from bones;

     its broad forward end forming the expanded vertical apparent forehead of the
whale.  At the middle of the forehead horizontally subdivide this upper quoin,

     and then you have two almost equal parts, which before were naturally
divided by an internal wall of a thick tendinous substance.  The lower
subdivided part, called the junk, is one immense honeycomb of oil, formed by
the crossing and re-crossing, into ten thousand infiltrated cells, of tough
elastic white fibres throughout its whole extent.  The upper part, known as
the Case, may be regarded as the great Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale.
And as that famous great tierce is mystically carved in front, so the whale's
vast plaited forehead forms innumerable strange devices for the emblematical
adornment of his wondrous tun.  Moreover, as that of Heidelburgh was always
replenished with the most excellent of the wines of the Rhenish valleys, so
the tun of the whale contains by far the most precious of all his oily
vintages; namely, the highly-prized spermaceti, in its absolutely pure,
limpid, and odoriferous state.  Nor is this precious substance found unalloyed
in any other part of the creature.  Though in life it remains perfectly fluid,

     yet, upon
.. <p 338 >
exposure to the air, after death, it soon begins to concrete; sending forth
beautiful crystalline shoots, as when the first thin delicate ice is just
forming in water.  A large whale's case generally yields about five hundred
gallons of sperm, though from unavoidable circumstances, considerable of it
is spilled, leaks, and dribbles away, or is otherwise irrevocably lost in the
ticklish business of securing what you can.  I know not with what fine and
costly material the heidelburgh Tun was coated within, but in superlative
richness that coating could not possibly have compared with the silken
pearl-colored membrane, like the line of a fine pelisse, forming the inner
surface of the Sperm Whale's case.  It will have been seen that the Heidelburgh
Tun of the Sperm Whale embraces the entire length of the entire top of the
head; and since --as has been elsewhere set forth --the head embraces one third
of the whole length of the creature, then setting that length down at eighty
feet for a good sized whale, you have more than twenty-six feet for the depth
of the tun, when it is lengthwise hoisted up and down against a ship's side.
As in decapitating the whale, the operator's instrument is brought close to
the spot where an entrance is subsequently forced into the spermaceti
magazine; he has, therefore, to be uncommonly heedful, lest a careless,
untimely stroke should invade the sanctuary and wastingly let out its
invaluable contents.  It is this decapitated end of the head, also, which is at

     last elevated out of the water, and retained in that position by the
enormous cutting tackles, whose hempen combinations, on one side, make
quite a wilderness of ropes in that quarter.  Thus much being said, attend
now, I pray you, to that marvellous and --in this particular instance
--almost fatal operation whereby the Sperm Whale's great Heidelburgh Tun is
tapped.
.. <p 337n. >
Quoin is not a Euclidean term.  It belongs to the pure nautical mathematics.
I know not that it has been defined before.  A quoin is a solid which differs
from a wedge in having its sharp end formed by the steep inclination of one
side, instead of the mutual tapering of both sides.
.. <p 339 >
.. < chapter lxxviii 2  CISTERN AND BUCKETS >

     Nimble as a cat, Tashtego
mounts aloft; and without altering his erect posture, runs straight out upon
the overhanging main-yard-arm, to the part where it exactly projects over the

     hoisted Tun.  He has carried with him a light tackle called a whip,
consisting of only two parts, travelling through a single-sheaved block.
Securing this block, so that it hangs down from the yard-arm, he swings one
end of the rope, till it is caught and firmly held by a hand on deck.  Then,
hand-over-hand, down the other part, the Indian drops through the air, till

     dexterously he lands on the summit of the head.  There --still high elevated
above the rest of the company, to whom he vivaciously cries --he seems some
Turkish Muezzin calling the good people to prayers from the top of a tower.  A
short-handled sharp spade being sent up to him, he diligently searches for
the proper place to begin breaking into the Tun.  In this business he proceeds

     very heedfully, like a treasure-hunter in some old house, sounding the
walls to find where the gold is masoned in.  By the time this cautious search
is over, a stout iron-bound bucket, precisely like a well-bucket, has been
attached to one end of the whip; while the other end, being stretched across
the deck, is there held by two or three alert hands.  These last now hoist
the bucket within grasp of the Indian, to whom another person has reached up
a very long pole.  Inserting this pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward
guides the bucket into the Tun, till it entirely disappears; then giving the
word to the seamen at the whip, up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like
a dairy-maid's pail of new milk.  Carefully lowered from its height, the
full-freighted vessel is caught by an appointed hand, and quickly emptied
into a large tub.  Then re-mounting aloft, it again goes through the same
round until the deep cistern will yield no more.  Towards the end, Tashtego
has to ram his long pole harder and
.. <p 340 >
harder, and deeper and deeper into the Tun, until some twenty feet of the
pole have gone down.  Now, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time
in this way; several tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm; when all
at once a queer accident happened.  Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild
Indian, was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his one-handed
hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head; or whether the place
where he stood was so treacherous and oozy; or whether the Evil One himself
would have it to fall out so, without stating his particular reasons; how it
was exactly, there is no telling now; but, on a sudden, as the eightieth
or ninetieth bucket came suckingly up --my God!  poor Tashtego --like the twin
reciprocating bucket in a veritable well, dropped head-foremost down into
this great Tun of Heidelburgh, and with a horrible oily gurgling, went
clean out of sight!  Man overboard!  cried Daggoo, who amid the general
consternation first came to his senses.  Swing the bucket this way!  and
putting one foot into it, so as the better to secure his slippery hand-hold
on the whip itself, the hoisters ran him high up to the top of the head,
almost before Tashtego could have reached its interior bottom.  Meantime,
there was a terrible tumult.  Looking over the side, they saw the before
lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea, as if
that moment seized with some momentous idea; whereas it was only the poor
Indian unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous depth to which
he had sunk.  At this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit of the head, was
clearing the whip --which had somehow got foul of the great cutting tackles --a
sharp cracking noise was heard; and to the unspeakable horror of all, one of
the two enormous hooks suspending the head tore out, and with a vast
vibration the enormous mass sideways swung, till the drunk ship reeled and
shook as if smitten by an iceberg.  The one remaining hook, upon which the
entire strain now depended, seemed every instant to be on the point of giving
way; an event still more likely from the violent motions of the head.  Come
down, come down!  yelled the seamen to Daggoo, but
.. <p 341 >
with one hand holding on to the heavy tackles, so that if the head should
drop, he would still remain suspended; the negro having cleared the foul
line, rammed down the bucket into the now collapsed well, meaning that the
buried harpooneer should grasp it, and so be hoisted out.  In heaven's name,
man, cried Stubb, are you ramming home a cartridge there? --Avast!  How
will that help him; jamming that iron-bound bucket on top of his head?  Avast,

     will ye!  Stand clear of the tackle!  cried a voice like the bursting of a
rocket.  Almost in the same instant, with a thunder-boom, the enormous mass
dropped into the sea, like Niagara's Table-Rock into the whirlpool; the
suddenly relieved hull rolled away from it, to far down her glittering copper;

     and all caught their breath, as half swinging --now over the sailors' heads,
and now over the water --Daggoo, through a thick mist of spray, was dimly
beheld clinging to the pendulous tackles, while poor, buried-alive
Tashtego was sinking utterly down to the bottom of the sea!  But hardly had
the blinding vapor cleared away, when a naked figure with a boarding-sword in
its hand, was for one swift moment seen hovering over the bulwarks.  The
next, a loud splash announced that my brave Queequeg had dived to the
rescue.  One packed rush was made to the side, and every eye counted every
ripple, as moment followed moment, and no sign of either the sinker or the
diver could be seen.  Some hands now jumped into a boat alongside, and pushed
a little off from the ship.  Ha!  ha!  cried Daggoo, all at once, from his
now quiet, swinging perch overhead; and looking further off from the side,
we saw an arm thrust upright from the blue waves; a sight strange to see, as
an arm thrust forth from the grass over a grave.  both!  both! --it is both!
--cried daggoo again with a joyful shout; and soon after, Queequeg was seen
boldly striking out with one hand, and with the other clutching the long hair
of the Indian.  Drawn into the waiting boat, they were quickly brought to
the deck; but Tashtego was long in coming to, and Queequeg did not look very
brisk.
.. <p 342 >
Now, how had this noble rescue been accomplished?  Why, diving after the
slowly descending head, Queequeg with his keen sword had made side lunges
near its bottom, so as to scuttle a large hole there; then dropping his
sword, had thrust his long arm far inwards and upwards, and so hauled out our

     poor Tash by the head.  He averred, that upon first thrusting in for him, a
leg was presented; but well knowing that that was not as it ought to be, and
might occasion great trouble; -- he had thrust back the leg, and by a
dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a somerset upon the Indian; so that
with the next trial, he came forth in the good old way --head foremost.  As
for the great head itself, that was doing as well as could be expected.  And
thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg, the
deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully accomplished,
in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently hopeless impediments;
which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten.  Midwifery should be taught in
the same course with fencing and boxing, riding and rowing.  I know that this
queer adventure of the Gay-Header's will be sure to seem incredible to some
landsmen, though they themselves may have either seen or heard of some one's
falling into a cistern ashore; an accident which not seldom happens, and
with much less reason too than the Indian's, considering the exceeding
slipperiness of the curb of the Sperm Whale's well.  But, peradventure, it may
be sagaciously urged, how is this?  We thought the tissued, infiltrated head
of the Sperm Whale, was the lightest and most corky part about him; and yet
thou makest it sink in an element of a far greater specific gravity than
itself.  We have thee there.  Not at all, but I have ye; for at the time
poor Tash fell in, the case had been nearly emptied of its lighter contents,
leaving little but the dense tendinous wall of the well --a double welded,
hammered substance, as I have before said, much heavier than the sea water,
and a lump of which sinks in it like lead almost.  But the tendency to rapid
sinking in this substance was in the present instance materially counteracted
by the other parts of the head remaining undetached from it, so that it sank
very slowly and deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fair chance for
performing his agile
.. <p 343 >
obstetrics on the run, as you may say.  Yes, it was a running delivery, so
it was.  Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious
perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant
spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber and
sanctum sanctorum of the whale.  Only one sweeter end can readily be recalled
--the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey in the crotch
of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that leaning too far
over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed.  How many, think ye,
have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head, and sweetly perished there?
.. <p 343 >
.. < chapter lxxix 14  THE PRAIRE >

     To scan the lines of his face, or feel
the bumps on the head of this Leviathan; this is a thing which no
Physiognomist or Phrenologist has as yet undertaken.  Such an enterprise would

     seem almost as hopeful as for Lavater to have scrutinized the wrinkles on the
Rock of Gibraltar, or for Gall to have mounted a ladder and manipulated the
Dome of the Pantheon.  Still, in that famous work of his, Lavater not only
treats of the various faces of men, but also attentively studies the faces of
horses, birds, serpents, and fish; and dwells in detail upon the
modifications of expression discernible therein.  Nor have Gall and his
disciple Spurzheim failed to throw out some hints touching the phrenological
characteristics of other beings than man.  Therefore, though I am but ill
qualified for a pioneer, in the application of these two semi-sciences to the
whale, I will do my endeavor.  I try all things; I achieve what I can.
Physiognomically regarded, the Sperm Whale is an anomalous creature.  He has
no proper nose.  And since the nose is the central and most conspicuous of the
features; and since it perhaps
.. <p 344 >
most modifies and finally controls their combined expression; hence it would
seem that its entire absence, as an external appendage, must very largely
affect the countenance of the whale.  For as in landscape gardening, a spire,
cupola, monument, or tower of some sort, is deemed almost indispensable to
the completion of the scene; so no face can be physiognomically in keeping
without the elevated open-work belfry of the nose.  Dash the nose from
Phidias's marble Jove, and what a sorry remainder!  Nevertheless, Leviathan
is of so mighty a magnitude, all his proportions are so stately, that the
same deficiency which in the sculptured Jove were hideous, in him is no
blemish at all.  Nay, it is an added grandeur.  A nose to the whale would have

     been impertinent.  As on your physiognomical voyage you sail round his vast
head in your jolly-boat, your noble conceptions of him are never insulted by
the reflection that he has a nose to be pulled.  A pestilent conceit, which
so often will insist upon obtruding even when beholding the mightiest royal
beadle on his throne.  In some particulars, perhaps, the most imposing
physiognomical view to be had of the Sperm Whale, is that of the full front
of his head.  This aspect is sublime.  In thought a fine human brow is like the
east when troubled with the morning.  in the repose of the pasture, the
curled brow of the bull has a touch of the grand in it.  Pushing heavy cannon
up mountain defiles, the elephant's brow is majestic.  Human or animal, the
mystical brow is as that great golden seal affixed by the German emperors to
their decrees.  It signifies God: done this day by my hand.  But in most
creatures, nay in man himself, very often the brow is but a mere strip of
alpine land lying along the snow line.  Few are the foreheads which like
Shakespeare's or Melancthon's rise so high, and descend so low, that the eyes
themselves seem clear, eternal, tideless mountain lakes; and all above them
in the forehead's wrinkles, you seem to track the antlered thoughts descending
there to drink, as the Highland hunters track the snow prints of the deer.
But in the great Sperm Whale, this high and mighty god-like dignity inherent
in the brow is so immensely amplified, that gazing on it, in that full front
view, you feel the Deity and the dread powers
.. <p 345 >
more forcibly than in beholding any other object in living nature.  For you see
no one point precisely; not one distinct feature is revealed; no nose, eyes,
ears, or mouth; no face; he has none, proper; nothing but that one broad
firmament of a forehead, pleated with riddles; dumbly lowering with the doom
of boats, and ships, and men.  Nor, in profile, does this wondrous brow
diminish; though that way viewed, its grandeur does not domineer upon you
so.  In profile, you plainly perceive that horizontal, semi-crescentic
depression in the forehead's middle, which, in man, is Lavater's mark of
genius.  But how?  Genius in the Sperm Whale?  Has the Sperm Whale ever
written a book, spoken a speech?  No, his great genius is declared in his
doing nothing particular to prove it.  It is moreover declared in his
pyramidical silence.  And this reminds me that had the great Sperm Whale been
known to the young Orient World, he would have been deified by their
child-magian thoughts.  they deified the crocodile of the nile, because the
crocodile is tongueless; and the Sperm Whale has no tongue, or as least it
is so exceedingly small, as to be incapable of protrusion.  If hereafter any
highly cultured, poetical nation shall lure back to their birth-right, the
merry May-day gods of old; and livingly enthrone them again in the now
egotistical sky; in the now unhaunted hill; then be sure, exalted to Jove's
high seat, the great Sperm Whale shall lord it.  Champollion deciphered the
wrinkled granite hieroglyphics.  But there is no Champollion to decipher the
Egypt of every man's and every being's face.  Physiognomy, like every other
human science, is but a passing fable.  If then, Sir William Jones, who
read in thirty languages, could not read the simplest peasant's face, in its
profounder and more subtle meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope to read
the awful Chaldee of the Sperm Whale's brow?  I but put that brow before you.
Read if it you can.
.. <p 346 >
.. < chapter lxxx 2  THE NUT >

     If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a
Sphinx, to the phrenologist his brain seems that geometrical circle which it
is impossible to square.  In the full-grown creature the skull will measure at
least twenty feet in length.  Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side view of
this skull is as the side view of a moderately inclined plane resting
throughout on a level base.  But in life --as we have elsewhere seen --this
inclined plane is angularly filled up, and almost squared by the enormous
superincumbent mass of the junk and sperm.  At the high end the skull forms a
crater to bed that part of the mass; while under the long floor of this
crater -- in another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length and as many
in depth --reposes the mere handful of this monster's brain.  The brain is at
least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden away
behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the amplified
fortifications of Quebec.  So like a choice casket is it secreted in him,
that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny that the Sperm Whale
has any other brain than that palpable semblance of one formed by the
cubic-yards of his sperm magazine.  Lying in strange folds, courses, and
convolutions, to their apprehensions, it seems more in keeping with the idea
of his general might to regard that mystic part of him as the seat of his
intelligence.  It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this
Leviathan, in the creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion.  As
for his true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any.
The whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common
world.  If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view
of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be
.. <p 347 >
struck by its resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation,
and from the same point of view.  Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled
down to the human magnitude) among a plate of men's skulls, and you would
involuntarily confound it with them; and remarking the depressions on one
part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say --This man had no
self-esteem, and no veneration.  And by those negations, considered along with
the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and power, you can best form to
yourself the truest, though not the most exhilarating conception of what the
most exalted potency is.  But if from the comparative dimensions of the
whale's proper brain, you deem it incapable of being adequately charted,
then I have another idea for you.  If you attentively regard almost any
quadruped's spine, you will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebrae
to a strung necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance
to the skull proper.  It is a German conceit, that the vertebrae are
absolutely undeveloped skulls.  But the curious external resemblance, I take
it the Germans were not the first men to perceive.  A foreign friend once
pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with the
vertebrae of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the beaked
prow of his canoe.  Now, I consider that the phrenologists have omitted an
important thing in not pushing their investigations from the cerebellum
through the spinal canal.  For I believe that much of a man's character will be
found betokened in his backbone.  I would rather feel your spine than your
skull, whoever you are.  A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and
noble soul.  I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that
flag which I fling half out to the world.  Apply this spinal branch of
phrenology to the Sperm Whale.  His cranial cavity is continuous with the first
neck-vertebra; and in that vertebra the bottom of the spinal canal will
measure ten inches across, being eight in height, and of a triangular
figure with the base downwards.  As it passes through the remaining vertebrae
the canal tapers in size, but for a considerable distance remains of large
capacity.  Now, of course, this
.. <p 348 >
canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substance -- the spinal
cord --as the brain; and directly communicates with the brain.  And what is
still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain's cavity, the spinal
cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost equal to that of the brain.
Under all these circumstances, would it be unreasonable to survey and map
out the whale's spine phrenologically?  For, viewed in this light, the
wonderful comparative smallness of his brain proper is more than compensated
by the wonderful comparative magnitude of his spinal cord.  But leaving this
hint to operate as it may with the phrenologists, I would merely assume the
spinal theory for a moment, in reference to the sperm whale's hump.  This
august hump, if I mistake not, rises over one of the larger vertebrae, and
is, therefore, in some sort, the outer convex mould of it.  From its relative
situation then, I should call this high hump the organ of firmness or
indomitableness in the Sperm Whale.  And that the great monster is
indomitable, you will yet have reason to know.
.. <p 348 >
.. < chapter lxxxi 21  THE PEQUOD MEETS THE VIRGIN >

     The predestinated day
arrived, and we duly met the ship Jungfrau, Derick De Deer, master, of
Bremen.  At one time the greatest whaling people in the world, the Dutch and
Germans are now among the least; but here and there at very wide intervals of
latitude and longitude, you still occasionally meet with their flag in the
Pacific.  For some reason, the Jungfrau seemed quite eager to pay her
respects.  While yet some distance from the Pequod, she rounded to, and
dropping a boat, her captain was impelled towards us, impatiently standing
in the bows instead of the stern.
.. <p 349 >

     What has he in his hand there?  cried Starbuck, pointing to something
wavingly held by the German.  Impossible! --a lamp-feeder!  Not that, said
Stubb, no, no, it's a coffee-pot, Mr. Starbuck; he's coming off to make
us our coffee, is the Yarman; don't you see that big tin can there alongside
of him? --that's his boiling water.  Oh!  he's all right, is the Yarman.  Go
along with you, cried Flask, it's a lamp-feeder and an oil-can.  He's out
of oil, and has come a-begging.  However curious it may seem for an oil-ship
to be borrowing oil on the whale-ground, and however much it may invertedly
contradict the old proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, yet sometimes
such a thing really happens; and in the present case Captain Derick De Deer
did indubitably conduct a lamp-feeder as Flask did declare.  As he mounted the
deck, ahab abruptly accosted him, without at all heeding what he had in his
hand; but in his broken lingo, the German soon evinced his complete
ignorance of the White Whale; immediately turning the conversation to his
lamp-feeder and oil can, with some remarks touching his having to turn into
his hammock at night in profound darkness --his last drop of Bremen oil being
gone, and not a single flying-fish yet captured to supply the deficiency;
concluding by hinting that his ship was indeed what in the Fishery is
technically called a clean one (that is, an empty one), well deserving the
name of Jungfrau or the Virgin.  His necessities supplied, Derick departed;
but he had not gained his ship's side, when whales were almost simultaneously

     raised from the mast-heads of both vessels; and so eager for the chase was
Derick, that without pausing to put his oil-can and lamp-feeder aboard, he
slewed round his boat and made after the leviathan lamp-feeders.  Now, the
game having risen to leeward, he and the other three German boats that soon
followed him, had considerably the start of the Pequod's keels.  There were
eight whales, an average pod.  Aware of their danger, they were going all
abreast with great speed straight before the wind, rubbing their flanks as
closely as so many spans of horses in harness.  They left a
.. <p 350 >
great, wide wake, as though continually unrolling a great wide parchment upon
the sea.  Full in this rapid wake, and many fathoms in the rear, swam a
huge, humped old bull, which by his comparatively slow progress, as well as
by the unusual yellowish incrustations overgrowing him, seemed afflicted
with the jaundice, or some other infirmity.  Whether this whale belonged to
the pod in advance, seemed questionable; for it is not customary for such
venerable leviathans to be at all social.  Nevertheless, he stuck to their
wake, though indeed their back water must have retarded him, because the
white-bone or swell at his broad muzzle was a dashed one, like the swell
formed when two hostile currents meet.  His spout was short, slow, and
laborious; coming forth with a choking sort of gush, and spending itself in
torn shreds, followed by strange subterranean commotions in him, which
seemed to have egress at his other buried extremity, causing the waters
behind him to upbubble.  Who's got some paregoric?  said Stubb, he has the
stomach-ache, I'm afraid.  Lord, think of having half an acre of stomach-ache!

     Adverse winds are holding mad Christmas in him, boys.  It's the first foul
wind I ever knew to blow from astern; but look, did ever whale yaw so
before?  it must be, he's lost his tiller.  As an overladen Indiaman bearing
down the Hindostan coast with a deck load of frightened horses, careens,
buries, rolls, and wallows on her way; so did this old whale heave his aged
bulk, and now and then partly turning over on his cumbrous rib-ends, expose
the cause of his devious wake in the unnatural stump of his starboard fin.
Whether he had lost that fin in battle, or had been born without it, it were
hard to say.  Only wait a bit, old chap, and I'll give ye a sling for that
wounded arm, cried cruel Flask, pointing to the whale-line near him.  Mind
he don't sling thee with it, cried Starbuck.  Give way, or the German will
have him.  With one intent all the combined rival boats were pointed for this
one fish, because not only was he the largest, and therefore the most
valuable whale, but he was nearest to them, and the other whales were going
with such great velocity, moreover,
.. <p 351 >
as almost to defy pursuit for the time.  At this juncture, the Pequod's keel
had shot by the three German boats last lowered; but from the great start he
had had, Derick's boat still led the chase, though every moment neared by
his foreign rivals.  The only thing they feared, was, that from being already
so nigh to his mark, he would be enabled to dart his iron before they could
completely overtake and pass him.  as for derick, he seemed quite confident
that this would be the case, and occasionally with a deriding gesture shook
his lamp-feeder at the other boats.  The ungracious and ungrateful dog!
cried Starbuck; he mocks and dares me with the very poor-box I filled for
him not five minutes ago! --then in his old intense whisper -- give way,
greyhounds!  Dog to it!  I tell ye what it is, men --cried Stubb to his crew
-- It's against my religion to get mad; but I'd like to eat that villanous
Yarman --Pull--won't ye?  Are ye going to let that rascal beat ye?  Do ye love
brandy?  A hogshead of brandy, then, to the best man.  Come, why don't some of
ye burst a blood-vessel?  Who's that been dropping an anchor overboard --we
don't budge an inch --we're becalmed.  Halloo, here's grass growing in the
boat's bottom --and by the Lord, the mast there's budding.  This won't do,
boys.  Look at that Yarman!  The short and long of it is, men, will ye spit
fire or not?  Oh!  see the suds he makes!  cried Flask, dancing up and down
-- What a hump --Oh, do pile on the beef --lays like a log!  Oh!  my lads, do
spring --slap-jacks and quohogs for supper, you know, my lads --baked clams and
muffins --oh, do, do spring --he's a hundred barreler --don't lose him now
--don't oh, don't! -- see that Yarman --Oh!  won't ye pull for your duff, my
lads --such a sog!  such a sogger!  Don't ye love sperm?  There goes three
thousand dollars, men! --a bank! --a whole bank!  The bank of England! --Oh, do,

     do, do! --What's that Yarman about now?  At this moment Derick was in the act
of pitching his lamp-feeder at the advancing boats, and also his oil-can;
perhaps with the double view of retarding his rivals' way, and at the same
time economically accelerating his own by the momentary impetus of the
backward toss.  The unmannerly Dutch dogger!  cried Stubb.  Pull now,
.. <p 352 >
men, like fifty thousand line-of-battle-ship loads of red-haired devils.  What
d'ye say, Tashtego; are you the man to snap your spine in two-and-twenty
pieces for the honor of old Gay-head?  What d'ye say?  I say, pull like
god-dam, --cried the Indian.  Fiercely, but evenly incited by the taunts of
the German, the Pequod's three boats now began ranging almost abreast; and,
so disposed, momentarily neared him.  In that fine, loose, chivalrous attitude
of the headsman when drawing near to his prey, the three mates stood up
proudly, occasionally backing the after oarsman with an exhilarating cry of,

     There she slides, now!  Hurrah for the white-ash breeze!  Down with the
Yarman!  Sail over him!  But so decided an original start had Derick had,
that spite of all their gallantry, he would have proved the victor in this
race, had not a righteous judgment descended upon him in a crab which caught
the blade of his midship oarsman.  While this clumsy lubber was striving to
free his white-ash, and while, in consequence, Derick's boat was nigh to
capsizing, and he thundering away at his men in a mighty rage; --that was a
good time for Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask.  With a shout, they took a mortal
start forwards, and slantingly ranged up on the German's quarter.  An instant
more, and all four boats were diagonically in the whale's immediate wake,
while stretching from them, on both sides, was the foaming swell that he made.

     It was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight.  The whale was now
going head out, and sending his spout before him in a continual tormented
jet; while his one poor fin beat his side in an agony of fright.  Now to this
hand, now to that, he yawed in his faltering flight, and still at every
billow that he broke, he spasmodically sank in the sea, or sideways rolled
towards the sky his one beating fin.  So have I seen a bird with clipped wing,

     making affrighted broken circles in the air, vainly striving to escape the
piratical hawks.  But the bird has a voice, and with plaintive cries will make
known her fear; but the fear of this vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained
up and enchanted in him; he had no voice, save that choking respiration
through his spiracle, and this made the sight of him unspeakably
.. <p 353 >
pitiable; while still, in his amazing bulk, portcullis jaw, and omnipotent
tail, there was enough to appal the stoutest man who so pitied.  Seeing now
that but a very few moments more would give the Pequod's boats the advantage,
and rather than be thus foiled of his game, Derick chose to hazard what to
him must have seemed a most unusually long dart, ere the last chance would
for ever escape.  But no sooner did his harpooneer stand up for the stroke,
than all three tigers --Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo -- instinctively sprang to
their feet, and standing in a diagonal row, simultaneously pointed their
barbs; and darted over the head of the German harpooneer, their three
Nantucket irons entered the whale.  Blinding vapors of foam and white-fire!
The three boats, in the first fury of the whale's headlong rush, bumped the
German's aside with such force, that both Derick and his baffled harpooneer
were spilled out, and sailed over by the three flying keels.  Don't be
afraid, my butter-boxes, cried Stubb, casting a passing glance upon them as
he shot by; ye'll be picked up presently --all right --I saw some sharks
astern --St. Bernard's dogs, you know --relieve distressed travellers.
Hurrah!  this is the way to sail now.  Every keel a sun-beam!  Hurrah! --Here
we go like three tin kettles at the tail of a mad cougar!  This puts me in
mind of fastening to an elephant in a tilbury on a plain --makes the
wheel-spokes fly, boys, when you fasten to him that way; and there's danger of
being pitched out too, when you strike a hill.  Hurrah!  this is the way a
fellow feels when he's going to Davy Jones --all a rush down an endless
inclined plane!  Hurrah!  this whale carries the everlasting mail!  But the
monster's run was a brief one.  Giving a sudden gasp, he tumultuously sounded.

     With a grating rush, the three lines flew round the loggerheads with such a
force as to gouge deep grooves in them; while so fearful were the
harpooneers that this rapid sounding would soon exhaust the lines, that using
all their dexterous might, they caught repeated smoking turns with the rope
to hold on; till at last --owing to the perpendicular strain from the
lead-lined chocks of the boats, whence the three
.. <p 354 >
ropes went straight down into the blue --the gunwales of the bows were almost
even with the water, while the three sterns tilted high in the air.  And the
whale soon ceasing to sound, for some time they remained in that attitude,
fearful of expending more line, though the position was a little ticklish.
But though boats have been taken down and lost in this way, yet it is this

     holding on, as it is called; this hooking up by the sharp barbs of his live
flesh from the back; this it is that often torments the Leviathan into soon
rising again to meet the sharp lance of his foes.  Yet not to speak of the
peril of the thing, it is to be doubted whether this course is always the
best; for it is but reasonable to presume, that the longer the stricken
whale stays under water, the more he is exhausted.  Because, owing to the
enormous surface of him --in a full grown sperm whale something less than

square feet --the pressure of the water is immense.  We all know what an
astonishing atmospheric weight we ourselves stand up under; even here,
above-ground, in the air; how vast, then, the burden of a whale, bearing on
his back a column of two hundred fathoms of ocean!  It must at least equal the
weight of fifty atmospheres.  One whaleman has estimated it at the weight of
twenty line-of-battle ships, with all their guns, and stores, and men on
board.  As the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing down
into its eternal blue noon; and as not a single groan or cry of any sort,
nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came up from its depths; what
landsman would have thought, that beneath all that silence and placidity, the
utmost monster of the seas was writhing and wrenching in agony!  Not eight
inches of perpendicular rope were visible at the bows.  Seems it credible
that by three such thin threads the great Leviathan was suspended like the big
weight to an eight day clock.  Suspended?  and to what?  To three bits of
board.  Is this the creature of whom it was once so triumphantly said -- Canst
thou fill his skin with barbed irons?  or his head with fish-spears?  The
sword of him that layeth at him cannot hold, the spear, the dart, nor the
habergeon: he esteemeth iron as straw; the arrow cannot make him flee;
darts are counted as stubble; he laugheth at the shaking of a spear!  This
the creature?  this he?  Oh!  that unfulfilments
.. <p 355 >
should follow the prophets.  For with the strength of a thousand thighs in his
tail, Leviathan had run his head under the mountains of the sea, to hide him
from the Pequod's fish-spears!  In that sloping afternoon sunlight, the
shadows that the three boats sent down beneath the surface, must have been
long enough and broad enough to shade half Xerxes' army.  Who can tell how
appalling to the wounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting over
his head!  Stand by, men; he stirs, cried Starbuck, as the three lines
suddenly vibrated in the water, distinctly conducting upwards to them, as by
magnetic wires, the life and death throbs of the whale, so that every oarsman
felt them in his seat.  The next moment, relieved in a great part from the
downward strain at the bows, the boats gave a sudden bounce upwards, as a
small ice-field will, when a dense herd of white bears are scared from it
into the sea.  Haul in!  Haul in!  cried Starbuck again; he's rising.  The
lines, of which, hardly an instant before, not one hand's breadth could have
been gained, were now in long quick coils flung back all dripping into the
boats, and soon the whale broke water within two ship's lengths of the
hunters.  His motions plainly denoted his extreme exhaustion.  In most land
animals there are certain valves or flood-gates in many of their veins,
whereby when wounded, the blood is in some degree at least instantly shut off
in certain directions.  Not so with the whale; one of whose peculiarities it
is, to have an entire nonvalvular structure of the blood-vessels, so that
when pierced even by so small a point as a harpoon, a deadly drain is at once
begun upon his whole arterial system; and when this is heightened by the
extraordinary pressure of water at a great distance below the surface, his
life may be said to pour from him in incessant streams.  Yet so vast is the
quantity of blood in him, and so distant and numerous its interior fountains,

     that he will keep thus bleeding and bleeding for a considerable period; even
as in a drought a river will flow, whose source is in the well-springs of
far-off and undiscernible hills.  Even now, when the boats pulled upon this
whale, and perilously drew over his swaying
.. <p 356 >
flukes, and the lances were darted into him, they were followed by steady
jets from the new made wound, which kept continually playing, while the
natural spout-hole in his head was only at intervals, however rapid, sending
its affrighted moisture into the air.  From this last vent no blood yet came,
because no vital part of him had thus far been struck.  His life, as they
significantly call it, was untouched.  As the boats now more closely
surrounded him, the whole upper part of his form, with much of it that is
ordinarily submerged, was plainly revealed.  His eyes, or rather the places
where his eyes had been, were beheld.  As strange misgrown masses gather in
the knot-holes of the noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which
the whale's eyes had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly
pitiable to see.  but pity there was none.  For all his old age, and his one
arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to
light the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate
the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all.
Still rolling in his blood, at last he partially disclosed a strangely
discolored bunch or protuberance, the size of a bushel, low down on the flank.

     A nice spot, cried Flask; just let me prick him there once.  Avast!
cried Starbuck, there's no need of that!  But humane Starbuck was too late.
At the instant of the dart an ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and
goaded by it into more than sufferable anguish, the whale now spouting thick
blood, with swift fury blindly darted at the craft, bespattering them and
their glorying crews all over with showers of gore, capsizing Flask's boat and
marring the bows.  It was his death stroke.  For, by this time, so spent was
he by loss of blood, that he helplessly rolled away from the wreck he had
made; lay panting on his side, impotently flapped with his stumped fin,
then over and over slowly revolved like a waning world; turned up the white
secrets of his belly; lay like a log, and died.  It was most piteous, that
last expiring spout.  As when by unseen hands the water is gradually drawn off
from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled melancholy gurglings the
spray-column lowers and lowers to the ground --so the last long dying spout
of the whale.
.. <p 357 >
Soon, while the crews were awaiting the arrival of the ship, the body showed
symptoms of sinking with all its treasures unrifled.  Immediately, by
Starbuck's orders, lines were secured to it at different points, so that ere
long every boat was a buoy; the sunken whale being suspended a few inches
beneath them by the cords.  By very heedful management, when the ship drew
nigh, the whale was transferred to her side, and was strongly secured there
by the stiffest fluke-chains, for it was plain that unless artificially
upheld, the body would at once sink to the bottom.  It so chanced that almost
upon first cutting into him with the spade, the entire length of a corroded
harpoon was found imbedded in his flesh, on the lower part of the bunch
before described.  But as the stumps of harpoons are frequently found in the
dead bodies of captured whales, with the flesh perfectly healed around them,
and no prominence of any kind to denote their place; therefore, there must
needs have been some other unknown reason in the present case fully to account
for the ulceration alluded to.  But still more curious was the fact of a
lance-head of stone being found in him, not far from the buried iron, the
flesh perfectly firm about it.  Who had darted that stone lance?  And when?
It might have been darted by some Nor' West Indian long before America was
discovered.  What other marvels might have been rummaged out of this monstrous
cabinet there is no telling.  But a sudden stop was put to further
discoveries, by the ship's being unprecedentedly dragged over sideways to the
sea, owing to the body's immensely increasing tendency to sink.  However,
Starbuck, who had the ordering of affairs, hung on to it to the last; hung
on to it so resolutely, indeed, that when at length the ship would have been
capsized, if still persisting in locking arms with the body; then, when the
command was given to break clear from it, such was the immovable strain upon
the timber-heads to which the fluke-chains and cables were fastened, that it
was impossible to cast them off.  Meantime everything in the Pequod was
aslant.  To cross to the other side of the deck was like walking up the steep
gabled roof of a house.  The ship groaned and gasped.  Many of the ivory
inlayings of her bulwarks and cabins were started from their places, by the
unnatural dislocation.  In
.. <p 358 >
vain handspikes and crows were brought to bear upon the immovable
fluke-chains, to pry them adrift from the timber-heads; and so low had the
whale now settled that the submerged ends could not be at all approached,
while every moment whole tons of ponderosity seemed added to the sinking bulk,

     and the ship seemed on the point of going over.  Hold on, hold on, won't
ye?  cried Stubb to the body, don't be in such a devil of a hurry to sink!
By thunder, men, we must do something or go for it.  No use prying there;
avast, I say with your handspikes, and run one of ye for a prayer book and a
pen-knife, and cut the big chains.  Knife?  Aye, aye, cried Queequeg, and
seizing the carpenter's heavy hatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and
steel to iron, began slashing at the largest fluke-chains.  But a few strokes,

     full of sparks, were given, when the exceeding strain effected the rest.
With a terrific snap, every fastening went adrift; the ship righted, the
carcase sank.  Now, this occasional inevitable sinking of the recently killed
Sperm Whale is a very curious thing; nor has any fisherman yet adequately
accounted for it.  Usually the dead Sperm Whale floats with great buoyancy,
with its side or belly considerably elevated above the surface.  If the only
whales that thus sank were old, meagre, and broken-hearted creatures, their
pads of lard diminished and all their bones heavy and rheumatic; then you
might with some reason assert that this sinking is caused by an uncommon
specific gravity in the fish so sinking, consequent upon this absence of
buoyant matter in him.  But it is not so.  For young whales, in the highest
health, and swelling with noble aspirations, prematurely cut off in the warm
flush and May of life, with all their panting lard about them; even these
brawny, buoyant heroes do sometimes sink.  Be it said, however, that the Sperm
Whale is far less liable to this accident than any other species.  Where one
of that sort go down, twenty Right Whales do.  This difference in the
species is no doubt imputable in no small degree to the greater quantity of
bone in the Right Whale; his Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing more
than a ton; from this incumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free.  But there
are instances where,
.. <p 359 >
after the lapse of many hours or several days, the sunken whale again rises,
more buoyant than in life.  But the reason of this is obvious.  Gases are
generated in him; he swells to a prodigious magnitude; becomes a sort of
animal balloon.  A line-of-battle ship could hardly keep him under then.  In
the Shore Whaling, on soundings, among the Bays of New Zealand, when a Right

     Whale gives token of sinking, they fasten buoys to him, with plenty of
rope; so that when the body has gone down, they know where to look for it
when it shall have ascended again.  It was not long after the sinking of the
body that a cry was heard from the Pequod's mast-heads, announcing that the
Jungfrau was again lowering her boats; though the only spout in sight was
that of a Fin-Back, belonging to the species of uncapturable whales,
because of its incredible power of swimming.  Nevertheless, the Fin-Back's
spout is so similar to the Sperm Whale's, that by unskilful fishermen it is
often mistaken for it.  And consequently Derick and all his host were now in
valiant chase of this unnearable brute.  The Virgin crowding all sail, made
after her four young keels, and thus they all disappeared far to leeward,
still in bold, hopeful chase.  Oh!  many are the Fin-Backs, and many are the
Dericks, my friend.
.. <p 359 >
.. < chapter lxxxii 24  THE HONOR AND GLORY OF WHALING >

     There are some
enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.  The more I
dive into this matter of whaling, and push my researches up to the very
spring-head of it, so much the more am I impressed with its great
honorableness and antiquity; and especially when I find so many great
demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other have shed
distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection that I myself
.. <p 360 >
belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a fraternity.  The gallant
Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman; and to the eternal honor of
our calling be it said, that the first whale attacked by our brotherhood was
not killed with any sordid intent.  Those were the knightly days of our
profession, when we only bore arms to succor the distressed, and not to fill
men's lamp-feeders.  Every one knows the fine story of Perseus and Andromeda;
how the lovely Andromeda, the daughter of a king, was tied to a rock on the
sea-coast, and as Leviathan was in the very act of carrying her off,
Perseus, the prince of whalemen, intrepidly advancing, harpooned the monster,
and delivered and married the maid.  It was an admirable artistic exploit,
rarely achieved by the best harpooneers of the present day; inasmuch as this
Leviathan was slain at the very first dart.  And let no man doubt this Arkite
story; for in the ancient Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Syrian coast, in one of
the Pagan temples, there stood for many ages the vast skeleton of a whale,
which the city's legends and all the inhabitants asserted to be the identical
bones of the monster that Perseus slew.  When the Romans took Joppa, the same
skeleton was carried to Italy in triumph.  What seems most singular and
suggestively important in this story, is this: it was from Joppa that Jonah
set sail.  Akin to the adventure of Perseus and Andromeda --indeed, by some
supposed to be indirectly derived from it --is that famous story of St.  George
and the Dragon; which dragon I maintain to have been a whale; for in many
old chronicles whales and dragons are strangely jumbled together, and often
stand for each other.  Thou art as a lion of the waters, and as a dragon of
the sea, saith ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale; in truth, some
versions of the Bible use that word itself.  Besides, it would much subtract
from the glory of the exploit had St.  George but encountered a crawling
reptile of the land, instead of doing battle with the great monster of the
deep.  Any man may kill a snake, but only a Perseus, a St.  George, a Coffin,
have the heart in them to march boldly up to a whale.  Let not the modern
paintings of this scene mislead us; for though the creature encountered by
that valiant whaleman of old is vaguely represented of a griffin-like shape,
and though
.. <p 361 >
the battle is depicted on land and the saint on horseback, yet considering
the great ignorance of those times, when the true form of the whale was
unknown to artists; and considering that as in Perseus' case, St.  George's
whale might have crawled up out of the sea on the beach; and considering that
the animal ridden by St.  George might have been only a large seal, or
sea-horse; bearing all this in mind, it will not appear altogether
incompatible with the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene,

     to hold this so-called dragon no other than the great Leviathan himself.  In
fact, placed before the strict and piercing truth, this whole story will
fare like that fish, flesh, and fowl idol of the Philistines, Dagon by name;
who being planted before the ark of Israel, his horse's head and both the
palms of his hands fell off from him, and only the stump or fishy part of him
remained.  Thus, then, one of our own noble stamp, even a whaleman, is the
tutelary guardian of England; and by good rights, we harpooneers of Nantucket
should be enrolled in the most noble order of St.  George.  And therefore, let
not the knights of that honorable company (none of whom, I venture to say,
have ever had to do with a whale like their great patron), let them never eye
a Nantucketer with disdain, since even in our woollen frocks and tarred
trowsers we are much better entitled to st.  george's decoration than they.
Whether to admit Hercules among us or not, concerning this I long remained
dubious: for though according to the Greek mythologies, that antique
Crockett and Kit Carson --that brawny doer of rejoicing good deeds, was
swallowed down and thrown up by a whale; still, whether that strictly makes a
whaleman of him, that might be mooted.  It nowhere appears that he ever
actually harpooned his fish, unless, indeed, from the inside.  Nevertheless,
he may be deemed a sort of involuntary whaleman; at any rate the whale caught
him, if he did not the whale.  I claim him for one of our clan.  But, by the
best contradictory authorities, this Grecian story of Hercules and the whale
is considered to be derived from the still more ancient Hebrew story of Jonah
and the whale; and vice versa; certainly they are very similar.  If I claim
the demigod then, why not the prophet?
.. <p 362 >
Nor do heroes, saints, demigods, and prophets alone comprise the whole roll of
our order.  Our grand master is still to be named; for like royal kings of
old times, we find the headwaters of our fraternity in nothing short of the
great gods themselves.  That wondrous oriental story is now to be rehearsed
from the Shaster, which gives us the dread Vishnoo, one of the three persons
in the godhead of the Hindoos; gives us this divine Vishnoo himself for our
Lord; --Vishnoo, who, by the first of his ten earthly incarnations, has for
ever set apart and sanctified the whale.  When Brahma, or the God of Gods,
saith the Shaster, resolved to recreate the world after one of its
periodical dissolutions, he gave birth to Vishnoo, to preside over the work;

     but the Vedas, or mystical books, whose perusal would seem to have been
indispensable to Vishnoo before beginning the creation, and which therefore
must have contained something in the shape of practical hints to young
architects, these Vedas were lying at the bottom of the waters; so Vishnoo
became incarnate in a whale, and sounding down in him to the uttermost
depths, rescued the sacred volumes.  Was not this Vishnoo a whaleman, then?
even as a man who rides a horse is called a horseman?  Perseus, St.  George,
Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnoo!  there's a member-roll for you!  What club but
the whaleman's can head off like that?
.. <p 362 >
.. < chapter lxxxiii 26  JONAH HISTORICALLY REGARDED >

     Reference was made to
the historical story of Jonah and the whale in the preceding chapter.  Now
some Nantucketers rather distrust this historical story of Jonah and the
whale.  But then there were some sceptical Greeks and Romans, who, standing
out from the orthodox pagans of their times, equally doubted the story of
Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the dolphin;
.. <p 363 >
and yet their doubting those traditions did not make those traditions one
whit the less facts, for all that.  One old Sag-Harbor whaleman's chief reason
for questioning the Hebrew story was this: --He had one of those quaint
old-fashioned Bibles, embellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of
which represented Jonah's whale with two spouts in his head --a peculiarity
only true with respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale, and
the varieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen have this saying,

     A penny roll would choke him; his swallow is so very small.  But, to this,

     Bishop Jebb's anticipative answer is ready.  It is not necessary, hints the
Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the whale's belly, but as
temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth.  And this seems reasonable
enough in the good Bishop.  For truly, the Right Whale's mouth would
accommodate a couple of whist tables, and comfortably seat all the players.
Possibly, too, Jonah might have ensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on
second thoughts, the Right Whale is toothless.  Another reason which
Sag-Harbor (he went by that name) urged for his want of faith in this matter
of the prophet, was something obscurely in reference to his incarcerated body
and the whale's gastric juices.  But this objection likewise falls to the
ground, because a German exegetist supposes that Jonah must have taken refuge
in the floating body of a dead whale -- even as the French soldiers in the
Russian campaign turned their dead horses into tents, and crawled into them.
Besides, it has been divined by other continental commentators, that when
Jonah was thrown overboard from the Joppa ship, he straightway effected his
escape to another vessel near by, some vessel with a whale for a figure-head;

     and, I would add, possibly called The Whale, as some craft are nowadays
christened the Shark, the Gull, the Eagle.  Nor have there been wanting
learned exegetists who have opined that the whale mentioned in the book of
Jonah merely meant a life-preserver --an inflated bag of wind --which the
endangered prophet swam to, and so was saved from a watery doom.  Poor
Sag-Harbor, therefore, seems worsted all round.  But he had still another
reason for his want of faith.  It was this, if I remember right: Jonah was
.. <p 364 >
swallowed by the whale in the Mediterranean Sea, and after three days he was
vomited up somewhere within three days' journey of Nineveh, a city on the
Tigris, very much more than three days' journey across from the nearest point
of the Mediterranean coast.  How is that?  But was there no other way for the
whale to land the prophet within that short distance of Nineveh?  Yes.  He
might have carried him round by the way of the Cape of Good Hope.  But not to
speak of the passage through the whole length of the Mediterranean, and
another passage up the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, such a supposition would
involve the complete circumnavigation of all Africa in three days, not to
speak of the Tigris waters, near the site of Nineveh, being too shallow for
any whale to swim in.  Besides, this idea of Jonah's weathering the Cape of
Good Hope at so early a day would wrest the honor of the discovery of that
great headland from Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and so make
modern history a liar.  But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only
evinced his foolish pride of reason --a thing still more reprehensible in
him, seeing that he had but little learning except what he had picked up from
the sun and the sea.  I say it only shows his foolish, impious pride, and
abominable, devilish rebellion against the reverend clergy.  For by a
Portuguese Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah's going to Nineveh via
the Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification of the general
miracle.  And so it was.  Besides, to this day, the highly enlightened Turks
devoutly believe in the historical story of Jonah.  And some three centuries
ago, an English traveller in old Harris's Voyages, speaks of a Turkish
Mosque built in honor of Jonah, in which mosque was a miraculous lamp that
burnt without any oil.
.. <p 365 >
.. < chapter lxxxiv 2  PITCHPOLING >

     To make them run easily and swiftly,
the axles of carriages are anointed; and for much the same purpose, some
whalers perform an analogous operation upon their boat; they grease the
bottom.  Nor is it to be doubted that as such a procedure can do no harm, it
may possibly be of no contemptible advantage; considering that oil and water
are hostile; that oil is a sliding thing, and that the object in view is to
make the boat slide bravely.  Queequeg believed strongly in anointing his
boat, and one morning not long after the German ship Jungfrau disappeared,
took more than customary pains in that occupation; crawling under its bottom,
where it hung over the side, and rubbing in the unctuousness as though
diligently seeking to insure a crop of hair from the craft's bald keel.  He
seemed to be working in obedience to some particular presentiment.  Nor did
it remain unwarranted by the event.  Towards noon whales were raised; but so
soon as the ship sailed down to them, they turned and fled with swift
precipitancy; a disordered flight, as of Cleopatra's barges from Actium.
Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb's was foremost.  By great exertion,
Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron; but the stricken whale,
without at all sounding, still continued his horizontal flight, with added
fleetness.  Such unintermitted strainings upon the planted iron must sooner or
later inevitably extract it.  It became imperative to lance the flying whale,

     or be content to lose him.  But to haul the boat up to his flank was
impossible, he swam so fast and furious.  What then remained?  Of all the
wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of hand and countless
subtleties, to which the veteran whaleman is so often forced, none exceed
that fine manoeuvre with the lance called pitchpoling.  Small sword, or broad
sword, in all its
.. <p 366 >
exercises boasts nothing like it.  It is only indispensable with an inveterate
running whale; its grand fact and feature is the wonderful distance to which
the long lance is accurately darted from a violently rocking, jerking boat,
under extreme headway.  Steel and wood included, the entire spear is some ten
or twelve feet in length; the staff is much slighter than that of the
harpoon, and also of a lighter material--pine.  It is furnished with a small
rope called a warp, of considerable length, by which it can be hauled back to
the hand after darting.  But before going further, it is important to mention
here, that though the harpoon may be pitchpoled in the same way with the
lance, yet it is seldom done; and when done, is still less frequently
successful, on account of the greater weight and inferior length of the
harpoon as compared with the lance, which in effect become serious drawbacks.
As a general thing, therefore, you must first get fast to a whale, before any
pitchpoling comes into play.  Look now at Stubb; a man who from his humorous,
deliberate coolness and equanimity in the direst emergencies, was specially
qualified to excel in pitchpoling.  Look at him; he stands upright in the
tossed bow of the flying boat; wrapt in fleecy foam, the towing whale is
forty feet ahead.  Handling the long lance lightly, glancing twice or thrice
along its length to see if it be exactly straight, Stubb whistlingly gathers
up the coil of the warp in one hand, so as to secure its free end in his
grasp, leaving the rest unobstructed.  Then holding the lance full before
his waistband's middle, he levels it at the whale; when, covering him with
it, he steadily depresses the butt-end in his hand, thereby elevating the
point till the weapon stands fairly balanced upon his palm, fifteen feet in
the air.  He minds you somewhat of a juggler, balancing a long staff on his
chin.  Next moment with a rapid, nameless impulse, in a superb lofty arch the
bright steel spans the foaming distance, and quivers in the life spot of the
whale.  Instead of sparkling water, he now spouts red blood.  That drove the
spigot out of him!  cries Stubb. 'Tis July's immortal Fourth; all fountains
must run wine to-day!  Would now, it were old Orleans whiskey, or old Ohio,
or unspeakable
.. <p 367 >
old Monongahela!  Then, Tashtego, lad, I'd have ye hold a canakin to the jet,
and we'd drink round it!  Yea, verily, hearts alive, we'd brew choice punch
in the spread of his spout-hole there, and from that live punch-bowl quaff
the living stuff!  Again and again to such gamesome talk, the dexterous dart
is repeated, the spear returning to its master like a greyhound held in
skilful leash.  The agonized whale goes into his flurry; the tow-line is
slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds his hands, and mutely
watches the monster die.
.. <p 367 >
.. < chapter lxxxv 11  THE FOUNTAIN >

     That for six thousand years --and no one
knows how many millions of ages before --the great whales should have been
spouting all over the sea, and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the
deep, as with so many sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some
centuries back, thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain
of the whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings --that all this should
be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter
minutes past one o'clock P. M.  of this sixteenth day of December, A. D.
),
it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings are, after all,
really water, or nothing but vapor --this is surely a noteworthy thing.  Let
us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items contingent.
Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their gills, the finny tribes
in general breathe the air which at all times is combined with the element in
which they swim, hence, a herring or a cod might live a century, and never
once raise its head above the surface.  But owing to his marked internal
structure which gives him regular lungs, like a human being's, the whale can
only live by inhaling the disengaged air in the open atmosphere.  Wherefore
the necessity
.. <p 368 >
for his periodical visits to the upper world.  But he cannot in any degree
breathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary attitude, the Sperm Whale's
mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath the surface; and what is still
more, his windpipe has no connexion with his mouth.  No, he breathes through
his spiracle alone; and this is on the top of his head.  If I say, that in
any creature breathing is only a function indispensable to vitality, inasmuch
as it withdraws from the air a certain element, which being subsequently
brought into contact with the blood imparts to the blood its vivifying
principle, I do not think I shall err; though I may possibly use some
superfluous scientific words.  Assume it, and it follows that if all the
blood in a man could be aerated with one breath, he might then seal up his
nostrils and not fetch another for a considerable time.  That is to say, he
would then live without breathing.  Anomalous as it may seem, this is
precisely the case with the whale, who systematically lives, by intervals,
his full hour and more (when at the bottom) without drawing a single
breath, or so much as in any way inhaling a particle of air; for, remember,
he has no gills.  How is this?  Between his ribs and on each side of his spine
he is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth of vermicelli-like
vessels, which vessels, when he quits the surface, are completely distended
with oxygenated blood.  So that for an hour or more, a thousand fathoms in the
sea, he carries a surplus stock of vitality in him, just as the camel
crossing the waterless desert carries a surplus supply of drink for future use
in its four supplementary stomachs.  The anatomical fact of this labyrinth
is indisputable; and that the supposition founded upon it is reasonable and
true, seems the more cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise inexplicable
obstinacy of that leviathan in having his spoutings out, as the fishermen
phrase it.  This is what I mean.  If unmolested, upon rising to the surface,
the Sperm Whale will continue there for a period of time exactly uniform with
all his other unmolested risings.  Say he stays eleven minutes, and jets
seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths; then whenever he rises
again, he will be sure to have his seventy breaths over again, to a minute.
Now, if after he fetches a few

.. <p 369 >
breaths you alarm him, so that he sounds, he will be always dodging up again
to make good his regular allowance of air.  And not till those seventy breaths
are told, will he finally go down to stay out his full term below.  Remark,
however, that in different individuals these rates are different; but in any
one they are alike.  Now, why should the whale thus insist upon having his
spoutings out, unless it be to replenish his reservoir of air, ere
descending for good?  How obvious is it, too, that this necessity for the
whale's rising exposes him to all the fatal hazards of the chase.  For not by
hook or by net could this vast leviathan be caught, when sailing a thousand
fathoms beneath the sunlight.  Not so much thy skill, then, O hunter, as the
great necessities that strike the victory to thee!  In man, breathing is
incessantly going on --one breath only serving for two or three pulsations; so
that whatever other business he has to attend to, waking or sleeping,
breathe he must, or die he will.  But the Sperm Whale only breathes about one
seventh or Sunday of his time.  It has been said that the whale only breathes
through his spout-hole; if it could truthfully be added that his spouts are
mixed with water, then I opine we should be furnished with the reason why his
sense of smell seems obliterated in him; for the only thing about him that at
all answers to his nose is that identical spout-hole; and being so clogged
with two elements, it could not be expected to have the power of smelling.
But owing to the mystery of the spout --whether it be water or whether it be
vapor --no absolute certainty can as yet be arrived at on this head.  Sure it
is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale has no proper olfactories.  But what
does he want of them?  No roses, no violets, no Cologne-water in the sea.
Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his spouting canal,

     and as that long canal --like the grand Erie Canal --is furnished with a sort
of locks (that open and shut) for the downward retention of air or the
upward exclusion of water, therefore the whale has no voice; unless you
insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, he talks through
his nose.  But then again, what has the whale to say?  Seldom have I known
any profound being that had anything to say to this
.. <p 370 >
world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a living.
Oh!  happy that the world is such an excellent listener!  Now, the spouting
canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as it is for the conveyance of air,

     and for several feet laid along, horizontally, just beneath the upper
surface of his head, and a little to one side; this curious canal is very
much like a gas-pipe laid down in a city on one side of a street.  But the
question returns whether this gas-pipe is also a water-pipe; in other words,

     whether the spout of the Sperm Whale is the mere vapor of the exhaled breath,

     or whether that exhaled breath is mixed with water taken in at the mouth,
and discharged through the spiracle.  It is certain that the mouth indirectly
communicates with the spouting canal; but it cannot be proved that this is
for the purpose of discharging water through the spiracle.  Because the
greatest necessity for so doing would seem to be, when in feeding he
accidentally takes in water.  But the Sperm Whale's food is far beneath the
surface, and there he cannot spout even if he would.  Besides, if you regard
him very closely, and time him with your watch, you will find that when
unmolested, there is an undeviating rhyme between the periods of his jets and
the ordinary periods of respiration.  But why pester one with all this
reasoning on the subject?  Speak out!  You have seen him spout; then declare
what the spout is; can you not tell water from air?  My dear sir, in this
world it is not so easy to settle these plain things.  I have ever found your
plain things the knottiest of all.  And as for this whale spout, you might
almost stand in it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely.  The
central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist enveloping it; and
how can you certainly tell whether any water falls from it, when, always,
when you are close enough to a whale to get a close view of his spout, he is
in a prodigious commotion, the water cascading all around him.  And if at
such times you should think that you really perceived drops of moisture in
the spout, how do you know that they are not merely condensed from its vapor;

     or how do you know that they are not those identical drops superficially
lodged in the spout-hole fissure, which is countersunk into the summit of the
whale's head?  For even when tranquilly swimming through the mid-day
.. <p 371 >
sea in a calm, with his elevated hump sun-dried as a dromedary's in the
desert; even then, the whale always carries a small basin of water on his
head, as under a blazing sun you will sometimes see a cavity in a rock filled
up with rain.  Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious
touching the precise nature of the whale spout.  It will not do for him to be
peering into it, and putting his face in it.  You cannot go with your pitcher
to this fountain and fill it, and bring it away.  For even when coming into
slight contact with the outer, vapory shreds of the jet, which will often
happen, your skin will feverishly smart, from the acridness of the thing so
touching it.  And I know one, who coming into still closer contact with the
spout, whether with some scientific object in view, or otherwise, I cannot
say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm.  Wherefore, among whalemen,
the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to evade it.  Another thing; I have
heard it said, and I do not much doubt it, that if the jet is fairly spouted
into your eyes, it will blind you.  The wisest thing the investigator can do
then, it seems to me, is to let this deadly spout alone.  Still, we can
hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and establish.  My hypothesis is this:
that the spout is nothing but mist.  And besides other reasons, to this
conclusion I am impelled, by considerations touching the great inherent
dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale; I account him no common, shallow
being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed fact that he is never found on
soundings, or near shores; all other whales sometimes are.  He is both
ponderous and profound.  And I am convinced that from the heads of all
ponderous profound beings, such as Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante,
and so on, there always goes up a certain semi-visible steam, while in the
act of thinking deep thoughts.  While composing a little treatise on Eternity,

     I had the curiosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected
there, a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over my
head.  The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep thought,
after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an August noon; this
seems an additional argument for the above supposition.  And how nobly it
raises our conceit of the mighty, misty
.. <p 372 >
monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his
vast, mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his
incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor --as you will sometimes see it
--glorified by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his
thoughts.  For, d'ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only
irradiate vapor.  And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my
mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a
heavenly ray.  And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny;
but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions.  Doubts of all
things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination
makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both
with equal eye.
.. <p 372 >
.. < chapter lxxxvi 16  THE TAIL >

     Other poets have warbled the praises of
the soft eye of the antelope, and the lovely plumage of the bird that never
alights; less celestial, I celebrate a tail.  Reckoning the largest sized
Sperm Whale's tail to begin at that point of the trunk where it tapers to
about the girth of a man, it comprises upon its upper surface alone, an area
of at least fifty square feet.  The compact round body of its root expands
into two broad, firm, flat palms or flukes, gradually shoaling away to less
than an inch in thickness.  At the crotch or junction, these flukes slightly
overlap, then sideways recede from each other like wings, leaving a wide
vacancy between.  In no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely
defined than in the crescentic borders of these flukes.  At its utmost
expansion in the full grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed twenty
feet across.  The entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded
.. <p 373 >
sinews; but cut into it, and you find that three distinct strata compose it:
--upper, middle, and lower.  The fibres in the upper and lower layers, are long
and horizontal; those of the middle one, very short, and running crosswise
between the outside layers.  This triune structure, as much as anything else,
imparts power to the tail.  To the student of old Roman walls, the middle
layer will furnish a curious parallel to the thin course of tiles always
alternating with the stone in those wonderful relics of the antique, and
which undoubtedly contribute so much to the great strength of the masonry.
But as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not enough, the
whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp and woof of muscular
fibres and filaments, which passing on either side the loins and running down
into the flukes, insensibly blend with them, and largely contribute to their
might; so that in the tail the confluent measureless force of the whole
whale seems concentrated to a point.  Could annihilation occur to matter, this
were the thing to do it.  Nor does this --its amazing strength, at all tend to
cripple the graceful flexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease
undulates through a Titanism of power.  On the contrary, those motions derive
their most appalling beauty from it.  Real strength never impairs beauty or
harmony, but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly beautiful,
strength has much to do with the magic.  Take away the tied tendons that all
over seem bursting from the marble in the carved Hercules, and its charm
would be gone.  As devout Eckerman lifted the linen sheet from the naked
corpse of Goethe, he was overwhelmed with the massive chest of the man, that
seemed as a Roman triumphal arch.  When Angelo paints even God the Father in
human form, mark what robustness is there.  And whatever they may reveal of
the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled, hermaphroditical Italian
pictures, in which his idea has been most successfully embodied; these
pictures, so destitute as they are of all brawniness, hint nothing of any
power, but the mere negative, feminine one of submission and endurance,
which on all hands it is conceded, form the peculiar practical virtues of his
teachings.  Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that
.. <p 374 >
whether wielded in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever be the mood it
be in, its flexions are invariably marked by exceeding grace.  Therein no
fairy's arm can transcend it.  Five great motions are peculiar to it.  First,
when used as a fin for progression; Second, when used as a mace in battle;
Third, in sweeping; Fourth, in lobtailing; Fifth, in peaking flukes.  First:

     Being horizontal in its position, the Leviathan's tail acts in a different
manner from the tails of all other sea creatures.  It never wriggles.  In man
or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority.  To the whale, his tail is the
sole means of propulsion.  Scroll-wise coiled forwards beneath the body, and
then rapidly sprung backwards, it is this which gives that singular darting,
leaping motion to the monster when furiously swimming.  His side-fins only
serve to steer by.  Second: It is a little significant, that while one sperm
whale only fights another sperm whale with his head and jaw, nevertheless,
in his conflicts with man, he chiefly and contemptuously uses his tail.  In
striking at a boat, he swiftly curves away his flukes from it, and the blow
is only inflicted by the recoil.  If it be made in the unobstructed air,
especially if it descend to its mark, the stroke is then simply irresistible.

     No ribs of man or boat can withstand it.  Your only salvation lies in eluding
it; but if it comes sideways through the opposing water, then partly owing
to the light buoyancy of the whaleboat, and the elasticity of its materials,
a cracked rib or a dashed plank or two, a sort of stitch in the side, is
generally the most serious result.  These submerged side blows are so often
received in the fishery, that they are accounted mere child's play.  Some one

     strips off a frock, and the hole is stopped.  Third: I cannot demonstrate it,

     but it seems to me, that in the whale the sense of touch is concentrated in
the tail; for in this respect there is a delicacy in it only equalled by the
daintiness of the elephant's trunk.  This delicacy is chiefly evinced in the
action of sweeping, when in maidenly gentleness the whale with a certain soft
slowness moves his immense flukes from side to side upon the surface of the
sea; and if he feel but a sailor's whisker, woe to that sailor, whiskers and
all.
.. <p 375 >
What tenderness there is in that preliminary touch!  Had this tail any
prehensile power, I should straightway bethink me of Darmonodes' elephant
that so frequented the flower-market, and with low salutations presented
nosegays to damsels, and then caressed their zones.  On more accounts than
one, a pity it is that the whale does not possess this prehensile virtue in
his tail; for I have heard of yet another elephant, that when wounded in
the fight, curved round his trunk and extracted the dart.  Fourth: Stealing
unawares upon the whale in the fancied security of the middle of solitary
seas, you find him unbent from the vast corpulence of his dignity, and
kitten-like, he plays on the ocean as if it were a hearth.  But still you see
his power in his play.  The broad palms of his tail are flirted high into the
air; then smiting the surface, the thunderous concussion resounds for miles.
You would almost think a great gun had been discharged; and if you noticed
the light wreath of vapor from the spiracle at his other extremity, you would
think that that was the smoke from the touch-hole.  Fifth: As in the ordinary
floating posture of the leviathan the flukes lie considerably below the level
of his back, they are then completely out of sight beneath the surface; but
when he is about to plunge into the deeps, his entire flukes with at least
thirty feet of his body are tossed erect in the air, and so remain vibrating
a moment, till they downwards shoot out of view.  Excepting the sublime

     breach --somewhere else to be described --this peaking of the whale's flukes is
perhaps the grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature.  Out of the
bottomless profundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the
highest heaven.  So in dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrusting forth his
tormented colossal claw from the flame Baltic of Hell.  But in gazing at such
scenes, it is all in all what mood you are in; if in the Dantean, the devils
will occur to you; if in that of Isaiah, the archangels.  Standing at the
mast-head of my ship during a sunrise that crimsoned sky and sea, I once saw
a large herd of whales in the east, all heading towards the sun, and for a
moment vibrating in concert with peaked flukes.  As it seemed to me at the
time, such a grand
.. <p 376 >
embodiment of adoration of the gods was never beheld, even in Persia, the
home of the fire worshippers.  As Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African
elephant, I then testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most devout of
all beings.  For according to King Juba, the military elephants of antiquity
often hailed the morning with their trunks uplifted in the profoundest
silence.  The chance comparison in this chapter, between the whale and the
elephant, so far as some aspects of the tail of the one and the trunk of the
other are concerned, should not tend to place those two opposite organs on an
equality, much less the creatures to which they respectively belong.  For as
the mightiest elephant is but a terrier to Leviathan, so, compared with
Leviathan's tail, his trunk is but the stalk of a lily.  The most direful
blow from the elephant's trunk were as the playful tap of a fan, compared with
the measureless crush and crash of the sperm whale's ponderous flukes, which
in repeated instances have one after the other hurled entire boats with all
their oars and crews into the air, very much as an Indian juggler tosses his
balls.  The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my
inability to express it.  At times there are gestures in it, which, though
they would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly inexplicable.  In an
extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are these mystic gestures,
that I have heard hunters who have declared them akin to Free-Mason signs and
symbols; that the whale, indeed, by these methods intelligently conversed
with the world.  Nor are there wanting other motions of the whale in his
general body, full of strangeness, and unaccountable to his most experienced
assailant.  Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep; I know him not,
and never will.  But if I know not even the tail of this whale, how
understand his head?  much more, how comprehend his face, when face he has
none?
.. <p 377 >
Thou shalt see my back parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not
be seen.  But I cannot completely make out his back parts; and hint what he
will about his face, I say again he has no face.
.. <p 376n. >
Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the whale and the
elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that particular the elephant
stands in much the same respect to the whale that a dog does to the elephant;
nevertheless, there are not wanting some points of curious similitude; among
these is the spout.  It is well known that the elephant will often draw up
water or dust in his trunk, and then elevating it, jet it forth in a
stream.
.. <p 377 >
.. < chapter lxxxvii 6  THE GRAND ARMADA >

     The long and narrow peninsula of
Malacca, extending south-eastward from the territories of Birmah, forms the
most southerly point of all Asia.  In a continuous line from that peninsula
stretch the long islands of Sumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor; which, with many
others, form a vast mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia with
Australia, and dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from the thickly
studded oriental archipelagoes.  This rampart is pierced by several sally-ports
for the convenience of ships and whales; conspicuous among which are the
straits of Sunda and Malacca.  By the straits of Sunda, chiefly, vessels
bound to China from the west, emerge into the China seas.  Those narrow straits
of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and standing midway in that vast rampart
of islands, buttressed by that bold green promontory, known to seamen as
Java Head; they not a little correspond to the central gateway opening into
some vast walled empire: and considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices,
and silks, and jewels, and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands of
that oriental sea are enriched, it seems a significant provision of nature,
that such treasures, by the very formation of the land, should at least bear
the appearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping
western world.  The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied with those
domineering fortresses which guard the entrances to the Mediterranean, the
Baltic, and the Propontis.  Unlike the Danes, these Orientals do not demand the
obsequious homage of lowered top-sails from the endless procession of ships
.. <p 378 >
before the wind, which for centuries past, by night and by day, have passed
between the islands of Sumatra and Java, freighted with the costliest cargoes
of the east.  But while they freely waive a ceremonial like this, they do by
no means renounce their claim to more solid tribute.  Time out of mind the
piratical proas of the Malays, lurking among the low shaded coves and islets
of Sumatra, have sallied out upon the vessels sailing through the straits,
fiercely demanding tribute at the point of their spears.  Though by the
repeated bloody chastisements they have received at the hands of European
cruisers, the audacity of these corsairs has of late been somewhat repressed;

     yet, even at the present day, we occasionally hear of English and American
vessels, which, in those waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged.

     With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to these straits;
Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Javan sea, and thence, cruising
northwards, over waters known to be frequented here and there by the Sperm
whale, sweep inshore by the Philippine Islands, and gain the far coast of
Japan, in time for the great whaling season there.  By these means, the
circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost all the known Sperm Whale cruising
grounds of the world, previous to descending upon the Line in the Pacific;
where Ahab, though everywhere else foiled in his pursuit, firmly counted upon
giving battle to Moby Dick, in the sea he was most known to frequent; and at
a season when he might most reasonably be presumed to be haunting it.  But how
now?  in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land?  does his crew drink air?
Surely, he will stop for water.  Nay.  For a long time, now, the circus-running
sun has raced within his fiery ring, and needs no sustenance but what's in
himself.  So Ahab.  Mark this, too, in the whaler.  While other hulls are
loaded down with alien stuff, to be transferred to foreign wharves; the
world-wandering whale-ship carries no cargo but herself and crew, their
weapons and their wants.  She has a whole lake's contents bottled in her ample
hold.  She is ballasted with utilities; not altogether with unusable pig-lead
and kentledge.  She carries years' water in her.  Clear old prime Nantucket
water; which, when three years afloat, the Nantucketer,
.. <p 379 >
in the Pacific, prefers to drink before the brackish fluid, but yesterday
rafted off in casks, from the Peruvian or Indian streams.  Hence it is, that,
while other ships may have gone to China from New York, and back again,
touching at a score of ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not
have sighted one grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating
seamen like themselves.  So that did you carry them the news that another
flood had come; they would only answer -- Well, boys, here's the ark!  Now,
as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western coast of Java, in the
near vicinity of the straits of Sunda; indeed, as most of the ground,
roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen as an excellent spot for
cruising; therefore, as the Pequod gained more and more upon Java Head, the
look-outs were repeatedly hailed, and admonished to keep wide awake.  But
though the green palmy cliffs of the land soon loomed on the starboard bow,
and with delighted nostrils the fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet
not a single jet was descried.  Almost renouncing all thought of falling in
with any game hereabouts, the ship had well nigh entered the straits, when
the customary cheering cry was heard from aloft, and ere long a spectacle of
singular magnificence saluted us.  But here be it premised, that owing to the
unwearied activity with which of late they have been hunted over all four
oceans, the Sperm Whales, instead of almost invariably sailing in small
detached companies, as in former times, are now frequently met with in
extensive herds, sometimes embracing so great a multitude, that it would
almost seem as if numerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and
covenant for mutual assistance and protection.  To this aggregation of the
Sperm Whale into such immense caravans, may be imputed the circumstance that
even in the best cruising grounds, you may now sometimes sail for weeks and
months together, without being greeted by a single spout; and then be
suddenly saluted by what sometimes seems thousands on thousands.  Broad on
both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and forming a great
semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, a continuous chain of
whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the noon-day air.  Unlike the
straight perpendicular
.. <p 380 >
twin-jets of the Right Whale, which, dividing at top, falls over in two
branches, like the cleft drooping boughs of a willow, the single
forward-slanting spout of the Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of
white mist, continually rising and falling away to leeward.  Seen from the
Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of the sea, this host
of vapory spouts, individually curling up into the air, and beheld through a
blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys
of some dense metropolis, descried of a balmy autumnal morning, by some
horseman on a height.  As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in
the mountains, accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous
passage in their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the
plain; even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward
through the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their semicircle,
and swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre.  Crowding all sail
the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers handling their weapons, and
loudly cheering from the heads of their yet suspended boats.  If the wind only
held, little doubt had they, that chased through these Straits of Sunda,
the vast host would only deploy into the Oriental seas to witness the capture
of not a few of their number.  And who could tell whether, in that congregated
caravan, Moby Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the
worshipped white-elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese!  So
with stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these
leviathans before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard,
loudly directing attention to something in our wake.  Corresponding to the
crescent in our van, we beheld another in our rear.  It seemed formed of
detached white vapors, rising and falling something like the spouts of the
whales; only they did not so completely come and go; for they constantly
hovered, without finally disappearing.  Levelling his glass at this sight,
ahab quickly revolved in his pivot-hole, crying, aloft there, and rig whips
and buckets to wet the sails; --Malays, sir, and after us!
.. <p 381 >
As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod should fairly
have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were now in hot pursuit, to
make up for their over-cautious delay.  But when the swift Pequod, with a fresh
leading wind, was herself in hot chase; how very kind of these tawny
philanthropists to assist in speeding her on to her own chosen pursuit, --
mere riding-whips and rowels to her, that they were.  As with glass under arm,
Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in his forward turn beholding the monsters he
chased, and in the after one the bloodthirsty pirates chasing him; some
such fancy as the above seemed his.  And when he glanced upon the green walls
of the watery defile in which the ship was then sailing, and bethought him
that through that gate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that
through that same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly
end; and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates and inhuman
atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with their curses; --when
all these conceits had passed through his brain, Ahab's brow was left gaunt
and ribbed, like the black sand beach after some stormy tide has been gnawing
it, without being able to drag the firm thing from its place.  But thoughts
like these troubled very few of the reckless crew; and when, after steadily
dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the Pequod at last shot by the
vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra side, emerging at last upon the
broad waters beyond; then, the harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the
swift whales had been gaining upon the ship, than to rejoice that the ship
had so victoriously gained upon the Malays.  But still driving on in the wake
of the whales, at length they seemed abating their speed; gradually the ship
neared them; and the wind now dying away, word was passed to spring to the
boats.  But no sooner did the herd, by some presumed wonderful instinct of
the Sperm Whale, become notified of the three keels that were after them,
--though as yet a mile in their rear, --than they rallied again, and forming in
close ranks and battalions, so that their spouts all looked like flashing
lines of stacked bayonets, moved on with redoubled velocity.  Stripped to our
shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-ash,
.. <p 382 >
and after several hours' pulling were almost disposed to renounce the chase,
when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave animating token that
they were now at last under the influence of that strange perplexity of inert
irresolution, which, when the fishermen perceive it in the whale, they say he
is gallied.  The compact martial columns in which they had been hitherto
rapidly and steadily swimming, were now broken up in one measureless rout;
and like King Porus' elephants in the Indian battle with Alexander, they
seemed going mad with consternation.  In all directions expanding in vast
irregular circles, and aimlessly swimming hither and thither, by their short
thick spoutings, they plainly betrayed their distraction of panic.  This
was still more strangely evinced by those of their number, who, completely
paralysed as it were, helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on
the sea.  Had these leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep, pursued over
the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not possibly have evinced such
excessive dismay.  But this occasional timidity is characteristic of almost
all herding creatures.  Though banding together in tens of thousands, the
lion-maned buffaloes of the West have fled before a solitary horseman.
Witness, too, all human beings, how when herded together in the sheepfold of
a theatre's pit, they will, at the slightest alarm of fire, rush
helter-skelter for the outlets, crowding, trampling, jamming, and
remorselessly dashing each other to death.  Best, therefore, withhold
.. <p 383 >
any amazement at the strangely gallied whales before us, for there is no folly
of the beasts of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of
men.  Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion,
yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither advanced nor
retreated, but collectively remained in one place.  As is customary in those
cases, the boats at once separated, each making for some one lone whale on
the outskirts of the shoal.  In about three minutes' time, Queequeg's harpoon
was flung; the stricken fish darted blinding spray in our faces, and then
running away with us like light, steered straight for the heart of the herd.
Though such a movement on the part of the whale struck under such
circumstances, is in no wise unprecedented; and indeed is almost always more
or less anticipated; yet does it present one of the more perilous vicissitudes
of the fishery.  For as the swift monster drags you deeper and deeper into
the frantic shoal, you bid adieu to circumspect life and only exist in a
delirious throb.  As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer

     power of speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him; as
we thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we flew, by
the crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us; our beset boat was like a
ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest, and striving to steer through their
complicated channels and straits, knowing not at what moment it may be
locked in and crushed.  But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully;
now sheering off from this monster directly across our route in advance; now
edging away from that, whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead, while
all the time, Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand, pricking out of
our way whatever whales he could reach by short darts, for there was no time
to make long ones.  Nor were the oarsmen quite idle, though their wonted
duty was now altogether dispensed with.  They chiefly attended to the shouting
part of the business.  Out of the way, Commodore!  cried one, to a great
dromedary that of a sudden rose bodily to the surface, and for an instant
threatened to swamp us.  Hard down with your tail, there!  cried a second
.. <p 384 >
to another, which, close to our gunwale, seemed calmly cooling himself with
his own fan-like extremity.  All whaleboats carry certain curious contrivances,

     originally invented by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs.  Two thick
squares of wood of equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they
cross each other's grain at right angles; a line of considerable length is
then attached to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line
being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon.  It is chiefly
among gallied whales that this drugg is used.  For then, more whales are close
round you than you can possibly chase at one time.  But sperm whales are not
every day encountered; while you may, then, you must kill all you can.  And
if you cannot kill them all at once, you must wing them, so that they can be
afterwards killed at your leisure.  Hence it is, that at times like these the
drugg comes into requisition.  Our boat was furnished with three of them.
The first and second were successfully darted, and we saw the whales
staggeringly running off, fettered by the enormous sidelong resistance of the
towing drugg.  They were cramped like malefactors with the chain and ball.
But upon flinging the third, in the act of tossing overboard the clumsy
wooden block, it caught under one of the seats of the boat, and in an
instant tore it out and carried it away, dropping the oarsman in the boat's
bottom as the seat slid from under him.  On both sides the sea came in at the
wounded planks, but we stuffed two or three drawers and shirts in, and so
stopped the leaks for the time.  It had been next to impossible to dart these
drugged-harpoons, were it not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale's
way greatly diminished; moreover, that as we went still further and further
from the circumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed waning.  So
that when at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale sideways
vanished; then, with the tapering force of his parting momentum, we glided
between two whales into the innermost heart of the shoal, as if from some
mountain torrent we had slid into a serene valley lake.  Here the storms in the
roaring glens between the outermost whales, were heard but not felt.  In this
central expanse the sea presented that smooth satin-like surface, called a
sleek, produced
.. <p 385 >
by the subtle moisture thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods.  Yes,
we were now in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the heart of every
commotion.  And still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of the
outer concentric circles, and saw successive pods of whales, eight or ten in
each, swiftly going round and round, like multiplied spans of horses in a
ring; and so closely shoulder to shoulder, that a Titanic circus-rider might
easily have over-arched the middle ones, and so have gone round on their
backs.  Owing to the density of the crowd of reposing whales, more
immediately surrounding the embayed axis of the herd, no possible chance of
escape was at present afforded us.  We must watch for a breach in the living
wall that hemmed us in; the wall that had only admitted us in order to shut
us up.  Keeping at the centre of the lake, we were occasionally visited by
small tame cows and calves; the women and children of this routed host.  Now,
inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the revolving outer
circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the various pods in any one of
those circles, the entire area at this juncture, embraced by the whole
multitude, must have contained at least two or three square miles.  At any
rate --though indeed such a test at such a time might be deceptive --spoutings
might be discovered from our low boat that seemed playing up almost from the
rim of the horizon.  I mention this circumstance, because, as if the cows and
calves had been purposely locked up in this innermost fold; and as if the
wide extent of the herd had hitherto prevented them from learning the precise
cause of its stopping; or, possibly, being so young, unsophisticated, and
every way innocent and inexperienced; however it may have been, these
smaller whales --now and then visiting our becalmed boat from the margin of the
lake --evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confidence, or else a still
becharmed panic which it was impossible not to marvel at.  Like household dogs
they came snuffling round us, right up to our gunwales, and touching them;

     till it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly domesticated them.
Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched their backs with his
lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the time refrained from darting
it.
.. <p 386 >
But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and still
stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side.  For, suspended in
those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers of the whales,
and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly to become mothers.  The
lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable depth exceedingly transparent;
and as human infants while suckling will calmly and fixedly gaze away from the
breast, as if leading two different lives at the time; and while yet drawing
mortal nourishment, be still spiritually feasting upon some unearthly
reminiscence; --even so did the young of these whales seem looking up towards
us, but not at us, as if we were but a bit of Gulf-weed in their new-born
sight.  floating on their sides, the mothers also seemed quietly eyeing us.
One of these little infants, that from certain queer tokens seemed hardly a
day old, might have measured some fourteen feet in length, and some six feet
in girth.  He was a little frisky; though as yet his body seemed scarce yet
recovered from that irksome position it had so lately occupied in the
maternal reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready for the final spring,
the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar's bow.  The delicate side-fins, and
the palms of his flukes, still freshly retained the plaited crumpled
appearance of a baby's ears newly arrived from foreign parts.  Line!  line!
cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale; him fast!  him fast! --Who line
him!  Who struck?  Two whale; one big, one little!  What ails ye, man?
cried Starbuck.  Look-e here, said Queequeg pointing down.  As when the
stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out hundreds of fathoms of rope;
as, after deep sounding, he floats up again, and shows the slackened curling
line buoyantly rising and spiralling towards the air; so now, Starbuck saw
long coils of the umbilical cord of Madame Leviathan, by which the young cub
seemed still tethered to its dam.  Not seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the
chase, this natural line, with the maternal end loose, becomes entangled
with the hempen one, so that the cub is thereby trapped.  Some of the
subtlest secrets of the seas
.. <p 387 >
seemed divulged to us in this enchanted pond.  We saw young Leviathan amours
in the deep.  And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of
consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre
freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely
revelled in dalliance and delight.  But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic
of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and
while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep
inland there i still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.  Meanwhile, as we
thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden frantic spectacles in the distance
evinced the activity of the other boats, still engaged in drugging the whales
on the frontier of the host; or possibly carrying on the war within the first

     circle, where abundance of room and some convenient retreats were afforded
them.  But the sight of the enraged drugged whales now and then blindly
darting to and fro across the circles, was nothing to what at last met our
eyes.  It is sometimes the custom when fast to a whale more than commonly
powerful and alert, to seek to hamstring him, as it were, by sundering or
maiming his gigantic tail-tendon.  It is done by darting a short-handled
cutting-spade, to which is attached a rope for hauling it back again.  A
whale wounded (as we afterwards learned) in this part, but not effectually,
as it seemed, had broken away from the boat, carrying along with him half of
the harpoon line; and in the extraordinary agony of the wound, he was now
dashing among the revolving circles like the lone mounted desperado
.. <p 388 >
Arnold, at the battle of Saratoga, carrying dismay wherever he went.  But
agonizing as was the wound of this whale, and an appalling spectacle enough,
any way; yet the peculiar horror with which he seemed to inspire the rest of
the herd, was owing to a cause which at first the intervening distance
obscured from us.  But at length we perceived that by one of the unimaginable
accidents of the fishery, this whale had become entangled in the harpoon-line
that he towed; he had also run away with the cutting-spade in him; and while
the free end of the rope attached to that weapon, had permanently caught in
the coils of the harpoon-line round his tail, the cutting-spade itself had
worked loose from his flesh.  So that tormented to madness, he was now
churning through the water, violently flailing with his flexible tail, and
tossing the keen spade about him, wounding and murdering his own comrades.
this terrific object seemed to recall the whole herd from their stationary
fright.  First, the whales forming the margin of our lake began to crowd a
little, and tumble against each other, as if lifted by half spent billows
from afar; then the lake itself began faintly to heave and swell; the
submarine bridal-chambers and nurseries vanished; in more and more
contracting orbits the whales in the more central circles began to swim in
thickening clusters.  Yes, the long calm was departing.  A low advancing hum
was soon heard; and then like to the tumultuous masses of block-ice when the
great river Hudson breaks up in Spring, the entire host of whales came
tumbling upon their inner centre, as if to pile themselves up in one common
mountain.  Instantly Starbuck and Queequeg changed places; Starbuck taking
the stern.  Oars!  Oars!  he intensely whispered, seizing the helm -- gripe
your oars, and clutch your souls, now!  My God, men, stand by!  Shove him off,
you Queequeg --the whale there! --prick him! --hit him!  Stand up --stand up, and
stay so!  Spring, men -- pull, men; never mind their backs --scrape them!
--scrape away!  The boat was now all but jammed between two vast black bulks,
leaving a narrow Dardanelles between their long lengths.  But by desperate
endeavor we at last shot into a temporary
.. <p 389 >
opening; then giving way rapidly, and at the same time earnestly watching
for another outlet.  After many similar hair-breadth escapes, we at last
swiftly glided into what had just been one of the outer circles, but now
crossed by random whales, all violently making for one centre.  This lucky
salvation was cheaply purchased by the loss of Queequeg's hat, who, while
standing in the bows to prick the fugitive whales, had his hat taken clean
from his head by the air-eddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair of broad
flukes close by.  Riotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was,
it soon resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement; for having
clumped together at last in one dense body, they then renewed their onward
flight with augmented fleetness.  Further pursuit was useless; but the boats
still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged whales might be dropped
astern, and likewise to secure one which Flask had killed and waifed.  The
waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of which are carried by every boat;
and which, when additional game is at hand, are inserted upright into the
floating body of a dead whale, both to mark its place on the sea, and also
as token of prior possession, should the boats of any other ship draw near.
The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that sagacious saying
in the Fishery, --the more whales the less fish.  Of all the drugged whales
only one was captured.  The rest contrived to escape for the time, but only
to be taken, as will hereafter be seen, by some other craft than the Pequod.

.. <p 382n. >
To gally, or gallow, is to frighten excessively --to confound with fright.
It is an old Saxon word.  It occurs once in Shakespeare: -- The wrathful skies

     Gallow the very wanderers of the dark And make them keep their caves.  To
common language, the word is now completely obsolete.  When the polite
landsman first hears it from the gaunt Nantucketer, he is apt to set it
down as one of the whaleman's self-derived savageries.  Much the same is it
with many other sinewy Saxonisms of this sort, which emigrated to
New-England rocks with the noble brawn of the old English emigrants in the
time of the Commonwealth.  Thus, some of the best and furthest-descended
English words --the etymological Howards and Percys --are now democratised, nay,
plebeianised --so to speak --in the New World.
.. <p 387n. >
The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan, but unlike
most other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons; after a gestation
which may probably be set down at nine months, producing but one at a time;
though in some few known instances giving birth to an Esau and Jacob: -- a
contingency provided for in suckling by two teats, curiously situated, one
on each side of the anus; but the breasts themselves extend upwards from
that.  When by chance these precious parts in a nursing whale are cut by the
hunter's lance, the mother's pouring milk and blood rivallingly discolor
the sea for rods.  The milk is very sweet and rich; it has been tasted by
man; it might do well with strawberries.  When overflowing with mutual
esteem, the whales salute more hominum.
.. <p 389 >
.. < chapter lxxxviii 28  SCHOOLS AND SCHOOLMASTERS >

     The previous chapter
gave account of an immense body or herd of Sperm Whales, and there was also
then given the probable cause inducing those vast aggregations.  Now, though
such great bodies are at times encountered, yet,
.. <p 390 >
as must have been seen, even at the present day, small detached bands are
occasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty individuals each.  Such
bands are known as schools.  They generally are of two sorts; those composed
almost entirely of females, and those mustering none but young vigorous
males, or bulls, as they are familiarly designated.  In cavalier attendance
upon the school of females, you invariably see a male of full grown magnitude,
but not old; who, upon any alarm, evinces his gallantry by falling in the
rear and covering the flight of his ladies.  In truth, this gentleman is a
luxurious Ottoman, swimming about over the watery world, surroundingly
accompanied by all the solaces and endearments of the harem.  The contrast
between this Ottoman and his concubines is striking; because, while he is
always of the largest leviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at full
growth, are not more than one third of the bulk of an average-sized male.
They are comparatively delicate, indeed; I dare say, not to exceed half a
dozen yards round the waist.  Nevertheless, it cannot be denied, that upon the
whole they are hereditarily entitled to en bon point.  It is very curious
to watch this harem and its lord in their indolent ramblings.  Like
fashionables, they are for ever on the move in leisurely search of variety.
You meet them on the Line in time for the full flower of the Equatorial
feeding season, having just returned, perhaps, from spending the summer in
the Northern seas, and so cheating summer of all unpleasant weariness and
warmth.  By the time they have lounged up and down the promenade of the
Equator awhile, they start for the Oriental waters in anticipation of the
cool season there, and so evade the other excessive temperature of the year.
When serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any strange suspicious
sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his interesting family.
Should any unwarrantably pert young Leviathan coming that way, presume to
draw confidentially close to one of the ladies, with what prodigious fury the

     Bashaw assails him, and chases him away!  High times, indeed, if
unprincipled young rakes like him are to be permitted to invade the sanctity
of domestic bliss; though do what the Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most
notorious Lothario out
.. <p 391 >
of his bed; for, alas!  all fish bed in common.  As ashore, the ladies often
cause the most terrible duels among their rival admirers; just so with the
whales, who sometimes come to deadly battle, and all for love.  They fence
with their long lower jaws, sometimes locking them together, and so striving
for the supremacy like elks that warringly interweave their antlers.  Not a
few are captured having the deep scars of these encounters, --furrowed heads,
broken teeth, scolloped fins; and in some instances, wrenched and dislocated
mouths.  but supposing the invader of domestic bliss to betake himself away at
the first rush of the harem's lord, then is it very diverting to watch that
lord.  Gently he insinuates his vast bulk among them again and revels there
awhile, still in tantalizing vicinity to young Lothario, like pious Solomon
devoutly worshipping among his thousand concubines.  Granting other whales to
be in sight, the fishermen will seldom give chase to one of these Grand
Turks; for these Grand Turks are too lavish of their strength, and hence
their unctuousness is small.  As for the sons and the daughters they beget,
why, those sons and daughters must take care of themselves; at least, with
only the maternal help.  For like certain other omnivorous roving lovers that
might be named, my Lord Whale has no taste for the nursery, however much for
the bower; and so, being a great traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies
all over the world; every baby an exotic.  In good time, nevertheless, as the
ardor of youth declines; as years and dumps increase; as reflection lends
her solemn pauses; in short, as a general lassitude overtakes the sated Turk;

     then a love of ease and virtue supplants the love for maidens; our Ottoman
enters upon the impotent, repentant, admonitory stage of life, forswears,
disbands the harem, and grown to an exemplary, sulky old soul, goes about
all alone among the meridians and parallels saying his prayers, and warning
each young Leviathan from his amorous errors.  Now, as the harem of whales is
called by the fishermen a school, so is the lord and master of that school
technically known as the schoolmaster.  It is therefore not in strict
character, however admirably satirical, that after going to school himself,
he should then go abroad inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly
of it.  His title, schoolmaster, would very naturally
.. <p 392 >
seem derived from the name bestowed upon the harem itself, but some have
surmised that the man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale,
must have read the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a
country-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and what
was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into some of his pupils.

     The same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster whale betakes
himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged Sperm Whales.  Almost
universally, a lone whale --as a solitary Leviathan is called --proves an
ancient one.  Like venerable moss-bearded Daniel Boone, he will have no one
near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to wife in the wilderness of
waters, and the best of wives she is, though she keeps so many moody
secrets.  The schools composing none but young and vigorous males, previously
mentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools.  For while those
female whales are characteristically timid, the young males, or
forty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious of all
Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter; excepting
those wondrous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met, and these will
fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal gout.  The Forty-barrel-bull
schools are larger than the harem schools.  Like a mob of young collegians,
they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness, tumbling round the world at such
a reckless, rollicking rate, that no prudent underwriter would insure them
any more than he would a riotous lad at Yale or Harvard.  They soon relinquish
this turbulence though, and when about three fourths grown, break up, and
separately go about in quest of settlements, that is, harems.  Another point
of difference between the male and female schools is still more characteristic
of the sexes.  Say you strike a Forty-barrel-bull --poor devil!  all his
comrades quit him.  But strike a member of the harem school, and her
companions swim around her with every token of concern, sometimes lingering
so near her and so long, as themselves to fall a prey.
.. <p 393 >
.. < chapter lxxxix 2  FAST-FISH AND LOOSE-FISH >

     The allusion to the waifs
and waif-poles in the last chapter but one, necessitates some account of the
laws and regulations of the whale fishery, of which the waif may be deemed
the grand symbol and badge.  It frequently happens that when several ships are
cruising in company, a whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and
be finally killed and captured by another vessel; and herein are indirectly
comprised many minor contingencies, all partaking of this one grand feature.
For example, --after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale, the
body may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm; and drifting
far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a calm, snugly
tows it alongside, without risk of life or line.  Thus the most vexatious and
violent disputes would often arise between the fishermen, were there not some
written or unwritten, universal, undisputed law applicable to all cases.
Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative enactment, was
that of Holland.  It was decreed by the States-General in A. D.
.  But
though no other nation has ever had any written whaling law, yet the American
fishermen have been their own legislators and lawyers in this matter.  They
have provided a system which for terse comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian's
Pandects and the By-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppression of
Meddling with other People's Business.  Yes; these laws might be engraven on a
Queen Anne's farthing, or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so
small are they.  I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.  II.  A
Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.  But what plays
the mischief with this masterly code is the
.. <p 394 >
admirable brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to
expound it.  First: What is a Fast-Fish?  Alive or dead a fish is technically
fast, when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at
all controllable by the occupant or occupants, -- a mast, an oar, a nine-inch
cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the same.  Likewise
a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif, or any other recognised
symbol of possession; so long as the party waifing it plainly evince their
ability at any time to take it alongside, as well as their intention so to
do.  These are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the whalemen
themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks --the
Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist.  True, among the more upright and honorable
whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar cases, where it would be an
outrageous moral injustice for one party to claim possession of a whale
previously chased or killed by another party.  But others are by no means so
scrupulous.  Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover
litigated in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a hard
chase of a whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they (the plaintiffs)
had succeeded in harpooning the fish; they were at last, through peril of
their lives, obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat itself.

     Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship) came up with the whale,
struck, killed, seized, and finally appropriated it before the very eyes of
the plaintiffs.  And when those defendants were remonstrated with, their
captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs' teeth, and assured them that by
way of doxology to the deed he had done, he would now retain their line,
harpoons, and boat, which had remained attached to the whale at the time of
the seizure.  Wherefore the plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the value
of their whale, line, harpoons, and boat.  Mr. Erskine was counsel for the
defendants; Lord Ellenborough was the judge.  In the course of the defence,
the witty Erskine went on to illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent

     crim.  con.  case, wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his
wife's viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon
.. <p 395 >
the seas of life; but in the course of years, repenting of that step, he
instituted an action to recover possession of her.  Erskine was on the other
side; and he then supported it by saying, that though the gentleman had
originally harpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason
of the great stress of her plunging viciousness, had as last abandoned her;
yet abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish; and therefore when
a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then became that subsequent
gentleman's property, along with whatever harpoon might have been found
sticking in her.  Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples
of the whale and the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other.  These
pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard, the very learned judge
in set terms decided, to wit, --That as for the boat, he awarded it to the
plaintiffs, because they had merely abandoned it to save their lives; but
that with regard to the controverted whale, harpoons, and line, they belonged

     to the defendants; the whale, because it was a Loose-Fish at the time of the
final capture; and the harpoons and line because when the fish made off with
them, it (the fish) acquired a property in those articles; and hence anybody
who afterwards took the fish had a right to them.  Now the defendants
afterwards took the fish; ergo, the aforesaid articles were theirs.  A common
man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might possibly object
to it.  But ploughed up to the primary rock of the matter, the two great
principles laid down in the twin whaling laws previously quoted, and applied
and elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in the above cited case; these two laws
touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, I say, will, on reflection, be found the
fundamentals of all human jurisprudence; For notwithstanding its complicated
tracery of sculpture, the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the
Philistines, has but two props to stand on.  Is it not a saying in every one's
mouth, Possession is half of the law: that is, regardless of how the thing
came into possession?  But often possession is the whole of the law.  What are
the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves
.. <p 396 >
but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is the whole of the law?  What to the
rapacious landlord is the widow's last mite but a Fast-Fish?  What is yonder
undetected villain's marble mansion with a door-plate for a waif; what is
that but a Fast-Fish?  What is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker,
gets from poor Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone's family
from starvation; what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish?  What is the
archbishop of Savesoul's income of 100,000 pounds seized from the scant bread
and cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure of
heaven without any of Savesoul's help) what is that globular 100,000 but a
Fast-Fish?  What are the Duke of Dunder's hereditary towns and hamlets but
Fast-Fish?  What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull, is poor Ireland,
but a Fast-Fish?  What to that apostolic lancer, Brother Jonathan, is Texas
but a Fast-Fish?  And concerning all these, is not Possession the whole of
the law?  But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the
kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so.  That is
internationally and universally applicable.  What was America in

     but a
loose-fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of waifing
it for his royal master and mistress?  What was Poland to the Czar?  What
Greece to the Turk?  What India to England?  What at last will Mexico be to
the United States?  All Loose-Fish.  What are the Rights of Man and the
Liberties of the World but Loose-Fish?  What all men's minds and opinions but

     Loose-Fish?  What is the principle of religious belief in them but a
Loose-Fish?  What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of
thinkers but Loose-Fish?  What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish?
And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?
.. <p 397 >
.. < chapter xc 2  HEADS OR TAILS >

     De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat
caput, et regina caudam.  Bracton, l 3.  c. 3.  Latin from the books of the
Laws of England, which taken along with the context, means, that of all whales
captured by anybody on the coast of that land, the King, as Honorary Grand
Harpooneer, must have the head, and the Queen be respectfully presented with
the tail.  A division which, in the whale, is much like halving an apple;
there is no intermediate remainder.  Now as this law, under a modified form,
is to this day in force in England; and as it offers in various respects a
strange anomaly touching the general law of Fast and Loose-Fish, it is here
treated of in a separate chapter, on the same courteous principle that
prompts the English railways to be at the expense of a separate car, specially
reserved for the accommodation of royalty.  In the first place, in curious
proof of the fact that the above-mentioned law is still in force, I proceed to

     lay before you a circumstance that happened within the last two years.  It
seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or some one of the
Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in killing and beaching a fine
whale which they had originally descried afar off from the shore.  Now the
Cinque Ports are partially or somehow under the jurisdiction of a sort of
policeman or beadle, called a Lord Warden.  Holding the office directly from
the crown, I believe, all the royal emoluments incident to the Cinque Port
territories become by assignment his.  By some writers this office is called a
sinecure.  But not so.  Because the Lord Warden is busily employed at times
in fobbing his perquisites; which are his chiefly by virtue of that same
fobbing of them.  Now when these poor sun-burnt mariners, bare-footed, and
.. <p 398 >
with their trowsers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wearily hauled
their fat fish high and dry, promising themselves a good 150 pounds from the
precious oil and bone; and in fantasy sipping rare tea with their wives, and
good ale with their cronies, upon the strength of their respective shares;
up steps a very learned and most Christian and charitable gentleman, with a
copy of Blackstone under his arm; and laying it upon the whale's head, he
says -- Hands off!  this fish, my masters, is a Fast-Fish.  I seize it as the
Lord Warden's.  Upon this the poor mariners in their respectful consternation
--so truly English --knowing not what to say, fall to vigorously scratching
their heads all round;  meanwhile ruefully glancing from the whale to the
stranger.  But that did in nowise mend the matter, or at all soften the hard
heart of the learned gentleman with the copy of Blackstone.  At length one of
them, after long scratching about for his ideas, made bold to speak.  Please,
sir, who is the Lord Warden?  The Duke.  But the duke had nothing to do
with taking this fish?  It is his.  We have been at great trouble, and
peril, and some expense, and is all that to go to the Duke's benefit; we
getting nothing at all for our pains but our blisters?  It is his.  Is the
duke so very poor as to be forced to this desperate mode of getting a
livelihood?  It is his.  I thought to relieve my old bed-ridden mother by
part of my share of this whale.  It is his.  Won't the Duke be content
with a quarter or a half?  It is his.  In a word, the whale was seized and
sold, and his Grace the Duke of Wellington received the money.  Thinking that
viewed in some particular lights, the case might by a bare possibility in
some small degree be deemed, under the circumstances, a rather hard one, an
honest clergyman of the town respectfully addressed a note to his Grace,
begging him to take the case of those unfortunate
.. <p 399 >
mariners into full consideration.  To which my Lord Duke in substance replied
(both letters were published) that he had already done so, and received the
money, and would be obliged to the reverend gentleman if for the future he
(the reverend gentleman) would decline meddling with other people's business.

     Is this the still militant old man, standing at the corners of the three
kingdoms, on all hands coercing alms of beggars?  It will readily be seen that
in this case the alleged right of the Duke to the whale was a delegated one
from the Sovereign.  We must needs inquire then on what principle the Sovereign
is originally invested with that right.  The law itself has already been set
forth.  But Plowdon gives us the reason for it.  Says Plowdon, the whale so
caught belongs to the King and Queen, because of its superior excellence.
And by the soundest commentators this has ever been held a cogent argument
in such matters.  But why should the King have the head, and the Queen the
tail?  A reason for that, ye lawyers!  In his treatise on Queen-Gold, or
Queen-pinmoney, an old King's Bench author, one William Prynne, thus
discourseth: Ye tail is ye Queen's, that ye Queen's wardrobe may be supplied
with ye whalebone.  Now this was written at a time when the black limber bone
of the Greenland or Right whale was largely used in ladies' bodices.  But this
same bone is not in the tail; it is in the head, which is a sad mistake for
a sagacious lawyer like Prynne.  But is the Queen a mermaid, to be presented
with a tail?  An allegorical meaning may lurk here.  There are two royal fish
so styled by the English law writers -- the whale and the sturgeon; both royal
property under certain limitations, and nominally supplying the tenth branch
of the crown's ordinary revenue.  I know not that any other author has hinted
of the matter; but by inference it seems to me that the sturgeon must be
divided in the same way as the whale, the King receiving the highly dense and
elastic head peculiar to that fish, which, symbolically regarded, may
possibly be humorously grounded upon some presumed congeniality.  And thus
there seems a reason in all things, even in law.
.. <p 400 >
.. < chapter xci 2  THE PEQUOD MEETS THE ROSE-BUD >

     In vain it was to rake
for Ambergriese in the paunch of this Leviathan, insufferable fetor denying
not inquiry.  Sir T. Browne, V. E.  It was a week or two after the last
whaling scene recounted, and when we were slowly sailing over a sleepy,
vapory, mid-day sea, that the many noses on the Pequod's deck proved more
vigilant discoverers than the three pairs of eyes aloft.  A peculiar and not
very pleasant smell was smelt in the sea.  I will bet something now, said
Stubb, that somewhere hereabouts are some of those drugged whales we tickled
the other day.  I thought they would keel up before long.  Presently, the
vapors in advance slid aside; and there in the distance lay a ship, whose
furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must be alongside.  As we
glided nearer, the stranger showed French colors from his peak; and by the
eddying cloud of vulture sea-fowl that circled, and hovered, and swooped
around him, it was plain that the whale alongside must be what the fishermen
call a blasted whale, that is, a whale that has died unmolested on the sea,
and so floated an unappropriated corpse.  It may well be conceived, what an
unsavory odor such a mass must exhale; worse than an Assyrian city in the
plague, when the living are incompetent to bury the departed.  So intolerable
indeed is it regarded by some, that no cupidity could persuade them to moor
alongside of it.  Yet are there those who will still do it; notwithstanding
the fact that the oil obtained from such subjects is of a very inferior
quality, and by no means of the nature of attar-of-rose.  Coming still nearer
with the expiring breeze, we saw that the Frenchman had a second whale
alongside; and this second whale seemed even more of a nosegay than the
first.  In truth, it turned out to be one of those problematical whales that
seem
.. <p 401 >
to dry up and die with a sort of prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion;
leaving their defunct bodies almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil.
Nevertheless, in the proper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will
ever turn up his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun
blasted whales in general.  The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger,
that Stubb vowed he recognized his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines
that were knotted round the tail of one of these whales.  There's a pretty
fellow, now, he banteringly laughed, standing in the ship's bows, there's
a jackal for ye!  I well know that these Crappoes of Frenchmen are but poor
devils in the fishery; sometimes lowering their boats for breakers, mistaking

     them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes, and sometimes sailing from their port with
their hold full of boxes of tallow candles, and cases of snuffers,
foreseeing that all the oil they will get won't be enough to dip the Captain's
wick into; aye, we all know these things; but look ye, here's a Crappo
that is content with our leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and
is content too with scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has
there.  Poor devil!  I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let's make him a
present of a little oil for dear charity's sake.  For what oil he'll get from
that drugged whale there, wouldn't be fit to burn in a jail; no, not in a
condemned cell.  And as for the other whale, why, I'll agree to get more oil
by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours, than he'll get from
that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of it, it may contain
something worth a good deal more than oil; yes, ambergris.  I wonder now if
our old man has thought of that.  It's worth trying.  Yes, I'm for it; and
so saying he started for the quarter-deck.  By this time the faint air had
become a complete calm; so that whether or no, the Pequod was now fairly
entrapped in the smell, with no hope of escaping except by its breezing up
again.  Issuing from the cabin, Stubb now called his boat's crew, and pulled
off for the stranger.  Drawing across her bow, he perceived that in accordance
with the fanciful French taste, the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in
the likeness of a
.. <p 402 >
huge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for thorns had copper spikes
projecting from it here and there; the whole terminating in a symmetrical
folded bulb of a bright red color.  Upon her head boards, in large gilt
letters, he read Bouton de Rose, --Rose-button, or Rose-bud; and this was
the romantic name of this aromatic ship.  Though Stubb did not understand the

     Bouton part of the inscription, yet the word rose, and the bulbous
figure-head put together, sufficiently explained the whole to him.  A wooden
rose-bud, eh?  he cried with his hand to his nose, that will do very well;
but how like all creation it smells!  Now in order to hold direct
communication with the people on deck, he had to pull round the bows to the
starboard side, and thus come close to the blasted whale; and so talk over
it.  Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he bawled
-- Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy!  are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses that speak
English?  Yes, rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who turned out
to be the chief-mate.  Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the
White Whale?  What whale?  The White Whale --a Sperm Whale --Moby Dick,
have ye seen him?  Never heard of such a whale.  Cachalot Blanche!  White
Whale --no.  Very good, then; good bye now, and I'll call again in a
minute.  Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab
leaning over the quarter-deck rail awaiting his report, he moulded his two
hands into a trumpet and shouted -- No, Sir!  No!  Upon which Ahab retired,
and Stubb returned to the Frenchman.  He now perceived that the Guernsey-man,
who had just got into the chains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his

     nose in a sort of bag.  What's the matter with your nose, there?  said Stubb.

     Broke it?
.. <p 403 >

     I wish it was broken, or that I didn't have any nose at all!  answered the
Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job he was at very much.  But
what are you holding yours for?  Oh, nothing!  It's a wax nose; I have to
hold it on.  Fine day, aint it?  Air rather gardenny, I should say; throw us
a bunch of posies, will ye, Bouton-de-Rose?  What in the devil's name do you
want here?  roared the Guernsey-man, flying into a sudden passion.  Oh!
keep cool--cool?  yes, that's the word; why don't you pack those whales in ice
while you're working at 'em?  But joking aside, though; do you know,
Rose-bud, that it's all nonsense trying to get any oil out of such whales?  As
for that dried up one, there, he hasn't a gill in his whole carcase.  I
know that well enough; but, d'ye see, the Captain here won't believe it;
this is his first voyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer before.  But come
aboard, and mayhap he'll believe you, if he won't me; and so I'll get out of
this dirty scrape.  Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow,
rejoined Stubb, and with that he soon mounted to the deck.  There a queer
scene presented itself.  The sailors, in tasselled caps of red worsted, were
getting the heavy tackles in readiness for the whales.  But they worked rather
slow and talked very fast, and seemed in anything but a good humor.  All
their noses upwardly projected from their faces like so many jib-booms.  Now
and then pairs of them would drop their work, and run up to the mast-head to
get some fresh air.  Some thinking they would catch the plague, dipped oakum
in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their nostrils.  Others having
broken the stems of their pipes almost short off at the bowl, were vigorously

     puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it constantly filled their olfactories.
Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas proceeding from the
Captain's round-house abaft; and looking in that direction saw a fiery face
thrust from behind the door, which was held ajar from within.  This was the
tormented surgeon, who, after in vain remonstrating against the proceedings of
the day, had betaken himself to the Captain's round-house ( cabinet he
called it) to avoid the pest; but still, could not help yelling out his
entreaties and indignations at times.
.. <p 404 >
Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to the
Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the stranger mate
expressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited ignoramus, who had
brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable a pickle.  Sounding him
carefully, Stubb further perceived that the Guernsey-man had not the
slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris.  He therefore held his peace on
that head, but otherwise was quite frank and confidential with him, so that
the two quickly concocted a little plan for both circumventing and satirizing
the Captain, without his at all dreaming of distrusting their sincerity.
According to this little plan of theirs, the Guernsey-man, under cover of an
interpreter's office, was to tell the Captain what he pleased, but as coming
from Stubb; and as for Stubb, he was to utter any nonsense that should come
uppermost in him during the interview.  By this time their destined victim
appeared from his cabin.  He was a small and dark, but rather delicate looking
man for a sea-captain, with large whiskers and moustache, however; and wore
a red cotton velvet vest with watch-seals at his side.  To this gentleman,
Stubb was now politely introduced by the Guernsey-man, who at once
ostentatiously put on the aspect of interpreting between them.  What shall I
say to him first?  said he.  Why, said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest and the
watch and seals, you may as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort
of babyish to me, though I don't pretend to be a judge.  He says, Monsieur,

     said the Guernsey-man, in French, turning to his captain, that only
yesterday his ship spoke a vessel, whose captain and chief-mate, with six
sailors, had all died of a fever caught from a blasted whale they had brought
alongside.  Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know more.

     What now?  said the Guernsey-man to Stubb.  Why, since he takes it so easy,
tell him that now I have eyed him carefully, I'm quite certain that he's no
more fit to command a whale-ship than a St.  Jago monkey.  In fact, tell him
from me he's a baboon.
.. <p 405 >

     He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale, the dried one, is far
more deadly than the blasted one; in fine, Monsieur, he conjures us, as we
value our lives, to cut loose from these fish.  Instantly the captain ran
forward, and in a loud voice commanded his crew to desist from hoisting the
cutting-tackles, and at once cast loose the cables and chains confining the
whales to the ship.  What now?  said the Guernsey-man, when the captain had
returned to them.  Why, let me see; yes, you may as well tell him now that --
that --in fact, tell him I've diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps
somebody else.  He says, Monsieur, that he's very happy to have been of any
service to us.  Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful
parties (meaning himself and mate) and concluded by inviting Stubb down into
his cabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux.  He wants you to take a glass of wine
with him, said the interpreter.  Thank him heartily; but tell him it's
against my principles to drink with the man I've diddled.  In fact, tell him
I must go.  He says, Monsieur, that his principles won't admit of his
drinking; but that if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink, then
Monsieur had best drop all four boats, and pull the ship away from these
whales, for it's so calm they won't drift.  By this time Stubb was over the
side, and getting into his boat, hailed the Guernsey-man to this effect,
--that having a long tow-line in his boat, he would do what he could to help
them, by pulling out the lighter whale of the two from the ship's side.  While
the Frenchman's boats, then, were engaged in towing the ship one way, Stubb
benevolently towed away at his whale the other way, ostentatiously slacking
out a most unusually long tow-line.  Presently a breeze sprang up; Stubb
feigned to cast off from the whale; hoisting his boats, the Frenchman soon
increased his distance, while the Pequod slid in between him and Stubb's
whale.  Whereupon Stubb quickly pulled to the floating body,
.. <p 406 >
and hailing the pequod to give notice of his intentions, at once proceeded to
reap the fruit of his unrighteous cunning.  Seizing his sharp boat-spade, he
commenced an excavation in the body, a little behind the side fin.  You would
almost have thought he was digging a cellar there in the sea; and when at
length his spade struck against the gaunt ribs, it was like turning up old
Roman tiles and pottery buried in fat English loam.  His boat's crew were all
in high excitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking as anxious as
gold-hunters.  And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking, and
screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them.  Stubb was beginning to look
disappointed, especially as the horrible nosegay increased, when suddenly
from out the very heart of this plague, there stole a faint stream of
perfume, which flowed through the tide of bad smells without being absorbed
by it, as one river will flow into and then along with another, without at
all blending with it for a time.  I have it, I have it, cried Stubb, with
delight, striking something in the subterranean regions, a purse!  a
purse!  Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls
of something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old cheese;
very unctuous and savory withal.  You might easily dent it with your thumb;
it is of a hue between yellow and ash color.  And this, good friends, is
ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist.  Some six handfuls
were obtained; but more was unavoidably lost in the sea, and still more,
perhaps, might have been secured were it not for impatient Ahab's loud command
to Stubb to desist, and come on board, else the ship would bid them good
bye.
.. <p 406 >
.. < chapter xcii 31  AMBERGRIS >

     Now this ambergris is a very curious
substance, and so important as an article of commerce, that in

     a
certain Nantucket-born
.. <p 407 >
Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that
subject.  for at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day, the
precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem to the
learned.  Though the word ambergris is but the French compound for grey amber,

     yet the two substances are quite distinct.  For amber, though at times found
on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far inland soils, whereas ambergris
is never found except upon the sea.  Besides, amber is a hard, transparent,
brittle, odorless substance, used for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and
ornaments; but ambergris is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy,
that it is largely used in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles,
hair-powders, and pomatum.  The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to
Mecca, for the same purpose that frankincense is carried to St.  Peter's in
Rome.  Some wine merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it.  Who
would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale
themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale!
Yet so it is.  By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and by others
the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale.  How to cure such a dyspepsia it
were hard to say, unless by administering three or four boat loads of
Brandreth's pills, and then running out of harm's way, as laborers do in
blasting rocks.  I have forgotten to say that there were found in this
ambergris, certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought
might be sailors' trousers buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they
were nothing more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner.
Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be found in
the heart of such decay; is this nothing?  Bethink thee of that saying of St.
Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption; how that we are sown
in dishonor, but raised in glory.  And likewise call to mind that saying of
paracelsus about what it is that maketh the best musk.  Also forget not the
strange fact that of all things of ill-savor, Cologne-water, in its
rudimental manufacturing stages, is the worst.  I should like to conclude the
chapter with the above appeal, but cannot, owing to my anxiety to repel a
charge often made
.. <p 408 >
against whalemen, and which, in the estimation of some already biased minds,
might be considered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said of the
Frenchman's two whales.  Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous aspersion has
been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is throughout a slatternly,
untidy business.  But there is another thing to rebut.  They hint that all
whales always smell bad.  Now how did this odious stigma originate?  I opine,
that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the Greenland whaling
ships in London, more than two centuries ago.  Because those whalemen did not
then, and do not now, try out their oil at sea as the Southern ships have
always done; but cutting up the fresh blubber in small bits, thrust it
through the bung holes of large casks, and carry it home in that manner; the
shortness of the season in those Icy Seas, and the sudden and violent storms
to which they are exposed, forbidding any other course.  The consequence is,
that upon breaking into the hold, and unloading one of these whale
cemeteries, in the Greenland dock, a savor is given forth somewhat similar to
that arising from excavating an old city grave-yard, for the foundations of
a Lying-in Hospital.  I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against
whalers may be likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland,
in former times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg,
which latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great
work on Smells, a textbook on that subject.  As its name imports (smeer, fat;

     berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford a place for
the blubber of the dutch whale fleet to be tried out, without being taken
home to Holland for that purpose.  It was a collection of furnaces,
fat-kettles, and oil sheds; and when the works were in full operation
certainly gave forth no very pleasant savor.  But all this is quite different
from a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a voyage of four years perhaps,
after completely filling her hold with oil, does not, perhaps, consume fifty
days in the business of boiling out; and in the state that it is casked, the
oil is nearly scentless.  The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently
treated, whales as a species are by no
.. <p 409 >
means creatures of ill odor; nor can whalemen be recognised, as the people of
the middle ages affected to detect a Jew in the company, by the nose.  Nor
indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant, when, as a general
thing, he enjoys such high health; taking abundance of exercise; always out
of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the open air.  I say, that the
motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a
musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor.  What then shall I liken
the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude?  Must it not be
to that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which
was led out of an Indian town to do honor to Alexander the Great?
.. <p 409 >
.. < chapter xciii 15  THE CASTAWAY >

     It was but some few days after
encountering the Frenchman, that a most significant event befell the most
insignificant of the Pequod's crew; an event most lamentable; and which
ended in providing the sometimes madly merry and predestinated craft with a
living and ever accompanying prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove
her own.  Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats.
Some few hands are reserved called ship-keepers, whose province it is to work
the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale.  As a general thing, these
ship-keepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising the boats' crews.  But
if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous wight in the
ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper.  It was so in the
Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by abbreviation.  Poor
Pip!  ye have heard of him before; ye must remember his tambourine on that
dramatic midnight, so gloomy-jolly.
.. <p 410 >
In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony and a
white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar color, driven in one
eccentric span.  But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature dull and torpid in
his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at bottom very bright,
with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to his tribe; a tribe,
which ever enjoy all holidays and festivities with finer, freer relish than
any other race.  For blacks, the year's calendar should show naught but three
hundred and sixty-five Fourth of Julys and New Year's Days.  Nor smile so,
while I write that this little black was brilliant, for even blackness has
its brilliancy; behold yon lustrous ebony, panelled in king's cabinets.  But
Pip loved life, and all life's peaceable securities; so that the
panic-striking business in which he had somehow unaccountably become
entrapped, had most sadly blurred his brightness; though, as ere long will be
seen, what was thus temporarily subdued in him, in the end was destined to
be luridly illumined by strange wild fires, that fictitiously showed him off
to ten times the natural lustre with which in his native Tolland County in
Connecticut, he had once enlivened many a fiddler's frolic on the green; and
at melodious even-tide, with his gay ha-ha!  had turned the round horizon into
one star-belled tambourine.  So, though in the clear air of day, suspended
against a blue-veined neck, the pure-watered diamond drop will healthful
glow; yet, when the cunning jeweller would show you the diamond in its most
impressive lustre, he lays it against a gloomy ground, and then lights it
up, not by the sun, but by some unnatural gases.  Then come out those fiery
effulgences, infernally superb; then the evil-blazing diamond, once the
divinest symbol of the crystal skies, looks like some crown-jewel stolen from
the King of Hell.  But let us to the story.  It came to pass, that in the
ambergris affair Stubb's after-oarsman chanced so to sprain his hand, as
for a time to become quite maimed; and, temporarily, Pip was put into his
place.  The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much nervousness;
but happily, for that time, escaped close contact with the whale; and
therefore came off not altogether discreditably; though Stubb observing him,
took care, afterwards,
.. <p 411 >
to exhort him to cherish his courageousness to the utmost, for he might often
find it needful.  Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the
whale; and as the fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap,
which happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip's seat.  The
involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in hand,
out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack whale line coming
against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him, so as to become
entangled in it, when at last plumping into the water.  That instant the
stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line swiftly straightened; and
presto!  poor Pip came all foaming up to the chocks of the boat,
remorselessly dragged there by the line, which had taken several turns around
his chest and neck.  Tashtego stood in the bows.  He was full of the fire of
the hunt.  He hated Pip for a poltroon.  Snatching the boat-knife from its
sheath, he suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb,
exclaimed interrogatively, cut?  meantime pip's blue, choked face plainly
looked, Do, for God's sake!  All passed in a flash.  In less than half a
minute, this entire thing happened.  Damn him, cut!  roared Stubb; and so
the whale was lost and Pip was saved.  So soon as he recovered himself, the
poor little negro was assailed by yells and execrations from the crew.
Tranquilly permitting these irregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in a
plain, business-like, but still half humorous manner, cursed Pip officially;
and that done, unofficially gave him much wholesome advice.  The substance
was, Never jump from a boat, Pip, except --but all the rest was indefinite,
as the soundest advice ever is.  Now, in general, Stick to the boat, is
your true motto in whaling; but cases will sometimes happen when Leap

     from the boat, is still better.  Moreover, as if perceiving at last that if
he should give undiluted conscientious advice to Pip, he would be leaving him
too wide a margin to jump in for the future; Stubb suddenly dropped all
advice, and concluded with a peremptory command, Stick to the boat, Pip, or
by the Lord, I wont pick you up if you jump; mind that.  We can't afford
.. <p 412 >
to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for thirty times what
you would, Pip, in Alabama.  Bear that in mind, and don't jump any more.
Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that though man loved his fellow,
yet man is a money-making animal, which propensity too often interferes with
his benevolence.  But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped
again.  It was under very similar circumstances to the first performance; but
this time he did not breast out the line; and hence, when the whale started
to run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller's trunk.
Alas!  Stubb was but too true to his word.  It was a beautiful, bounteous,
blue day; the spangled sea calm and cool, and flatly stretching away, all
round, to the horizon, like gold-beater's skin hammered out to the extremest.
Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip's ebon head showed like a head of cloves.

     No boat-knife was lifted when he fell so rapidly astern.  Stubb's inexorable
back was turned upon him; and the whale was winged.  In three minutes, a
whole mile of shoreless ocean was between Pip and Stubb.  Out from the centre
of the sea, poor Pip turned his crisp, curling, black head to the sun,
another lonely castaway, though the loftiest and the brightest.  Now, in calm
weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the practised swimmer as to
ride in a spring-carriage ashore.  But the awful lonesomeness is intolerable.
The intense concentration of self in the middle of such a heartless immensity,

     my God!  who can tell it?  Mark, how when sailors in a dead calm bathe in
the open sea --mark how closely they hug their ship and only coast along her
sides.  But had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his fate?  No;

     he did not mean to, at least.  Because there were two boats in his wake, and
he supposed, no doubt, that they would of course come up to Pip very quickly,
and pick him up; though, indeed, such considerations towards oarsmen
jeopardized through their own timidity, is not always manifested by the
hunters in all similar instances; and such instances not unfrequently occur;
almost invariably in the fishery, a coward, so called, is marked with the same
ruthless detestation peculiar to military navies and armies.
.. <p 413 >
But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly spying
whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and Stubb's boat
was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent upon his fish, that
Pip's ringed horizon began to expand around him miserably.  By the merest
chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little
negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at least, they said he was.  The
sea had jeeringly kept his finite body up, but drowned the infinite of his
soul.  Not drowned entirely, though.  Rather carried down alive to wondrous
depths, where strange shapes of the unwarped primal world glided to and fro
before his passive eyes; and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded
heaps; and among the joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the
multitudinous, God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of
waters heaved the colossal orbs.  He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the
loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad.  So man's
insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man comes
at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and frantic;
and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his God.  For the
rest, blame not Stubb too hardly.  The thing is common in that fishery; and
in the sequel of the narrative, it will then be seen what like abandonment
befell myself.
.. <p 413 >
.. < chapter xciv 26  A SQUEEZE OF THE HAND >

     That whale of Stubb's so dearly
purchased, was duly brought to the Pequod's side, where all those cutting and
hoisting operations previously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to

     the baling of the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case.  While some were occupied with
this latter duty, others were employed in dragging away the larger tubs, so
soon as filled with the sperm; and when the proper time arrived, this same
.. <p 414 >
sperm was carefully manipulated ere going to the try-works, of which anon.  It
had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with several others,
I sat down before a large Constantine's bath of it, I found it strangely
concreted into lumps, here and there rolling about in the liquid part.  It
was our business to squeeze these lumps back into fluid.  A sweet and unctuous
duty!  no wonder that in old times this sperm was such a favorite cosmetic.
Such a clearer!  such a sweetener!  such a softener!  such a delicious
mollifier!  After having my hands in it for only a few minutes, my fingers
felt like eels, and began, as it were, to serpentine and spiralize.  As I sat
there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter exertion at the
windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under indolent sail, and
gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among those soft, gentle
globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost within the hour; as they richly

     broke to my fingers, and discharged all their opulence, like fully ripe
grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that uncontaminated aroma, --literally and
truly, like the smell of spring violets; I declare to you, that for the
time I lived as in a musky meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in
that inexpressible sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost
began to credit the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue
in allaying the heat of anger: while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely
free from all ill-will, or petulence, or malice, of any sort whatsoever.
Squeeze!  squeeze!  squeeze!  all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till
I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of
insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my
co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules.  Such
an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget;

     that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into
their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say, --Oh!  my dear fellow beings, why
should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest
ill-humor or envy!  Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all
squeeze ourselves
.. <p 415 >
into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and
sperm of kindness.  Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever!  For

     now, since by many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in
all cases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of
attainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy;

     but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fire-side,
the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case

     eternally.  In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of
angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti.  Now, while
discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of other things akin to it, in the
business of preparing the sperm whale for the try-works.  First comes
white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the tapering part of the fish,
and also from the thicker portions of his flukes.  It is tough with congealed
tendons --a wad of muscle --but still contains some oil.  After being severed
from the whale, the white-horse is first cut into portable oblongs ere going
to the mincer.  They look much like blocks of Berkshire marble.  Plum-pudding
is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts of the whale's flesh, here
and there adhering to the blanket of blubber, and often participating to a
considerable degree in its unctuousness.  It is a most refreshing, convivial,
beautiful object to behold.  As its name imports, it is of an exceedingly
rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked snowy and golden ground, dotted with
spots of the deepest crimson and purple.  It is plums of rubies, in pictures
of citron.  Spite of reason, it is hard to keep yourself from eating it.  I
confess, that once I stole behind the foremast to try it.  It tasted something
as I should conceive a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might
have tasted, supposing him to have been killed the first day after the venison
season, and that particular venison season contemporary with an unusually
fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne.

.. <p 416 >
There is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns up in the
course of this business, but which I feel it to be very puzzling adequately
to describe.  It is called slobgollion; an appellation original with the
whalemen, and even so is the nature of the substance.  It is an ineffably
oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the tubs of sperm, after a
prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting.  I hold it to be the
wondrously thin, ruptured membranes of the case, coalescing.  Gurry, so
called, is a term properly belonging to right whalemen, but sometimes
incidentally used by the sperm fishermen.  It designates the dark, glutinous
substance which is scraped off the back of the Greenland or right whale, and
much of which covers the decks of those inferior souls who hunt that ignoble
Leviathan.  Nippers.  Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale's
vocabulary.  But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so.  A whaleman's nipper
is a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the tapering part of
Leviathan's tail: it averages an inch in thickness, and for the rest, is
about the size of the iron part of a hoe.  Edgewise moved along the oily deck,

     it operates like a leathern squilgee; and by nameless blandishments, as of
magic, allures along with it all impurities.  But to learn all about these
recondite matters, your best way is at once to descend into the blubber-room,

     and have a long talk with its inmates.  This place has previously been
mentioned as the receptacle for the blanket-pieces, when stript and hoisted
from the whale.  When the proper time arrives for cutting up its contents,
this apartment is a scene of terror to all tyros, especially by night.  On one
side, lit by a dull lantern, a space has been left clear for the workmen.
They generally go in pairs, --a pike-and-gaff-man and a spade-man.  The
whaling-pike is similar to a frigate's boarding-weapon of the same name.  The
gaff is something like a boat-hook.  With his gaff, the gaffman hooks on to a
sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from slipping, as the ship pitches
and lurches about.  Meanwhile, the spade-man stands on the sheet itself,
perpendicularly chopping it into the portable horse-pieces.  This spade is
sharp as hone can make it; the spademan's feet are shoeless; the thing
.. <p 417 >
he stands on will sometimes irresistibly slide away from him, like a sledge.
If he cuts off one of his own toes, or one of his assistants', would you be
very much astonished?  Toes are scarce among veteran blubber-room men.
.. <p 417 >
.. < chapter xcv 6  THE CASSOCK >

     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
.. <p 418 >
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 archbishoprick, what a lad for a Pope were this mincer!
.. <p 418n. >
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.
.. <p 418 >
.. < chapter xcvi 17  THE TRY-WORKS >

     Besides her hoisted boats, an American
whaler is outwardly distinguished by her try-works.  She presents the curious
anomaly of the most solid masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting
the completed ship.  it is as if from the open field a brick-kiln were
transported to her planks.  The try-works are planted between the foremast and
main-mast, the most roomy part of the deck.  The timbers beneath are of a
peculiar strength, fitted to sustain the weight of an almost solid mass of
brick and mortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in height.  The
foundation does not penetrate the deck, but the masonry is firmly secured to
the surface by
.. <p 419 >
ponderous knees of iron bracing it on all sides, and screwing it down to the
timbers.  On the flanks it is cased with wood, and at top completely covered
by a large, sloping, battened hatchway.  Removing this hatch we expose the
great try-pots, two in number, and each of several barrels' capacity.  When
not in use, they are kept remarkably clean.  Sometimes they are polished
with soapstone and sand, till they shine within like silver punch-bowls.
During the night-watches some cynical old sailors will crawl into them and
coil themselves away there for a nap.  While employed in polishing them --one
man in each pot, side by side --many confidential communications are carried
on, over the iron lips.  It is a place also for profound mathematical
meditation.  It was in the left hand try-pot of the Pequod, with the
soapstone diligently circling round me, that I was first indirectly struck by
the remarkable fact, that in geometry all bodies gliding along the cycloid,
my soapstone for example, will descend from any point in precisely the same
time.  Removing the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the bare
masonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two iron mouths of the
furnaces, directly underneath the pots.  These mouths are fitted with heavy
doors of iron.  The intense heat of the fire is prevented from communicating
itself to the deck, by means of a shallow reservoir extending under the entire

     inclosed surface of the works.  By a tunnel inserted at the rear, this
reservoir is kept replenished with water as fast as it evaporates.  There are
no external chimneys; they open direct from the rear wall.  And here let us
go back for a moment.  It was about nine o'clock at night that the Pequod's
try-works were first started on this present voyage.  It belonged to Stubb to
oversee the business.  All ready there?  Off hatch, then, and start her.  You
cook, fire the works.  This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been
thrusting his shavings into the furnace throughout the passage.  Here be it
said that in a whaling voyage the first fire in the try-works has to be fed
for a time with wood.  After that no wood is used, except as a means of quick
ignition to the staple fuel.  In a word, after being tried out, the crisp,
shrivelled
.. <p 420 >
blubber, now called scraps or fritters, still contains considerable of its
unctuous properties.  These fritters feed the flames.  Like a plethoric
burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope, once ignited, the whale
supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body.  Would that he consumed his
own smoke!  for his smoke is horrible to inhale, and inhale it you must, and
not only that, but you must live in it for the time.  It has an unspeakable,
wild, Hindoo odor about it, such as may lurk in the vicinity of funereal
pyres.  It smells like the left wing of the day of judgment; it is an argument
for the pit.  By midnight the works were in full operation.  We were clear
from the carcase; sail had been made; the wind was freshening; the wild
ocean darkness was intense.  But that darkness was licked up by the fierce
flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and
illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek fire.
The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to some vengeful
deed.  So the pitch and sulphur-freighted brigs of the bold Hydriote, Canaris,
issuing from their midnight harbors, with broad sheets of flame for sails,
bore down upon the turkish frigates, and folded them in conflagrations.  The
hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth in front
of them.  Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooneers,

     always the whale-ship's stokers.  With huge pronged poles they pitched
hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires
beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out of the doors to catch
them by the feet.  The smoke rolled away in sullen heaps.  To every pitch of
the ship there was a pitch of the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to
leap into their faces.  Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further side
of the wide wooden hearth, was the windlass.  This served for a sea-sofa.
Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed, looking into the red
heat of the fire, till their eyes felt scorched in their heads.  Their tawny
features, now all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and
the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely
revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works.  As they
.. <p 421 >
narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in
words of mirth; as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them,
like the flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the
harpooneers wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as
the wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and

     yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of
the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in her mouth,
and viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing Pequod, freighted
with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into
that blackness of darkness, seemed the material counterpart of her
monomaniac commander's soul.  So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm,
and for long hours silently guided the way of this fire-ship on the sea.
Wrapped, for that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the
redness, the madness, the ghastliness of others.  The continual sight of the
fiend shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half in fire, these at
last begat kindred visions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield to that
unaccountable drowsiness which ever would come over me at a midnight helm.
But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable)
thing occurred to me.  Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was horribly
conscious of something fatally wrong.  The jaw-bone tiller smote my side,
which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of sails, just beginning
to shake in the wind; I thought my eyes were open; I was half conscious of
putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically stretching them still further
apart.  But, spite of all this, I could see no compass before me to steer by;

     though it seemed but a minute since I had been watching the card, by the
steady binnacle lamp illuminating it.  Nothing seemed before me but a jet
gloom, now and then made ghastly by flashes of redness.  Uppermost was the
impression, that whatever swift, rushing thing I stood on was not so much
bound to any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern.  A stark,
bewildered feeling, as of death, came over me.  Convulsively my hands grasped
the tiller, but with the crazy conceit that the tiller was, somehow,
.. <p 422 >
in some enchanted way, inverted.  My God!  what is the matter with me?  thought
I.  Lo!  in my brief sleep I had turned myself about, and was fronting the
ship's stern, with my back to her prow and the compass.  In an instant I faced

     back, just in time to prevent the vessel from flying up into the wind, and
very probably capsizing her.  How glad and how grateful the relief from this
unnatural hallucination of the night, and the fatal contingency of being
brought by the lee!  look not too long in the face of the fire, O man!  Never
dream with thy hand on the helm!  Turn not thy back to the compass; accept
the first hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when
its redness makes all things look ghastly.  To-morrow, in the natural sun,
the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking flames,

     the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the glorious,
golden, glad sun, the only true lamp --all others but liars!  Nevertheless the
sun hides not Virginia's Dismal Swamp, nor Rome's accursed Campagna, nor wide
Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of deserts and of griefs beneath the
moon.  The sun hides not the ocean, which is the dark side of this earth,
and which is two thirds of this earth.  So, therefore, that mortal man who
hath more of joy than sorrow in him, that mortal man cannot be true --not true,
or undeveloped.  With books the same.  The truest of all men was the Man of
Sorrows, and the truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the
fine hammered steel of woe.  All is vanity.  ALL.  This wilful world hath
not got hold of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet.  But he who dodges hospitals
and jails, and walks fast crossing grave-yards, and would rather talk of
operas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all of
sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as passing
wise, and therefore jolly; --not that man is fitted to sit down on
tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably wondrous
Solomon.  But even Solomon, he says, the man that wandereth out of the way
of understanding shall remain ( i.  e.  even while living) in the congregation
of the dead.  Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee,
deaden thee; as for the time it did me.
.. <p 423 >
There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.  And there
is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest
gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces.
And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the
mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still
higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.
.. <p 423 >
.. < chapter xcvii 9  THE LAMP >

     Had you descended from the Pequod's
try-works to the Pequod's forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping,

     for one single moment you would have almost thought you were standing in
some illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors.  There they lay in
their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness; a score of
lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes.  In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is
more scarce than the milk of queens.  To dress in the dark, and eat in the
dark, and stumble in darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot.  But the

     whaleman, as he seeks the food of light, so he lives in light.  He makes his
berth an Aladdin's lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiest
night the ship's black hull still houses an illumination.  See with what
entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of lamps --often but old bottles
and vials, though --to the copper cooler at the try-works, and replenishes
them there, as mugs of ale at a vat.  He burns, too, the purest of oil, in
its unmanufactured, and, therefore, unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to
solar, lunar, or astral contrivances ashore.  It is sweet as early grass
butter in April.  He goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its
freshness and genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his
own supper of game.
.. <p 424 >
.. < chapter xcviii 2  STOWING DOWN AND CLEARING UP >

     Already has it been
related how the great leviathan is afar off descried from the mast-head; how
he is chased over the watery moors, and slaughtered in the valleys of the
deep; how he is then towed alongside and beheaded; and how (on the
principle which entitled the headsman of old to the garments in which the
beheaded was killed) his great padded surtout becomes the property of his
executioner; how, in due time, he is condemned to the pots, and, like
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, his spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed
through the fire; --but now it remains to conclude the last chapter of this
part of the description by rehearsing --singing, if I may -- the romantic
proceeding of decanting off his oil into the casks and striking them down into
the hold, where once again leviathan returns to his native profundities,
sliding along beneath the surface as before; but, alas!  never more to rise
and blow.  While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the
six-barrel casks; and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and rolling this
way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous casks are slewed round and
headed over, end for end, and sometimes perilously scoot across the slippery
deck, like so many land slides, till at last man-handled and stayed in their
course; and all round the hoops, rap, rap, go as many hammers as can play
upon them, for now, ex officio, every sailor is a cooper.  At length, when
the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then the great hatchways are
unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown open, and down go the casks to
their final rest in the sea.  This done, the hatches are replaced, and
hermetically closed, like a closet walled up.  In the sperm fishery, this is
perhaps one of the most remarkable incidents in all the business of whaling.
One day the planks stream with freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred
.. <p 425 >
quarter-deck enormous masses of the whale's head are profanely piled; great
rusty casks lie about, as in a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has
besooted all the bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness;
the entire ship seems great leviathan himself; while on all hands the din is
deafening.  But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your ears
in this self-same ship; and were it not for the tell-tale boats and
try-works, you would all but swear you trod some silent merchant vessel,
with a most scrupulously neat commander.  The unmanufactured sperm oil
possesses a singularly cleansing virtue.  This is the reason why the decks
never look so white as just after what they call an affair of oil.  Besides,
from the ashes of the burned scraps of the whale, a potent ley is readily
made; and whenever any adhesiveness from the back of the whale remains
clinging to the side, that ley quickly exterminates it.  Hands go diligently
along the bulwarks, and with buckets of water and rags restore them to their
full tidiness.  The soot is brushed from the lower rigging.  All the numerous
implements which have been in use are likewise faithfully cleansed and put
away.  The great hatch is scrubbed and placed upon the try-works, completely
hiding the pots; every cask is out of sight; all tackles are coiled in
unseen nooks; and when by the combined and simultaneous industry of almost
the entire ship's company, the whole of this conscientious duty is at last
concluded, then the crew themselves proceed to their own ablutions; shift
themselves from top to toe; and finally issue to the immaculate deck, fresh
and all aglow, as bridegrooms new-leaped from out the daintiest Holland.  Now,
with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes, and humorously
discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics; propose to mat the
deck; think of having hangings to the top; object not to taking tea by
moonlight on the piazza of the forecastle.  To hint to such musked mariners of

     oil, and bone, and blubber, were little short of audacity.  They know not the
thing you distantly allude to.  Away, and bring us napkins!  But mark: aloft
there, at the three mast heads, stand three
.. <p 426 >
men intent on spying out more whales, which, if caught, infallibly will again
soil the old oaken furniture, and drop at least one small grease-spot
somewhere.  Yes; and many is the time, when, after the severest uninterrupted
labors, which know no night; continuing straight through for ninety-six
hours; when from the boat, where they have swelled their wrists with all day

     rowing on the Line, --they only step to the deck to carry vast chains, and
heave the heavy windlass, and cut and slash, yea, and in their very
sweatings to be smoked and burned anew by the combined fires of the equatorial
sun and the equatorial try-works; when, on the heel of all this, they have
finally bestirred themselves to cleanse the ship, and make a spotless dairy
room of it; many is the time the poor fellows, just buttoning the necks of
their clean frocks, are startled by the cry of There she blows!  and away
they fly to fight another whale, and go through the whole weary thing again.
Oh!  my friends, but this is man-killing!  Yet this is life.  For hardly have
we mortals by long toilings extracted from the world's vast bulk its small but
valuable sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its
defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul;
hardly is this done, when -- There she blows! --the ghost is spouted up, and
away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's old
routine again.  Oh!  the metempsychosis!  Oh!  Pythagoras, that in bright
Greece, two thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild; I
sailed with thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage -- and, foolish as I am,
taught thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope!
.. <p 426 >
.. < chapter xcix 30  THE DOUBLOON >

     Ere now it has been related how Ahab was
wont to pace his quarter-deck, taking regular turns at either limit, the
binnacle
.. <p 427 >
and mainmast; but in the multiplicity of other things requiring narration it
has not been added how that sometimes in these walks, when most plunged in
his mood, he was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there
strangely eyeing the particular object before him.  When he halted before the
binnacle, with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the compass, that
glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of his purpose; and
when resuming his walk he again paused before the mainmast, then, as the same
riveted glance fastened upon the riveted gold coin there, he still wore the
same aspect of nailed firmness, only dashed with a certain wild longing, if
not hopefulness.  But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed
to be newly attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it,
as though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in some
monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them.  And some certain
significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth, and the
round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by the cartload, as
they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in the Milky Way.  Now
this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of the heart of
gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden sands, the head-waters of
many a Pactolus flows.  And though now nailed amidst all the rustiness of iron
bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes, yet, untouchable and immaculate to
any foulness, it still preserved its Quito glow.  Nor, though placed amongst
a ruthless crew and every hour passed by ruthless hands, and through the
livelong nights shrouded with thick darkness which might cover any pilfering
approach, nevertheless every sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset left

     it last.  For it was set apart and sanctified to one awe-striking end; and
however wanton in their sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as
the white whale's talisman.  Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch
by night, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he would ever
live to spend it.  Now those noble golden coins of South America are as
.. <p 428 >
medals of the sun and tropic token-pieces.  Here palms, alpacas, and
volcanoes; sun's disks and stars; ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich
banners waving, are in luxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious gold
seems almost to derive an added preciousness and enhancing glories, by
passing through those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic.  It so chanced that
the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things.  On its
round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO.  So this
bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and
beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway
up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn.  Zoned by those
letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a
tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a
segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual
cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra.
Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now pausing.

     There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all
other grand and lofty things; look here, --three peaks as proud as Lucifer.
The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the courageous, the
undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this
round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician's
glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious
self.  Great pains, small gains for those who ask the world to solve them; it
cannot solve itself.  Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but
see!  aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox!  and but six months
before he wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries!  From storm to storm!  So
be it, then.  Born in throes, 't is fit that man should live in pains and die
in pangs!  So be it, then!  Here's stout stuff for woe to work on.  So be it,
then.  No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws must
have left their mouldings there since yesterday, murmured Starbuck to
himself, leaning against the bulwarks.  The old
.. <p 429 >
man seems to read Belshazzar's awful writing.  I have never marked the coin
inspectingly.  He goes below; let me read.  A dark valley between three
mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint
earthly symbol.  So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over all
our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope.  If we
bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil; but if we lift them,

     the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer.  Yet, oh, the great sun
is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we would fain snatch some sweet solace
from him, we gaze for him in vain!  This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly,
but still sadly to me.  I will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely.  There
now's the old Mogul, soliloquized Stubb by the try-works, he's been twigging
it; and there goes Starbuck from the same, and both with faces which I
should say might be somewhere within nine fathoms long.  And all from looking
at a piece of gold, which did I have it now on Negro Hill or in Corlaer's
Hook, I'd not look at it very long ere spending it.  Humph!  in my poor,
insignificant opinion, I regard this as queer.  I have seen doubloons before
now in my voyagings; your doubloons of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru,
your doubloons of Chili, your doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of
Popayan; with plenty of gold moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half joes,
and quarter joes.  what then should there be in this doubloon of the Equator
that is so killing wonderful?  By Golconda!  let me read it once.  Halloa!
here's signs and wonders truly!  That, now, is what old Bowditch in his
Epitome calls the zodiac, and what my almanack below calls ditto.  I'll get
the almanack and as I have heard devils can be raised with Daboll's
arithmetic, I'll try my hand at raising a meaning out of these queer
curvicues here with the Massachusetts calendar.  Here's the book.  Let's see
now.  Signs and wonders; and the sun, he's always among 'em.  Hem, hem, hem;

     here they are --here they go --all alive: --Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the
Bull and Jimimi!  here's Gemini himself, or the Twins.  Well; the sun he
wheels among 'em.  Aye, here on the coin he's just crossing the threshold
between two of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring.  Book!  you lie there; the
fact is, you books must know your
.. <p 430 >
places.  You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to
supply the thoughts.  That's my small experience, so far as the Massachusetts
calendar, and Bowditch's navigator, and Daboll's arithmetic go.  Signs and
wonders, eh?  Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in
wonders!  There's a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist--hark!  By Jove, I have
it!  Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round
chapter; and now I'll read it off, straight out of the book.  Come, Almanack!

     To begin: there's Aries, or the Ram --lecherous dog, he begets us; then,
Taurus, or the Bull --he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins --

     that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo!  comes Cancer
the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring
Lion, lies in the path --he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his
paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin!  that's our first love; we marry
and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or the Scales --happiness

     weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord!  how
we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear; we are
curing the wound, when whang come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the
Archer, is amusing himself.  As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside; here's
the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and
headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours out his
whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we
sleep.  There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through
it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty.  Jollily he,
aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and so, alow here, does jolly
Stubb.  Oh, jolly's the word for aye!  Adieu, Doubloon!  But stop; here comes
little King-Post; dodge round the try-works, now, and let's hear what he'll
have to say.  There; he's before it; he'll out with something presently.  So,
so; he's beginning.  I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold,
and whoever raises a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him.  So,
what's all this staring been about?  It is worth sixteen dollars, that's true;

     and at two cents the cigar, that's nine hundred and
.. <p 431 >
sixty cigars.  I wont smoke dirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and
here's nine hundred and sixty of them; so here goes Flask aloft to spy 'em
out.  Shall I call that wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it has a
foolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a sort of
wiseish look to it.  But, avast; here comes our old Manxman --the old
hearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before he took to the sea.  He
luffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and goes round on the other side of the
mast; why, there's a horse-shoe nailed on that side; and now he's back
again; what does that mean?  Hark!  he's muttering --voice like an old
worn-out coffee-mill.  Prick ears, and listen!  If the White Whale be
raised, it must be in a month and a day, when the sun stands in some one of
these signs.  I've studied signs, and know their marks; they were taught me
two score years ago, by the old witch in Copenhagen.  Now, in what sign will
the sun then be?  The horse-shoe sign; for there it is, right opposite the
gold.  And what's the horse-shoe sign?  The lion is the horse-shoe sign --the
roaring and devouring lion.  Ship, old ship!  my old head shakes to think of
thee.  There's another rendering now; but still one text.  All sorts of men
in one kind of world, you see.  Dodge again!  here comes Queequeg --all
tattooing --looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself.  What says the
Cannibal?  As I live he's comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone; thinks
the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I suppose, as
the old women talk Surgeon's Astronomy in the back country.  And by Jove, he's

     found something there in the vicinity of his thigh --I guess it's Sagittarius,
or the Archer.  No: he don't know what to make of the doubloon; he takes it
for an old button off some king's trowsers.  But, aside again!  here comes
that ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail coiled out of sight as usual, oakum in the
toes of his pumps as usual.  What does he say, with that look of his?  Ah,
only makes a sign to the sign and bows himself; there is a sun on the coin
--fire worshipper, depend upon it.  Ho!  more and more.  This way comes Pip
--poor boy!  would he had died, or I; he's half horrible to me.  He too has
been watching all of these interpreters --myself included --and look now, he
comes to read,
.. <p 432 >
with that unearthly idiot face.  stand away again and hear him.  hark!  I
look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.  Upon my soul,
he's been studying Murray's Grammar!  Improving his mind, poor fellow!  But
what's that he says now -- hist!  I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye
look, they look.  Why, he's getting it by heart --hist!  again.  I look,
you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.  Well, that's funny.

     And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I'm a crow,
especially when I stand a'top of this pine tree here.  Caw!  caw!  caw!  caw!  caw!
caw!  Ain't I a crow?  And where's the scare-crow?  There he stands; two
bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and two more poked into the sleeves
of an old jacket.  Wonder if he means me? --complimentary! --poor lad! --I
could go hang myself.  Any way, for the present, I'll quit Pip's vicinity.
I can stand the rest, for they have plain wits; but he's too crazy-witty
for my sanity.  So, so, I leave him muttering.  Here's the ship's navel,
this doubloon here, and they are all on fire to unscrew it.  But, unscrew
your navel, and what's the consequence?  Then again, if it stays here, that
is ugly, too, for when aught's nailed to the mast it's a sign that things grow

     desperate.  Ha, ha!  old Ahab!  the White Whale; he'll nail ye!  This is a
pine tree.  My father, in old Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and
found a silver ring grown over in it; some old darkey's wedding ring.  How
did it get there?  And so they'll say in the resurrection, when they come to
fish up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters
for the shaggy bark.  Oh, the gold!  the precious, precious gold! --the green
miser 'll hoard ye soon!  Hish!  hish!  God goes 'mong the worlds
blackberrying.  Cook!  ho, cook!  and cook us!  Jenny!  hey, hey, hey, hey,
hey, Jenny, Jenny!  and get your hoe-cake done!

.. <p 433 >
.. < chapter c 2  LEG AND ARM THE PEQUOD, OF NANTUCKET, MEETS THE SAMUEL >



     ENDERBY, OF LONDON Ship, ahoy!  Hast seen the White Whale?  So cried Ahab,
once more hailing a ship showing English colors, bearing down under the
stern.  Trumpet to mouth, the old man was standing in his hoisted
quarter-boat, his ivory leg plainly revealed to the stranger captain, who
was carelessly reclining in his own boat's bow.  He was a darkly-tanned,
burly, good-natured, fine-looking man, of sixty or thereabouts, dressed in
a spacious roundabout, that hung round him in festoons of blue pilot-cloth;
and one empty arm of this jacket streamed behind him like the broidered arm of
a huzzar's surcoat.  Hast seen the White Whale?  See you this?  and
withdrawing it from the fold that had hidden it, he held up a white arm of
sperm whale bone, terminating in a wooden head like a mallet.  Man my boat!
cried Ahab, impetuously, and tossing about the oars near him -- Stand by to
lower!  In less than a minute, without quitting his little craft, he and
his crew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside of the stranger.
But here a curious difficulty presented itself.  In the excitement of the
moment, Ahab had forgotten that since the loss of his leg he had never once
stepped on board of any vessel at sea but his own, and then it was always by
an ingenious and very handy mechanical contrivance peculiar to the Pequod,
and a thing not to be rigged and shipped in any other vessel at a moment's
warning.  Now, it is no very easy matter for anybody --except those who are
almost hourly used to it, like whalemen --to clamber up a ship's side from a
boat on the open sea; for the great swells now lift the boat high up towards

.. <p 434 >
the bulwarks, and then instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson.
so, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether
unsupplied with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced
to a clumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height
he could hardly hope to attain.  It has before been hinted, perhaps, that
every little untoward circumstance that befel him, and which indirectly
sprang from his luckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated
Ahab.  And in the present instance, all this was heightened by the sight of
the two officers of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by the
perpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, and swinging towards him a pair
of tastefully-ornamented man-ropes; for at first they did not seem to bethink
them that a one-legged man must be too much of a cripple to use their sea
bannisters.  But this awkwardness only lasted a minute, because the strange
captain, observing at a glance how affairs stood, cried out, I see, I see!
--avast heaving there!  Jump, boys, and swing over the cutting-tackle.  As
good luck would have it, they had had a whale alongside a day or two
previous, and the great tackles were still aloft, and the massive curved
blubber-hook, now clean and dry, was still attached to the end.  This was
quickly lowered to Ahab, who at once comprehending it all, slid his solitary
thigh into the curve of the hook (it was like sitting in the fluke of an
anchor, or the crotch of an apple tree), and then giving the word, held
himself fast, and at the same time also helped to hoist his own weight, by
pulling hand-over-hand upon one of the running parts of the tackle.  Soon he
was carefully swung inside the high bulwarks, and gently landed upon the
capstan head.  With his ivory arm frankly thrust forth in welcome, the other
captain advanced, and Ahab, putting out his ivory leg, and crossing the ivory
arm (like two sword-fish blades) cried out in his walrus way, Aye, aye,
hearty!  let us shake bones together! --an arm and a leg! --an arm that never
can shrink, d'ye see; and a leg that never can run.  Where did'st thou see
the White Whale? --how long ago?  The White Whale, said the Englishman,
pointing his ivory
.. <p 435 >
arm towards the East, and taking a rueful sight along it, as if it had been a
telescope; There I saw him, on the Line, last season.  And he took that
arm off, did he?  asked Ahab, now sliding down from the capstan, and resting
on the Englishman's shoulder, as he did so.  Aye, he was the cause of it, at
least; and that leg, too?  Spin me the yarn, said Ahab; how was it?  It
was the first time in my life that I ever cruised on the Line, began the
Englishman.  I was ignorant of the White Whale at that time.  Well, one day
we lowered for a pod of four or five whales, and my boat fastened to one of
them; a regular circus horse he was, too, that went milling and milling
round so, that my boat's crew could only trim dish, by sitting all their
sterns on the outer gunwale.  Presently up breaches from the bottom of the sea
a bouncing great whale, with a milky-white head and hump, all crows' feet and
wrinkles.  It was he, it was he!  cried Ahab, suddenly letting out his
suspended breath.  And harpoons sticking in near his starboard fin.  Aye,
aye --they were mine -- my irons, cried Ahab, exultingly -- but on!  Give me a
chance, then, said the Englishman, good-humoredly.  Well, this old
great-grandfather, with the white head and hump, runs all afoam into the pod,
and goes to snapping furiously at my fast-line.  Aye, I see! --wanted to part
it; free the fast-fish --an old trick --I know him.  How it was exactly,
continued the one-armed commander, I do not know; but in biting the line, it
got foul of his teeth, caught there somehow; but we didn't know it then; so
that when we afterwards pulled on the line, bounce we came plump on to his
hump!  instead of the other whale's that went off to windward, all fluking.
Seeing how matters stood, and what a noble great whale it was --the noblest
and biggest I ever saw, sir, in my life --I resolved to capture him, spite of
the boiling rage he seemed to be in.  And thinking the hap-hazard line would

     get loose, or the tooth it was tangled to might draw (for I have
.. <p 436 >
a devil of a boat's crew for a pull on a whale-line); seeing all this, I say,
I jumped into my first mate's boat --Mr. Mounttop's here (by the way, Captain
--Mounttop; Mounttop--the captain); --as I was saying, I jumped into Mounttop's
boat, which, d'ye see, was gunwale and gunwale with mine, then; and snatching

     the first harpoon, let this old great-grandfather have it.  But, Lord, look
you, sir --hearts and souls alive, man --the next instant, in a jiff, I was
blind as a bat --both eyes out --all befogged and bedeadened with black foam
--the whale's tail looming straight up out of it, perpendicular in the air,
like a marble steeple.  No use sterning all, then; but as I was groping at
midday, with a blinding sun, all crown-jewels; as I was groping, I say,
after the second iron, to toss it overboard --down comes the tail like a Lima
tower, cutting my boat in two, leaving each half in splinters; and, flukes
first, the white hump backed through the wreck, as though it was all chips.
We all struck out.  To escape his terrible flailings, I seized hold of my
harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a moment clung to that like a sucking
fish.  But a combing sea dashed me off, and at the same instant, the fish,
taking one good dart forwards, went down like a flash; and the barb of that
cursed second iron towing along near me caught me here (clapping his hand
just below his shoulder); yes, caught me just here, I say, and bore me down
to Hell's flames, I was thinking; when, when, all of a sudden, thank the
good God, the barb ript its way along the flesh --clear along the whole length
of my arm --came out nigh my wrist, and up i floated; --and that gentleman
there will tell you the rest (by the way, captain --Dr.  Bunger, ship's
surgeon: Bunger, my lad, -- the captain).  Now, Bunger boy, spin your part
of the yarn.  The professional gentleman thus familiarly pointed out, had
been all the time standing near them, with nothing specific visible, to
denote his gentlemanly rank on board.  His face was an exceedingly round but
sober one; he was dressed in a faded blue woollen frock or shirt, and patched
trowsers; and had thus far been dividing his attention between a marlingspike
he held in one hand, and a pill-box held in the other, occasionally casting
a critical glance at the ivory limbs of the two crippled captains.  But, at his
superior's introduction of him to Ahab, he
.. <p 437 >
politely bowed, and straightway went on to do his captain's bidding.  It was
a shocking bad wound, began the whale-surgeon; and, taking my advice,
Captain Boomer here, stood our old Sammy-- Samuel Enderby is the name of
my ship, interrupted the one-armed captain, addressing Ahab; go on, boy.

     Stood our old Sammy off to the northward, to get out of the blazing hot
weather there on the Line.  But it was no use --I did all I could; sat up with
him nights; was very severe with him in the matter of diet-- Oh, very
severe!  chimed in the patient himself; then suddenly altering his voice,

     Drinking hot rum toddies with me every night, till he couldn't see to put on
the bandages; and sending me to bed, half seas over, about three o'clock in
the morning.  Oh, ye stars!  he sat up with me indeed, and was very severe
in my diet.  Oh!  a great watcher, and very dietetically severe, is Dr.
Bunger. (Bunger, you dog, laugh out!  why don't ye?  You know you're a
precious jolly rascal.) But, heave ahead, boy, I'd rather be killed by you
than kept alive by any other man.  My captain, you must have ere this
perceived, respected sir --said the imperturbable godly-looking Bunger,
slightly bowing to Ahab -- is apt to be facetious at times; he spins us many

     clever things of that sort.  But I may as well say --en passant, as the French
remark --that I myself --that is to say, Jack Bunger, late of the reverend
clergy --am a strict total abstinence man; I never drink-- Water!  cried the
captain; he never drinks it; it's a sort of fits to him; fresh water
throws him into the hydrophobia; but go on --go on with the arm story.  Yes,
I may as well, said the surgeon, coolly.  I was about observing, sir, before
Captain Boomer's facetious interruption, that spite of my best and severest
endeavors, the wound kept getting worse and worse; the truth was, sir, it
was as ugly gaping wound as surgeon ever saw; more than two feet and several
inches long.  I measured it with the lead line.  In short, it grew black; I
knew what was threatened, and off it came.
.. <p 438 >
But I had no hand in shipping that ivory arm there; that thing is against all
rule --pointing at it with the marlingspike -- that is the captain's work,
not mine; he ordered the carpenter to make it; he had that club-hammer there
put to the end, to knock some one's brains out with, I suppose, as he tried
mine once.  He flies into diabolical passions sometimes.  Do ye see this
dent, sir --removing his hat, and brushing aside his hair, and exposing a
bowl-like cavity in his skull, but which bore not the slightest scarry trace,

     or any token of ever having been a wound -- Well, the captain there will tell
you how that came here; he knows.  No, I don't, said the captain, but
his mother did; he was born with it.  Oh, you solemn rogue, you --you Bunger!
was there ever such another Bunger in the watery world?  Bunger, when you
die, you ought to die in pickle, you dog; you should be preserved to future
ages, you rascal.  What became of the White Whale?  now cried Ahab, who
thus far had been impatiently listening to this bye-play between the two
Englishmen.  Oh!  cried the one-armed captain, Oh, yes!  Well; after he
sounded, we didn't see him again for some time; in fact, as I before hinted,
I didn't then know what whale it was that had served me such a trick, till
some time afterwards, when coming back to the Line, we heard about Moby Dick
--as some call him --and then I knew it was he.  Did'st thou cross his wake
again?  Twice.  But could not fasten?  Didn't want to try to: ain't one
limb enough?  What should I do without this other arm?  And I'm thinking Moby
Dick doesn't bite so much as he swallows.  Well, then, interrupted Bunger,

     give him your left arm for bait to get the right.  Do you know, gentlemen
--very gravely and mathematically bowing to each Captain in succession -- Do
you know, gentlemen, that the digestive organs of the whale are so
inscrutably constructed by Divine Providence, that it is quite impossible for
him to completely digest even a
.. <p 439 >
man's arm?  And he knows it too.  So that what you take for the White Whale's
malice is only his awkwardness.  For he never means to swallow a single limb;
he only thinks to terrify by feints.  But sometimes he is like the old
juggling fellow, formerly a patient of mine in Ceylon, that making believe
swallow jack-knives, once upon a time let one drop into him in good earnest,

     and there it stayed for a twelvemonth or more; when I gave him an emetic,
and he heaved it up in small tacks, d'ye see.  No possible way for him to
digest that jack-knife, and fully incorporate it into his general bodily
system.  Yes, Captain Boomer, if you are quick enough about it, and have a
mind to pawn one arm for the sake of the privilege of giving decent burial to
the other, why in that case the arm is yours; only let the whale have
another chance at you shortly, that's all.  No, thank ye, Bunger, said the
english captain, he's welcome to the arm he has, since I can't help it,
and didn't know him then; but not to another one.  No more White Whales for
me; I've lowered for him once, and that has satisfied me.  There would be
great glory in killing him, I know that; and there is a ship-load of
precious sperm in him, but, hark ye, he's best let alone; don't you think
so, Captain? --glancing at the ivory leg.  He is.  But he will still be
hunted, for all that.  What is best let alone, that accursed thing is not
always what least allures.  He's all a magnet!  How long since thou saw'st him
last?  Which way heading?  Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend's,
cried Bunger,  stoopingly walking round Ahab, and like a dog, strangely
snuffing; this man's blood --bring the thermometer; --it's at the boiling
point! --his pulse makes these planks beat! --sir! --taking a lancet from his
pocket, and drawing near to Ahab's arm.  Avast!  roared Ahab, dashing him
against the bulwarks -- Man the boat!  Which way heading?  Good God!  cried
the English Captain, to whom the question was put.  What's the matter?  He
was heading east, I think. --Is your Captain crazy?  whispering Fedallah.

     But Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slid over the bulwarks
.. <p 440 >
to take the boat's steering oar, and Ahab, swinging the cutting-tackle
towards him, commanded the ship's sailors to stand by to lower.  In a moment
he was standing in the boat's stern, and the Manilla men were springing to
their oars.  In vain the English Captain hailed him.  With back to the
stranger ship, and face set like a flint to his own, Ahab stood upright till
alongside of the Pequod.
.. <p 440 >
.. < chapter ci 10  THE DECANTER >

     Ere the English ship fades from sight, be
it set down here, that she hailed from London, and was named after the late
Samuel Enderby, merchant of that city, the original of the famous whaling
house of enderby and sons; a house which in my poor whaleman's opinion,
comes not far behind the united royal houses of the Tudors and Bourbons, in
point of real historical interest.  How long, prior to the year of our Lord 0083
, this great whaling house was in existence, my numerous fish-documents
do not make plain; but in that year (
) it fitted out the first English
ships that ever regularly hunted the Sperm Whale; though for some score of
years previous (ever since
) our valiant Coffins and Maceys of Nantucket
and the Vineyard had in large fleets pursued that Leviathan, but only in the
North and South Atlantic: not elsewhere.  Be it distinctly recorded here,
that the Nantucketers were the first among mankind to harpoon with civilized
steel the great Sperm Whale; and that for half a century they were the only
people of the whole globe who so harpooned him.  In
, a fine ship, the
Amelia, fitted out for the express purpose, and at the sole charge of the
vigorous Enderbys, boldly rounded Cape Horn, and was the first among the
nations to lower a whale-boat of any sort in the great South Sea.  The
.. <p 441 >
voyage was a skilful and lucky one; and returning to her berth with her hold
full of the precious sperm, the Amelia's example was soon followed by other
ships, English and American, and thus the vast Sperm Whale grounds of the
Pacific were thrown open.  But not content with this good deed, the
indefatigable house again bestirred itself: Samuel and all his Sons --how
many, their mother only knows --and under their immediate auspices, and
partly, I think, at their expense, the British government was induced to send
the sloop-of-war Rattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea.
Commanded by a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling voyage of it,
and did some service; how much does not appear.  But this is not all.  In 0084
, the same house fitted out a discovery whale ship of their own, to go on
a tasting cruise to the remote waters of Japan.  That ship --well called the

     Syren --made a noble experimental cruise; and it was thus that the great
Japanese Whaling Ground first became generally known.  The Syren in this
famous voyage was commanded by a Captain Coffin, a Nantucketer.  All honor to
the Enderbies, therefore, whose house, I think, exists to the present day;
though doubtless the original Samuel must long ago have slipped his cable for
the great South Sea of the other world.  The ship named after him was worthy
of the honor, being a very fast sailer and a noble craft every way.  I
boarded her once at midnight somewhere off the Patagonian coast, and drank
good flip down in the forecastle.  It was a fine gam we had, and they were all
trumps --every soul on board.  A short life to them, and a jolly death.  And
that fine gam I had --long, very long after old Ahab touched her planks with
his ivory heel -- it minds me of the noble, solid, Saxon hospitality of that
ship; and may my parson forget me, and the devil remember me, if I ever lose
sight of it.  Flip?  Did I say we had flip?  Yes, and we flipped it at the
rate of ten gallons the hour; and when the squall came (for it's squally off
there by Patagonia), and all hands --visitors and all --were called to reef
topsails, we were so top-heavy that we had to swing each other aloft in
bowlines; and we ignorantly furled the skirts of our jackets into
.. <p 442 >
the sails, so that we hung there, reefed fast in the howling gale, a warning
example to all drunken tars.  However, the masts did not go overboard; and by
and bye we scrambled down, so sober, that we had to pass the flip again,
though the savage salt spray bursting down the forecastle scuttle, rather too
much diluted and pickled it to my taste.  The beef was fine --tough, but with
body in it.  They said it was bull-beef; others, that it was dromedary beef;
but i do not know, for certain, how that was.  they had dumplings too; small,
but substantial, symmetrically globular, and indestructible dumplings.  I
fancied that you could feel them, and roll them about in you after they were
swallowed.  If you stooped over too far forward, you risked their pitching
out of you like billiard-balls.  The bread --but that couldn't be helped;
besides, it was an anti-scorbutic; in short, the bread contained the only
fresh fare they had.  But the forecastle was not very light, and it was very
easy to step over into a dark corner when you ate it.  But all in all, taking
her from truck to helm, considering the dimensions of the cook's boilers,
including his own live parchment boilers; fore and aft, I say, the Samuel
Enderby was a jolly ship; of good fare and plenty; fine flip and strong;
crack fellows all, and capital from boot heels to hat-band.  But why was it,
think ye, that the Samuel Enderby, and some other English whalers I know of
--not all though --were such famous, hospitable ships; that passed round the
beef, and the bread, and the can, and the joke; and were not soon weary
of eating, and drinking, and laughing?  I will tell you.  The abounding good
cheer of these English whalers is matter for historical research.  Nor have I
been at all sparing of historical whale research, when it has seemed needed.
The English were preceded in the whale fishery by the Hollanders, Zealanders,
and Danes; from whom they derived many terms still extant in the fishery;
and what is yet more, their fat old fashions, touching plenty to eat and
drink.  For, as a general thing, the English merchant-ship scrimps her crew;
but not so the English whaler.  Hence, in the English, this thing of whaling
good cheer is not normal and natural, but incidental and particular; and,
therefore, must have some special origin,
.. <p 443 >
which is here pointed out, and will be still further elucidated.  During my
researches in the leviathanic histories, I stumbled upon an ancient Dutch
volume, which, by the musty whaling smell of it, I knew must be about
whalers.  The title was, Dan Coopman, wherefore I concluded that this must
be the invaluable memoirs of some Amsterdam cooper in the fishery, as every
whale ship must carry its cooper.  I was reinforced in this opinion by seeing
that it was the production of one Fitz Swackhammer.  But my friend Dr.
Snodhead, a very learned man, professor of Low Dutch and High German in the
college of Santa Claus and St.  Pott's, to whom I handed the work for
translation, giving him a box of sperm candles for his trouble -- this same
Dr.  Snodhead, so soon as he spied the book, assured me that Dan Coopman did
not mean The Cooper, but The Merchant.  In short, this ancient and
learned Low Dutch book treated of the commerce of Holland; and, among other
subjects, contained a very interesting account of its whale fishery.  And in
this chapter it was, headed Smeer, or Fat, that I found a long detailed
list of the outfits for the larders and cellars of 180 sail of Dutch whalemen;

     from which list, as translated by Dr.  Snodhead.  I transcribe the following: 0084400,000 lbs.  of beef. 60,000 lbs.  Friesland pork. 150,000 lbs.  of stock fish.
 550,000 lbs.  of biscuit. 72,000 lbs.  of soft bread. 2,800 firkins of butter.
 20,000 lbs.  of Texel and Leyden cheese. 144,000 lbs.  cheese (probably an
inferior article). 550 ankers of Geneva. 10,800 barrels of beer.  Most
statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading; not so in the present
case, however, where the reader is flooded with whole pipes, barrels, quarts,
and gills of good gin and good cheer.  At the time, I devoted three days to
the studious digesting of all this beer, beef, and bread, during which many
profound
.. <p 444 >
thoughts were incidentally suggested to me, capable of a transcendental
and Platonic application; and, furthermore, I compiled supplementary tables
of my own, touching the probable quantity of stock-fish, etc., consumed by
every Low Dutch harpooneer in that ancient Greenland and Spitzbergen whale
fishery.  In the first place, the amount of butter, and Texel and Leyden
cheese consumed, seems amazing.  I impute it, though, to their naturally
unctuous natures, being rendered still more unctuous by the nature of their
vocation, and especially by their pursuing their game in those frigid Polar
Seas, on the very coasts of that Esquimaux country where the convivial
natives pledge each other in bumpers of train oil.  The quantity of beer, too,
is very large, 10,800 barrels.  Now, as those polar fisheries could only be
prosecuted in the short summer of that climate, so that the whole cruise of
one of these Dutch whalemen, including the short voyage to and from the
Spitzbergen sea, did not much exceed three months, say, and reckoning 30 men
to each of their fleet of 180 sail, we have 5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all;
therefore, I say, we have precisely two barrels of beer per man, for a
twelve weeks' allowance, exclusive of his fair proportion of that 550 ankers
of gin.  Now, whether these gin and beer harpooneers, so fuddled as one might
fancy them to have been, were the right sort of men to stand up in a boat's
head, and take good aim at flying whales; this would seem somewhat
improbable.  Yet they did aim at them, and hit them too.  But this was very
far North, be it remembered, where beer agrees well with the constitution;
upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would be apt to make the
harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his boat; and grievous loss
might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford.  But no more; enough has been said
to show that the old Dutch whalers of two or three centuries ago were high
livers; and that the English whalers have not neglected so excellent an
example.  For, say they, when cruising in an empty ship, if you can get
nothing better out of the world, get a good dinner out of it, at least.  And
this empties the decanter.
.. <p 445 >
.. < chapter cii 2  A BOWER IN THE ARSACIDES >

     Hitherto, in descriptively
treating of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly dwelt upon the marvels of his
outer aspect; or separately and in detail upon some few interior structural
features.  But to a large and thorough sweeping comprehension of him, it
behoves me now to unbutton him still further, and untagging the points of his
hose, unbuckling his garters, and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of
the joints of his innermost bones, set him before you in his ultimatum; that
is to say, in his unconditional skeleton.  But how now, Ishmael?  How is it,
that you, a mere oarsman in the fishery, pretend to know aught about the
subterranean parts of the whale?  Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your
capstan, deliver lectures on the anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help of the
windlass, hold up a specimen rib for exhibition?  Explain thyself, Ishmael.
Can you land a full-grown whale on your deck for examination, as a cook
dishes a roast-pig?  Surely not.  A veritable witness have you hitherto been,
Ishmael; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone; the
privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams; the rafters, ridge-pole,
sleepers, and under-pinnings, making up the frame-work of leviathan; and
belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries, and cheeseries in his
bowels.  I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far
beneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessed with
an opportunity to dissect him in miniature.  In a ship I belonged to, a small
cub Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted to the deck for his poke or bag, to
make sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the heads of the lances.

     Think you I let that chance go, without using my boat-hatchet and
jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading all the contents of that young
cub?
.. <p 446 >
And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan in their gigantic,
full grown development, for that rare knowledge I am indebted to my late
royal friend Tranquo, king of Tranque, one of the Arsacides.  For being at
Tranque, years ago, when attached to the trading-ship Dey of Algiers, I was
invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with the lord of Tranque, at
his retired palm villa at Pupella; a sea-side glen not very far distant from
what our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his capital.  Among many other fine
qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted with a devout love for all
matters of barbaric vertu, had brought together in Pupella whatever rare
things the more ingenious of his people could invent; chiefly carved woods of

     wonderful devices, chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles,
aromatic canoes; and all these distributed among whatever natural wonders,
the wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had cast upon his shores.  Chief
among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which, after an unusually long
raging gale, had been found dead and stranded, with his head against a
cocoa-nut tree, whose plumage-like, tufted droopings seemed his verdant jet.
When the vast body had at last been stripped of its fathom-deep enfoldings,
and the bones become dust dry in the sun, then the skeleton was carefully
transported up the Pupella glen, where a grand temple of lordly palms now
sheltered it.  The ribs were hung with trophies; the vertebrae were carved
with Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics; in the skull, the priests
kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head again sent
forth its vapory spout; while, suspended from a bough, the terrific lower jaw
vibrated over all the devotees, like the hair-hung sword that so affrighted
damocles.  it was a wondrous sight.  the wood was green as mosses of the icy
Glen; the trees stood high and haughty, feeling their living sap; the
industrious earth beneath was as a weaver's loom, with a gorgeous carpet on
it, whereof the ground-vine tendrils formed the warp and woof, and the
living flowers the figures.  All the trees, with all their laden branches;
all the shrubs, and ferns, and grasses; the message-carrying air; all
.. <p 447 >
these unceasingly were active.  Through the lacings of the leaves, the great
sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving the unwearied verdure.  Oh, busy weaver!
unseen weaver! --pause! --one word! -- whither flows the fabric?  what palace may
it deck?  wherefore all these ceaseless toilings?  Speak, weaver! --stay thy
hand! -- but one single word with thee!  Nay --the shuttle flies --the figures

     float from forth the loom; the freshet-rushing carpet for ever slides away.
The weaver-god, he weaves; and by that weaving is he deafened, that he hears
no mortal voice; and by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are
deafened; and only when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that
speak through it.  For even so it is in all material factories.  The spoken
words that are inaudible among the flying spindles; those same words are
plainly heard without the walls, bursting from the opened casements.  Thereby
have villanies been detected.  Ah, mortal!  then, be heedful; for so, in all
this din of the great world's loom, thy subtlest thinkings may be overheard
afar.  Now, amid the green, life-restless loom of that Arsacidean wood, the
great, white, worshipped skeleton lay lounging --a gigantic idler!  Yet, as the
ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around him, the mighty
idler seemed the cunning weaver; himself all woven over with the vines;
every month assuming greener, fresher verdure; but himself a skeleton.  Life
folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim god wived with youthful Life,
and begat him curly-headed glories.  Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited
this wondrous whale, and saw the skull an altar, and the artificial smoke
ascending from where the real jet had issued, I marvelled that the king
should regard a chapel as an object of vertu.  He laughed.  But more I
marvelled that the priests should swear that smoky jet of his was genuine.  To
and fro I paced before this skeleton --brushed the vines aside --broke through
the ribs --and with a ball of Arsacidean twine, wandered, eddied long amid
its many winding, shaded collonades and arbors.  But soon my line was out;
and following it back, I emerged from the opening where I entered.  I saw no
living thing within; naught was there but bones.
.. <p 448 >
Cutting me a green measuring-rod, I once more dived within the skeleton.
From their arrow-slit in the skull, the priests perceived me taking the
altitude of the final rib.  How now!  they shouted; Dar'st thou measure
this our god!  That's for us.  Aye, priests --well, how long do ye make him,
then?  But hereupon a fierce contest rose among them, concerning feet and
inches; they cracked each other's sconces with their yard-sticks -- the great
skull echoed --and seizing that lucky chance, I quickly concluded my own
admeasurements.  These admeasurements I now propose to set before you.  But
first, be it recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter any
fancied measurement I please.  Because there are skeleton authorities you can
refer to, to test my accuracy.  There is a Leviathanic Museum, they tell me,
in Hull, England, one of the whaling ports of that country, where they have
some fine specimens of fin-backs and other whales.  Likewise, I have heard
that in the museum of Manchester, in New Hampshire, they have what the
proprietors call the only perfect specimen of a Greenland or River Whale in
the United States.  Moreover, at a place in Yorkshire, England, Burton
constable by name, a certain sir clifford constable has in his possession the
skeleton of a Sperm Whale, but of moderate size, by no means of the
full-grown magnitude of my friend King Tranquo's.  In both cases, the stranded
whales to which these two skeletons belonged, were originally claimed by
their proprietors upon similar grounds.  King Tranquo seizing his because he
wanted it; and Sir Clifford, because he was lord of the seignories of those
parts.  Sir Clifford's whale has been articulated throughout; so that, like a
great chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his bony cavities
--spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan --and swing all day upon his lower
jaw.  Locks are to be put upon some of his trap-doors and shutters; and a
footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of keys at his side.
Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at the whispering gallery
in the spinal column; threepence to hear the echo in the hollow of his
cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view from his forehead.  The
skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are
.. <p 449 >
copied verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed; as in my wild
wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving such
valuable statistics.  But as I was crowded for space, and wished the other
parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was then composing --at
least, what untattooed parts might remain --I did not trouble myself with the
odd inches; nor, indeed, should inches at all enter into a congenial
admeasurement of the whale.
.. <p 449 >
.. < chapter ciii 10  MEASUREMENT OF THE WHALE'S SKELETON >

     In the first
place, I wish to lay before you a particular, plain statement, touching the
living bulk of this leviathan, whose skeleton we are briefly to exhibit.
Such a statement may prove useful here.  According to a careful calculation I
have made, and which I partly base upon Captain Scoresby's estimate, of
seventy tons for the largest sized Greenland whale of sixty feet in length;
according to my careful calculation, I say, a Sperm Whale of the largest
magnitude, between eighty-five and ninety feet in length, and something less
than forty feet in its fullest circumference, such a whale will weigh at
least ninety tons; so that reckoning thirteen men to a ton, he would
considerably outweigh the combined population of a whole village of one
thousand one hundred inhabitants.  Think you not then that brains, like yoked
cattle, should be put to this leviathan, to make him at all budge to any
landsman's imagination?  Having already in various ways put before you his
skull, spout-hole, jaw, teeth, tail, forehead, fins, and divers other parts,
I shall now simply point out what is most interesting in the general bulk of
his unobstructed bones.  But as the colossal skull embraces so very large a
proportion of the entire extent
.. <p 450 >
of the skeleton; as it is by far the most complicated part; and as nothing
is to be repeated concerning it in this chapter, you must not fail to carry
it in your mind, or under your arm, as we proceed, otherwise you will not
gain a complete notion of the general structure we are about to view.  In
length, the Sperm Whale's skeleton at Tranque measured seventy-two feet; so
that when fully invested and extended in life, he must have been ninety feet
long; for in the whale, the skeleton loses about one fifth in length
compared with the living body.  Of this seventy-two feet, his skull and jaw
comprised some twenty feet, leaving some fifty feet of plain back-bone.
Attached to this back-bone, for something less than a third of its length,
was the mighty circular basket of ribs which once enclosed his vitals.  To me
this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved spine, extending far
away from it in a straight line, not a little resembled the hull of a great
ship new-laid upon the stocks, when only some twenty of her naked bow-ribs are
inserted, and the keel is otherwise, for the time, but a long, disconnected
timber.  The ribs were ten on a side.  The first, to begin from the neck, was
nearly six feet long; the second, third, and fourth were each successively
longer, till you came to the climax of the fifth, or one of the middle ribs,

     which measured eight feet and some inches.  From that part, the remaining
ribs diminished, till the tenth and last only spanned five feet and some
inches.  In general thickness, they all bore a seemly correspondence to their
length.  The middle ribs were the most arched.  In some of the Arsacides they
are used for beams whereon to lay foot-path bridges over small streams.  In
considering these ribs, I could not but be struck anew with the circumstance,

     so variously repeated in this book, that the skeleton of the whale is by no
means the mould of his invested form.  The largest of the Tranque ribs, one
of the middle ones, occupied that part of the fish which, in life, is greatest
in depth.  Now, the greatest depth of the invested body of this particular
whale must have been at least sixteen feet; whereas, the corresponding rib
measured but little more than eight feet.  So that this rib only conveyed half
of the true notion of the living
.. <p 451 >
magnitude of that part.  Besides, for some way, where I now saw but a naked
spine, all that had been once wrapped round with tons of added bulk in flesh,
muscle, blood, and bowels.  Still more, for the ample fins, I here saw but a
few disordered joints; and in place of the weighty and majestic, but boneless

     flukes, an utter blank!  How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid
untravelled man to try to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely
poring over his dead attenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood.
no.  only in the heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of
his angry flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested
whale be truly and livingly found out.  But the spine.  For that, the best way
we can consider it is, with a crane, to pile its bones high up on end.  No
speedy enterprise.  But now it's done, it looks much like Pompey's Pillar.
There are forty and odd vertebrae in all, which in the skeleton are not
locked together.  They mostly lie like the great knobbed blocks on a Gothic
spire, forming solid courses of heavy masonry.  The largest, a middle one, is
in width something less than three feet, and in depth more than four.  The
smallest, where the spine tapers away into the tail, is only two inches in
width, and looks something like a white billiard-ball.  I was told that there
were still smaller ones, but they had been lost by some little cannibal
urchins, the priest's children, who had stolen them to play marbles with.
Thus we see how that the spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off
at last into simple child's play.
.. <p 451 >
.. < chapter civ 30  THE FOSSIL WHALE >

     From his mighty bulk the whale
affords a most congenial theme whereon to enlarge, amplify, and generally
expatiate.  Would you, you could not compress him.  By good rights he
.. <p 452 >
should only be treated of in imperial folio.  Not to tell over again his
furlongs from spiracle to tail, and the yards he measures about the waist;
only think of the gigantic involutions of his intestines, where they lie in
him like great cables and hausers coiled away in the subterranean orlop-deck
of a line-of-battle-ship.  Since I have undertaken to manhandle this
Leviathan, it behoves me to approve myself omnisciently exhaustive in the
enterprise; not overlooking the minutest seminal germs of his blood, and
spinning him out to the uttermost coil of his bowels.  Having already described
him in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it now
remains to magnify him in an archaeological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian
point of view.  Applied to any other creature than the Leviathan --to an ant or
a flea --such portly terms might justly be deemed unwarrantably grandiloquent.
But when Leviathan is the text, the case is altered.  Fain am I to stagger to
this emprise under the weightiest words of the dictionary.  And here be it
said, that whenever it has been convenient to consult one in the course of
these dissertations, I have invariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson,
expressly purchased for that purpose; because that famous lexicographer's
uncommon personal bulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a
whale author like me.  One often hears of writers that rise and swell with
their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one.  How, then, with me,
writing of this Leviathan?  Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard
capitals.  Give me a condor's quill!  Give me Vesuvius' crater for an inkstand!

     Friends, hold my arms!  For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this
Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their out-reaching
comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the
sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past,
present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth,
and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs.  Such, and so
magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme!  We expand to its
bulk.  To produce a mighty book, you must choose a
.. <p 453 >
mighty theme.  No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea,
though many there be who have tried it.  Ere entering upon the subject of
Fossil Whales, I present my credentials as a geologist, by stating that in my
miscellaneous time i have been a stone-mason, and also a great digger of
ditches, canals, and wells, wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts.
Likewise, by way of preliminary, I desire to remind the reader, that while
in the earlier geological strata there are found the fossils of monsters now
almost completely extinct; the subsequent relics discovered in what are
called the Tertiary formations seem the connecting, or at any rate
intercepted links, between the antichronical creatures, and those whose
remote posterity are said to have entered the Ark; all the Fossil Whales
hitherto discovered belong to the Tertiary period, which is the last
preceding the superficial formations.  And though none of them precisely
answer to any known species of the present time, they are yet sufficiently
akin to them in general respects, to justify their taking ranks as Cetacean
fossils.  Detached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales, fragments of their
bones and skeletons, have within thirty years past, at various intervals,
been found at the base of the Alps, in Lombardy, in France, in England, in
Scotland, and in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.  Among the
more curious of such remains is part of a skull, which in the year

     was
disinterred in the Rue Dauphine in Paris, a short street opening almost
directly upon the palace of the Tuileries; and bones disinterred in
excavating the great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon's time.  Cuvier pronounced
these fragments to have belonged to some utterly unknown Leviathanic species.
But by far the most wonderful of all cetacean relics was the almost complete
vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year
, on the
plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama.  The awe-stricken credulous slaves in
the vicinity took it for the bones of one of the fallen angels.  The Alabama
doctors declared it a huge reptile, and bestowed upon it the name of
Basilosaurus.  But some specimen bones of it being taken across the sea to
owen, the english anatomist, it turned out that this alleged reptile was a
whale, though of a departed species.
.. <p 454 >
A significant illustration of the fact, again and again repeated in this book,

     that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the shape of his
fully invested body.  So Owen rechristened the monster Zeuglodon; and in his
paper read before the London Geological Society, pronounced it, in substance,
one of the most extraordinary creatures which the mutations of the globe have
blotted out of existence.  When I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons,
skulls, tusks, jaws, ribs, and vertebrae, all characterized by partial
resemblances to the existing breeds of sea-monsters; but at the same time
bearing on the other hand similar affinities to the annihilated antichronical
Leviathans, their incalculable seniors; I am, by a flood, borne back to that
wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; for time began
with man.  Here Saturn's grey chaos rolls over me, and I obtain dim, shuddering

     glimpses into those Polar eternities; when wedged bastions of ice pressed
hard upon what are now the Tropics; and in all the 25,000 miles of this
world's circumference, not an inhabitable hand's breadth of land was visible.

     Then the whole world was the whale's; and, king of creation, he left his
wake along the present lines of the Andes and the Himmalehs.  Who can show a
pedigree like Leviathan?  Ahab's harpoon had shed older blood than the
Pharaoh's.  Methuselah seems a school-boy.  I look round to shake hands with
Shem.  I am horror-struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the
unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been before all time, must
needs exist after all humane ages are over.  But not alone has this Leviathan
left his pre-adamite traces in the stereotype plates of nature, and in
limestone and marl bequeathed his ancient bust; but upon Egyptian tablets,
whose antiquity seems to claim for them an almost fossiliferous character, we
find the unmistakable print of his fin.  In an apartment of the great temple
of Denderah, some fifty years ago, there was discovered upon the granite
ceiling a sculptured and painted planisphere, abounding in centaurs,
griffins, and dolphins, similar to the grotesque figures on the celestial
globe of the moderns.  Gliding among them, old Leviathan swam as of yore; was
there swimming in that planisphere, centuries before Solomon was cradled.
.. <p 455 >
Nor must there be omitted another strange attestation of the antiquity of the
whale, in his own osseous post-diluvian reality, as set down by the venerable
John Leo, the old Barbary traveller.  Not far from the Sea-side, they have a
Temple, the Rafters and Beams of which are made of Whale-Bones; for Whales
of a monstrous size are oftentimes cast up dead upon that shore.  The Common
People imagine, that by a secret Power bestowed by God upon the Temple, no
Whale can pass it without immediate death.  But the truth of the Matter is,
that on either side of the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot two Miles into
the Sea, and wound the Whales when they light upon 'em.  They keep a Whale's
Rib of an incredible length for a Miracle, which lying upon the Ground with
its convex part uppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of which cannot be
reached by a Man upon a Camel's Back.  This Rib (says John Leo) is said to
have layn there a hundred Years before I saw it.  Their Historians affirm,
that a Prophet who prophesy'd of Mahomet, came from this Temple, and some do
not stand to assert, that the Prophet Jonas was cast forth by the Whale at
the Base of the Temple.  In this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you,
reader, and if you be a Nantucketer, and a whaleman, you will silently worship

     there.
.. <p 455 >
.. < chapter cv 24 DOES THE WHALE'S MAGNITUDE DIMINISH? WILL HE PERISH? >

     Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from the
head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, whether, in the
long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the original bulk
of his sires.  But upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of
the present day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil remains are found
in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological period prior to man),

     but of the whales found in that
.. <p 456 >
Tertiary system, those belonging to its latter formations exceed in size
those of its earlier ones.  Of all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far
the largest is the Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was
less than seventy feet in length in the skeleton.  Whereas, we have already
seen, that the tape-measure gives seventy-two feet for the skeleton of a
large sized modern whale.  And I have heard, on whalemen's authority, that
Sperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the time of
capture.  But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an
advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods; may it
not be, that since Adam's time they have degenerated?  Assuredly, we must
conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts of such gentlemen as Pliny,
and the ancient naturalists generally.  For Pliny tells us of whales that
embraced acres of living bulk, and Aldrovandus of others which measured eight

     hundred feet in length --Rope Walks and Thames Tunnels of Whales!  And even in
the days of Banks and Solander, Cooke's naturalists, we find a Danish member
of the Academy of Sciences setting down certain Iceland Whales
(reydan-siskur, or Wrinkled Bellies) at one hundred and twenty yards; that
is, three hundred and sixty feet.  And Lacepede, the French naturalist, in his

     elaborate history of whales, in the very beginning of his work (page 3),
sets down the Right Whale at one hundred metres, three hundred and
twenty-eight feet.  And this work was published so late as A. D.
.  But
will any whaleman believe these stories?  No.  The whale of to-day is as big
as his ancestors in Pliny's time.  And if ever I go where Pliny is, I, a
whaleman (more than he was), will make bold to tell him so.  Because I
cannot understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies that were buried
thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not measure so much in
their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks; and while the cattle and
other animals sculptured on the oldest Egyptian and Nineveh tablets, by the
relative proportions in which they are drawn, just as plainly prove that the
high-bred, stall-fed, prize cattle of Smithfield, not only equal, but far
exceed in magnitude the fattest of Pharaoh's fat kine; in the face of
.. <p 457 >
all this, I will not admit that of all animals the whale alone should have
degenerated.  But still another inquiry remains; one often agitated by the
more recondite Nantucketers.  Whether owing to the almost omniscient
look-outs at the mast-heads of the whale-ships, now penetrating even through
Behring's straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and lockers of the
world; and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along all continental
coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long endure so wide a chase,

     and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last be exterminated from
the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, smoke his last pipe, and
then himself evaporate in the final puff.  Comparing the humped herds of
whales with the humped herds of buffalo, which, not forty years ago,
overspread by tens of thousands the prairies of Illinois and Missouri, and
shook their iron manes and scowled with their thunder-clotted brows upon the
sites of populous river-capitals, where now the polite broker sells you land
at a dollar an inch; in such a comparison an irresistible argument would seem
furnished, to show that the hunted whale cannot now escape speedy extinction.

     But you must look at this matter in every light.  Though so short a period
ago --not a good life-time --the census of the buffalo in Illinois exceeded the
census of men now in London, and though at the present day not one horn or
hoof of them remains in all that region; and though the cause of this
wondrous extermination was the spear of man; yet the far different nature of
the whale-hunt peremptorily forbids so inglorious an end to the Leviathan.
Forty men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whale for forty-eight months think
they have done extremely well, and thank God, if at last they carry home the
oil of forty fish.  Whereas, in the days of the old Canadian and Indian hunters

     and trappers of the West, when the far west (in whose sunset suns still
rise) was a wilderness and a virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for
the same number of months, mounted on horse instead of sailing in ships,
would have slain not forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact
that, if need were, could be statistically stated.  Nor, considered aright,
does it seem any argument in favor
.. <p 458 >
of the gradual extinction of the Sperm Whale, for example, that in former
years (the latter part of the last century, say) these Leviathans, in small
pods, were encountered much oftener than at present, and, in consequence,
the voyages were not so prolonged, and were also much more remunerative.
Because, as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales, influenced by some
views to safety, now swim the seas in immense caravans, so that to a large
degree the scattered solitaries, yokes, and pods, and schools of other days
are now aggregated into vast but widely separated, unfrequent armies.  That is
all.  And equally fallacious seems the conceit, that because the so-called
whale-bone whales no longer haunt many grounds in former years abounding with
them, hence that species also is declining.  For they are only being driven
from promontory to cape; and if one coast is no longer enlivened with their
jets, then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been very recently
startled by the unfamiliar spectacle.  Furthermore: concerning these last
mentioned Leviathans, they have two firm fortresses, which, in all human
probability, will for ever remain impregnable.  And as upon the invasion of
their valleys, the frosty Swiss have retreated to their mountains; so,
hunted from the savannas and glades of the middle seas, the whale-bone whales
can at last resort to their Polar citadels, and diving under the ultimate
glassy barriers and walls there, come up among icy fields and floes; and in
a charmed circle of everlasting December, bid defiance to all pursuit from
man.  But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned for one
cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have concluded that this
positive havoc has already very seriously diminished their battalions.  But
though for some time past a number of these whales, not less than 13,000 have
been annually slain on the nor' west coast by the Americans alone; yet there
are considerations which render even this circumstance of little or no account
as an opposing argument in this matter.  Natural as it is to be somewhat
incredulous concerning the populousness of the more enormous creatures of the
globe, yet what shall we say to Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells
us that at one hunting the King of Siam took

     elephants;
.. <p 459 >
that in those regions elephants are numerous as droves of cattle in the
temperate climes.  And there seems no reason to doubt that if these elephants,

     which have now been hunted for thousands of years, by Semiramis, by Porus,
by hannibal, and by all the successive monarchs of the East --if they still
survive there in great numbers, much more may the great whale outlast all
hunting, since he has a pasture to expatiate in, which is precisely twice as
large as all Asia, both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the
Isles of the sea combined.  Moreover: we are to consider, that from the
presumed great longevity of whales, their probably attaining the age of a
century and more, therefore at any one period of time, several distinct
adult generations must be contemporary.  And what that is, we may soon gain
some idea of, by imagining all the grave-yards, cemeteries, and family vaults
of creation yielding up the live bodies of all the men, women, and children
who were alive seventy-five years ago; and adding this countless host to the
present human population of the globe.  Wherefore, for all these things, we
account the whale immortal in his species, however perishable in his
individuality.  He swam the seas before the continents broke water; he once
swam over the site of the Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin.  In
Noah's flood, he despised Noah's Ark; and if ever the world is to be again
flooded, like the Netherlands, to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale
will still survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial
flood, spout his frothed defiance to the skies.
.. <p 459 >
.. < chapter cvi 29  AHAB'S LEG >

     The precipitating manner in which Captain
Ahab had quitted the Samuel Enderby of London, had not been unattended with
some small violence to his own person.  He had lighted with such energy upon a
thwart of his boat that his ivory leg had
.. <p 460 >
received a half-splintering shock.  And when after gaining his own deck, and
his own pivot-hole there, he so vehemently wheeled round with an urgent
command to the steersman (it was, as ever, something about his not steering
inflexibly enough); then, the already shaken ivory received such an additional
twist and wrench, that though it still remained entire, and to all
appearances lusty, yet Ahab did not deem it entirely trustworthy.  And,
indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that for all his pervading, mad
recklessness, Ahab did at times give careful heed to the condition of that
dead bone upon which he partly stood.  For it had not been very long prior to
the Pequod's sailing from Nantucket, that he had been found one night lying
prone upon the ground, and insensible; by some unknown, and seemingly
inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his ivory limb having been so violently
displaced, that it had stake-wise smitten, and all but pierced his groin;
nor was it without extreme difficulty that the agonizing wound was entirely
cured.  Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind, that all
the anguish of that then present suffering was but the direct issue of a
former woe; and he too plainly seemed to see, that as the most poisonous
reptile of the marsh perpetuates his kind as inevitably as the sweetest
songster of the grove; so, equally with every felicity, all miserable events
do naturally beget their like.  Yea, more than equally, thought Ahab; since

     both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the ancestry and
posterity of Joy.  For, not to hint of this: that it is an inference from
certain canonic teachings, that while some natural enjoyments here shall have
no children born to them for the other world, but, on the contrary, shall be
followed by the joy-childlessness of all hell's despair; whereas, some guilty

     mortal miseries shall still fertilely beget to themselves an eternally
progressive progeny of griefs beyond the grave; not at all to hint of this,
there still seems an inequality in the deeper analysis of the thing.  For,
thought Ahab, while even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain
unsignifying pettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heart-woes, a
mystic significance, and, in some men, an archangelic grandeur; so do their
diligent tracings-out not belie the obvious deduction.  To trail the
genealogies
.. <p 461 >
of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the sourceless
primogenitures of the gods; so that, in the face of all the glad, hay-making
suns, and soft-cymballing, round harvest-moons, we must needs give in to
this: that the gods themselves are not for ever glad.  The ineffaceable, sad
birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers.
Unwittingly here a secret has been divulged, which perhaps might more
properly, in set way, have been disclosed before.  With many other particulars
concerning Ahab, always had it remained a mystery to some, why it was, that
for a certain period, both before and after the sailing of the Pequod, he
had hidden himself away with such Grand-Lama-like exclusiveness; and, for
that one interval, sought speechless refuge, as it were, among the marble
senate of the dead.  Captain Peleg's bruited reason for this thing appeared by
no means adequate; though, indeed, as touching all Ahab's deeper part, every
revelation partook more of significant darkness than of explanatory light.
But, in the end, it all came out; this one matter did, at least.  That direful
mishap was at the bottom of his temporary recluseness.  And not only this, but
to that ever-contracting, dropping circle ashore, who, for any reason,
possessed the privilege of a less banned approach to him; to that timid
circle the above hinted casualty --remaining, as it did, moodily unaccounted
for by Ahab --invested itself with terrors, not entirely underived from the
land of spirits and of wails.  So that, through their zeal for him, they had
all conspired, so far as in them lay, to muffle up the knowledge of this
thing from others; and hence it was, that not till a considerable interval
had elapsed, did it transpire upon the Pequod's decks.  But be all this as it
may; let the unseen, ambiguous synod in the air, or the vindictive princes
and potentates of fire, have to do or not with earthly Ahab, yet, in this
present matter of his leg, he took plain practical procedures; --he called the
carpenter.  And when that functionary appeared before him, he bade him
without delay set about making a new leg, and directed the mates to see him
supplied with all the studs and joists of jaw-ivory (Sperm Whale) which had
thus far been accumulated
.. <p 462 >
on the voyage, in order that a careful selection of the stoutest,
clearest-grained stuff might be secured.  This done, the carpenter received
orders to have the leg completed that night; and to provide all the fittings
for it, independent of those pertaining to the distrusted one in use.
Moreover, the ship's forge was ordered to be hoisted out of its temporary
idleness in the hold; and, to accelerate the affair, the blacksmith was
commanded to proceed at once to the forging of whatever iron contrivances
might be needed.
.. <p 462 >
.. < chapter cvii 11  THE CARPENTER >

     Seat thyself sultanically among the
moons of Saturn, and take high abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder,
a grandeur, and a woe.  But from the same point, take mankind in mass, and
for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both
contemporary and hereditary.  But most humble though he was, and far from
furnishing an example of the high, humane abstraction; the Pequod's carpenter
was no duplicate; hence, he now comes in person on this stage.  Like all
sea-going ship carpenters, and more especially those belonging to whaling
vessels, he was, to a certain off-handed, practical extent, alike experienced
in numerous trades and callings collateral to his own; the carpenter's
pursuit being the ancient and outbranching trunk of all those numerous
handicrafts which more or less have to do with wood as an auxiliary material.

     but, besides the application to him of the generic remark above, this
carpenter of the Pequod was singularly efficient in those thousand nameless
mechanical emergencies continually recurring in a large ship, upon a three
or four years' voyage, in uncivilized and far-distant seas.  For not to speak
of his readiness in ordinary duties: --repairing stove boats, sprung spars,
reforming the shape of clumsy-bladed oars, inserting bull's
.. <p 463 >
eyes in the deck, or new tree-nails in the side planks, and other
miscellaneous matters more directly pertaining to his special business; he
was moreover unhesitatingly expert in all manner of conflicting aptitudes,
both useful and capricious.  The one grand stage where he enacted all his
various parts so manifold, was his vice-bench; a long rude ponderous table
furnished with several vices, of different sizes, and both of iron and of
wood.  At all times except when whales were alongside, this bench was securely
lashed athwartships against the rear of the Try-works.  A belaying pin is
found too large to be easily inserted into its hole: the carpenter claps it
into one of his ever-ready vices, and straightway files it smaller.  A lost
land-bird of strange plumage strays on board, and is made a captive: out of
clean shaved rods of right-whale bone, and cross-beams of sperm whale ivory,

     the carpenter makes a pagoda-looking cage for it.  An oarsman sprains his
wrist: the carpenter concocts a soothing lotion.  Stubb longed for vermillion
stars to be painted upon the blade of his every oar; screwing each oar in his
big vice of wood, the carpenter symmetrically supplies the constellation.  A
sailor takes a fancy to wear shark-bone ear-rings: the carpenter drills his
ears.  Another has the toothache: the carpenter out pincers, and clapping
one hand upon his bench bids him be seated there; but the poor fellow
unmanageably winces under the unconcluded operation; whirling round the
handle of his wooden vice, the carpenter signs him to clap his jaw in that,
if he would have him draw the tooth.  Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all
points, and alike indifferent and without respect in all.  Teeth he
accounted bits of ivory; heads he deemed but top-blocks; men themselves he
lightly held for capstans.  But while now upon so wide a field thus variously
accomplished, and with such liveliness of expertness in him, too; all this
would seem to argue some uncommon vivacity of intelligence.  But not precisely
so.  For nothing was this man more remarkable, than for a certain impersonal
stolidity as it were; impersonal, I say; for it so shaded off into the
surrounding infinite of things, that it seemed one with the general
stolidity discernible in the whole visible world; which while
.. <p 464 >
pauselessly active in uncounted modes, still eternally holds its peace, and
ignores you, though you dig foundations for cathedrals.  Yet was this
half-horrible stolidity in him, involving, too, as it appeared, an
all-ramifying heartlessness; --yet was it oddly dashed at times, with an old,
crutch-like, antediluvian, wheezing humorousness, not unstreaked now and then
with a certain grizzled wittiness; such as might have served to pass the time

     during the midnight watch on the bearded forecastle of Noah's ark.  Was it
that this old carpenter had been a life-long wanderer, whose much rolling, to
and fro, not only had gathered no moss; but what is more, had rubbed off
whatever small outward clingings might have originally pertained to him?  He
was a stript abstract; an unfractioned integral; uncompromised as a new-born
babe; living without premeditated reference to this world or the next.  You
might almost say, that this strange uncompromisedness in him involved a sort
of unintelligence; for in his numerous trades, he did not seem to work so
much by reason or by instinct, or simply because he had been tutored to it,
or by any intermixture of all these, even or uneven; but merely by a kind of
deaf and dumb, spontaneous literal process.  He was a pure manipulator; his
brain, if he had ever had one, must have early oozed along into the muscles of
his fingers.  He was like one of those unreasoning but still highly useful,

     multum in parvo, Sheffield contrivances, assuming the exterior -- though a
little swelled --of a common pocket knife; but containing, not only blades of
various sizes, but also screw-drivers, cork-screws, tweezers, awls, pens,
rulers, nail-filers, counter-sinkers.  So, if his superiors wanted to use the
carpenter for a screw-driver, all they had to do was to open that part of
him, and the screw was fast: or if for tweezers, take him up by the legs,
and there they were.  Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled,
open-and-shut carpenter, was, after all, no mere machine of an automaton.  If
he did not have a common soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow
anomalously did its duty.  What that was, whether essence of quicksilver, or a
few drops of hartshorn, there is no telling.  But there it was; and there it
had abided for now some sixty years or more.  And this it was, this same
.. <p 465 >
unaccountable, cunning life-principle in him; this it was, that kept him a
great part of the time soliloquizing; but only like an unreasoning wheel,
which also hummingly soliloquizes; or rather, his body was a sentry-box and
this soliloquizer on guard there, and talking all the time to keep himself
awake.
.. <p 465 >
.. < chapter cviii 7  AHAB AND THE CARPENTER THE DECK--FIRST NIGHT WATCH >


(Carpenter standing before his vice-bench, and by the light of two lanterns
busily filing the ivory joist for the leg, which joist is firmly fixed in the
vice.  Slabs of ivory, leather straps, pads, screws, and various tools of all
sorts lying about the bench.  Forward, the red flame of the forge is seen,
where the blacksmith is at work.) Drat the file, and drat the bone!  That is
hard which should be soft, and that soft which should be hard.  So we go,
who file old jaws and shinbones.  Let's try another.  Aye, now, this works
better ( sneezes).  Halloa, this bone dust is ( sneezes)-- why it's
( sneezes)--yes it's ( sneezes)--bless my soul, it won't let me speak!  This is
what an old fellow gets now for working in dead lumber.  Saw a live tree, and
you don't get this dust; amputate a live bone, and you don't get it
( sneezes).  Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let's have
that ferule and buckle-screw; I'll be ready for them presently.  Lucky now
( sneezes) there's no knee-joint to make; that might puzzle a little; but a
mere shinbone --why it's easy as making hop-poles; only I should like to put a
good finish on.  Time, time; if I but only had the time, I could turn him
out as neat a leg now as ever ( sneezes) scraped to a lady in a parlor.  Those

     buckskin legs and calves of legs I've seen in shop windows wouldn't compare
at all.  They soak water, they do; and of
.. <p 466 >
course get rheumatic, and have to be doctored ( sneezes) with washes and
lotions, just like live legs.  There; before I saw it off, now, I must call
his old Mogulship, and see whether the length will be all right; too short,
if anything, I guess.  Ha!  that's the heel; we are in luck; here he comes,
or it's somebody else, that's certain.  Ahab ( advancing). (During the
ensuing scene, the carpenter continues sneezing at times).  Well, manmaker!
Just in time, sir.  If the captain pleases, I will now mark the length.  Let
me measure, sir.  Measured for a leg!  good.  Well, it's not the first time.
About it!  There; keep thy finger on it.  This is a cogent vice thou hast
here, carpenter; let me feel its grip once.  so, so; it does pinch some.
Oh, sir, it will break bones--beware, beware!  No fear; I like a good grip; I
like to feel something in this slippery world that can hold, man.  What's
Prometheus about there? --the blacksmith, I mean --what's he about?  He must be
forging the buckle-screw, sir, now.  Right.  It's a partnership; he supplies
the muscle part.  He makes a fierce red flame there!  Aye, sir; he must have
the white heat for this kind of fine work.  Um-m.  So he must.  I do deem it
now a most meaning thing, that that old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they
say, should have been a blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what's
made in fire must properly belong to fire; and so hell's probable.  How the
soot flies!  This must be the remainder the Greek made the Africans of.
Carpenter, when he's through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of
steel shoulder-blades; there's a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack.  Sir?
Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I'll order a complete man after a
desirable pattern.  Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks; then, chest
modelled after the Thames Tunnel; then, legs with roots to 'em, to stay in
one place; then, arms three
.. <p 467 >
feet through the wrist; no heart at all, brass forehead, and about a
quarter of an acre of fine brains; and let me see --shall I order eyes to see
outwards?  No, but put a sky-light on top of his head to illuminate inwards.
There, take the order, and away.  Now, what's he speaking about, and who's he
speaking to, I should like to know?  Shall I keep standing here? ( aside).
'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here's one.  No, no,
no; I must have a lantern.  Ho, ho!  That's it, hey?  Here are two, sir; one
will serve my turn.  What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face
for, man?  thrusted light is worse than presented pistols.  i thought, sir,
that you spoke to carpenter.  Carpenter?  why that's --but no; --a very tidy,
and, I may say, an extremely gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here,
carpenter; --or would'st thou rather work in clay?  Sir? --Clay?  clay, sir?
That's mud; we leave clay to ditchers, sir.  The fellow's impious!  What art
thou sneezing about?  Bone is rather dusty, sir.  Take the hint, then; and
when thou art dead, never bury thyself under living people's noses.  Sir?
--oh!  ah! --I guess so; so; --yes, yes --oh dear!  Look ye, carpenter, I dare say
thou callest thyself a right good workmanlike workman, eh!  Well, then, will
it speak thoroughly well for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg
thou makest, I shall nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical
place with it; that is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one,
I mean.  Canst thou not drive that old Adam away?  Truly, sir, I begin to
understand somewhat now.  Yes, I have heard something curious on that score,
sir; how that a dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling of his old
spar, but it will be still pricking him at times.  May I humbly ask if it be
really so, sir?  It is, man.  Look, put thy live leg here in the place where
mine once was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye,
.. <p 468 >
yet two to the soul.  Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there,

     there to a hair, do I. Is't a riddle?  I should humbly call it a poser, sir.

     Hist, then.  How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing may
not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where thou now
standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite?  In thy most solitary hours,
then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers?  Hold, don't speak!  And if I still
feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be now so long dissolved; then,
why mayest not thou, carpenter, feel the fiery pains of hell for ever, and
without a body?  Hah!  Good Lord!  Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must
calculate over again; I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir.  Look ye,
pudding-heads should never grant premises. --How long before this leg is
done?  Perhaps an hour, sir.  Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me
(turns to go).  Oh, Life!  Here I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing
debtor to this blockhead for a bone to stand on!  Cursed be that mortal
inter-indebtedness which will not do away with ledgers.  I would be free as
air; and I'm down in the whole world's books.  I am so rich, I could have
given bid for bid with the wealthiest Praetorians at the auction of the Roman
empire (which was the world's); and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I
brag with.  By heavens!  I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve
myself down to one small, compendious vertebra.  So.  Carpenter ( resuming

     his work).  Well, well, well!  Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb
always says he's queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word
queer; he's queer, says Stubb; he's queer--queer, queer; and keeps dinning
it into Mr. Starbuck all the time -- queer, sir --queer, queer, very queer.  And
here's his leg!  Yes, now that I think of it, here's his bedfellow!  has a
stick of whale's jaw-bone for a wife!  And this is his leg; he'll stand on
this.  What was that now about one leg standing in three places, and all
three places standing in one hell --how was that?  Oh!  I don't wonder he
looked so scornful at me!  I'm a sort of strange-thoughted
.. <p 469 >
sometimes, they say; but that's only haphazard-like.  Then, a short, little
old body like me, should never undertake to wade out into deep waters with
tall, heron-built captains; the water chucks you under the chin pretty quick,
and there's a great cry for life-boats.  And here's the heron's leg!  long and

     slim, sure enough!  Now, for most folks one pair of legs lasts a lifetime,
and that must be because they use them mercifully, as a tender-hearted old
lady uses her roly-poly old coach-horses.  But Ahab; oh he's a hard driver.
Look, driven one leg to death, and spavined the other for life, and now wears
out bone legs by the cord.  Halloa, there, you Smut!  bear a hand there with
those screws, and let's finish it before the resurrection fellow comes
a-calling with his horn for all legs, true or false, as brewery-men go round
collecting old beer barrels, to fill 'em up again.  What a leg this is!  It
looks like a real live leg, filed down to nothing but the core; he'll be
standing on this to-morrow; he'll be taking altitudes on it.  Halloa!  I
almost forgot the little oval slate, smoothed ivory, where he figures up the
latitude.  So, so; chisel, file, and sand-paper, now!
.. <p 469 >
.. < chapter cix 21  AHAB AND STARBUCK IN THE CABIN >

     According to usage they
were pumping the ship next morning; and lo!  no inconsiderable oil came up
with the water; the casks below must have sprung a bad leak.  Much concern
was shown; and Starbuck went down into the cabin to report this unfavorable
affair.
.. <p 470 >
Now, from the South and West the Pequod was drawing nigh to Formosa and the
Bashee Isles, between which lies one of the tropical outlets from the China
waters into the Pacific.  And so Starbuck found Ahab with a general chart of
the oriental archipelagoes spread before him; and another separate one
representing the long eastern coasts of the Japanese islands -- Niphon,
Matsmai, and Sikoke.  With his snow-white new ivory leg braced against the
screwed leg of his table, and with a long pruning-hook of a jack-knife in his
hand, the wondrous old man, with his back to the gangway door, was wrinkling
his brow, and tracing his old courses again.  Who's there?  hearing the
footstep at the door, but not turning round to it.  On deck!  Begone!

     captain ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking, sir.  We
must up Burtons and break out.  Up Burtons and break out?  Now that we are
nearing Japan; heave-to here for a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops?

     Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may make good in a
year.  What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth saving, sir.  So
it is, so it is; if we get it.  I was speaking of the oil in the hold,
sir.  And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all.  Begone!  Let it
leak!  I'm all aleak myself.  Aye!  leaks in leaks!  not only full of leaky
casks, but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; and that's a far worse
plight than the Pequod's, man.  Yet I don't stop to plug my leak; for who can
find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to plug it, even if found, in
this life's howling gale?  Starbuck!  I'll not have the Burtons hoisted.

     What will the owners say, sir?  Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and
outyell the Typhoons.  What cares Ahab?  Owners, owners?  Thou art always
prating to me, Starbuck, about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my
conscience.  But look ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander;
and hark ye, my conscience is in this ship's keel. --On deck!  Captain
Ahab, said the reddening mate, moving further into the cabin, with a daring
so strangely respectful and cautious that
.. <p 471 >
it almost seemed not only every way seeking to avoid the slightest outward
manifestation of itself, but within also seemed more than half distrustful of
itself; A better man than I might well pass over in thee what he would
quickly enough resent in a younger man; aye!  and in a happier, Captain
Ahab.  Devils!  Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me?
--On deck!  Nay, sir, not yet; I do entreat.  And I do dare, sir --to be
forbearing!  Shall we not understand each other better than hitherto, Captain
ahab?  ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most
South-Sea-men's cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck,
exclaimed: There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one Captain
that is lord over the Pequod. --On deck!  For an instant in the flashing eyes
of the mate, and his fiery cheeks, you would have almost thought that he had
really received the blaze of the levelled tube.  But, mastering his emotion,
he half calmly rose, and as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and
said: Thou hast outraged, not insulted me, Sir; but for that I ask thee not
to beware of Starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab;
beware of thyself, old man.  He waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys; most
careful bravery that!  murmured Ahab, as Starbuck disappeared.  What's that
he said --Ahab beware of Ahab --there's something there!  Then unconsciously
using the musket for a staff, with an iron brow he paced to and fro in the
little cabin; but presently the thick plaits of his forehead relaxed, and
returning the gun to the rack, he went to the deck.  Thou art but too good a
fellow, Starbuck, he said lowly to the mate; then raising his voice to the
crew: Furl the t'gallant-sails and close-reef the top-sails, fore and aft;
back the main-yard; up Burtons, and break out in the main-hold.  It were
perhaps vain to surmise exactly why it was, that as respecting Starbuck,
Ahab thus acted.  It may have been a flash of honesty in him; or mere
prudential policy which, under the circumstance, imperiously forbade the
slightest symptom of open disaffection, however transient, in the important
chief
.. <p 472 >
officer of his ship.  However it was, his orders were executed; and the
Burtons were hoisted.
.. <p 469n. >
In Sperm-whalemen with any considerable quantity of oil on board, it is a
regular semi-weekly duty to conduct a hose into the hold, and drench the
casks with sea-water; which afterwards, at varying intervals, is removed by
the ship's pumps.  Hereby the casks are sought to be kept damply tight; while
by the changed character of the withdrawn water, the mariners readily detect
any serious leakage in the precious cargo.
.. <p 472 >
.. < chapter cx 4  QUEEQUEG IN HIS COFFIN >

     Upon searching, it was found
that the casks last struck into the hold were perfectly sound, and that the
leak must be further off.  So, it being calm weather, they broke out deeper
and deeper, disturbing the slumbers of the huge ground-tier butts; and from
that black midnight sending those gigantic moles into the daylight above.  So
deep did they go; and so ancient, and corroded, and weedy the aspect of the
lowermost puncheons, that you almost looked next for some mouldy corner-stone
cask containing coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted placards,
vainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood.  Tierce after tierce,
too, of water, and bread, and beef, and shooks of staves, and iron bundles of
hoops, were hoisted out, till at last the piled decks were hard to get
about; and the hollow hull echoed under foot, as if you were treading over
empty catacombs, and reeled and rolled in the sea like an air-freighted
demijohn.  Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle
in his head.  Well was it that the Typhoons did not visit them then.  Now, at
this time it was that my poor pagan companion, and fast bosom-friend,
Queequeg, was seized with a fever, which brought him nigh to his endless end.

     Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown;
dignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain, the higher
you rise the harder you toil.  So with poor Queequeg, who, as harpooneer,
must not only face all the rage of the living whale, but --as we have
elsewhere seen -- mount his dead back in a rolling sea; and finally descend
into the gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating all day in that
.. <p 473 >
subterraneous confinement, resolutely manhandle the clumsiest casks and see
to their stowage.  To be short, among whalemen, the harpooneers are the
holders, so called.  Poor Queequeg!  when the ship was about half
disembowelled, you should have stooped over the hatchway, and peered down
upon him there; where, stripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage
was crawling about amid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard
at the bottom of a well.  And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to
him, poor pagan; where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings,
he caught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever; and at last, after some

     days' suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill of the door
of death.  How he wasted and wasted away in those few long-lingering days,
till there seemed but little left of him but his frame and tattooing.  But as
all else in him thinned, and his cheek-bones grew sharper, his eyes,
nevertheless, seemed growing fuller and fuller; they became of a strange
softness of lustre; and mildly but deeply looked out at you there from his
sickness, a wondrous testimony to that immortal health in him which could not
die, or be weakened.  And like circles on the water, which, as they grow
fainter, expand; so his eyes seemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of
Eternity.  An awe that cannot be named would steal over you as you sat by the
side of this waning savage, and saw as strange things in his face, as any
beheld who were bystanders when Zoroaster died.  For whatever is truly
wondrous and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.  And the
drawing near of Death, which alike levels all, alike impresses all with a
last revelation, which only an author from the dead could adequately tell.  So

     that --let us say it again --no dying Chaldee or Greek had higher and holier
thoughts than those, whose mysterious shades you saw creeping over the face
of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his swaying hammock, and the rolling
sea seemed gently rocking him to his final rest, and the ocean's invisible
flood-tide lifted him higher and higher towards his destined heaven.  Not a
man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg himself, what he
thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious favor he asked.  He called
one to him in the grey
.. <p 474 >
morning watch, when the day was just breaking, and taking his hand, said
that while in Nantucket he had chanced to see certain little canoes of dark
wood, like the rich war-wood of his native isle; and upon inquiry, he had
learned that all whalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same
dark canoes, and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for
it was not unlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead
warrior, stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated away
to the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the stars are
isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own mild,
uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so form the white
breakers of the milky way.  He added, that he shuddered at the thought of
being buried in his hammock, according to the usual sea-custom, tossed like
something vile to the death-devouring sharks.  No: he desired a canoe like
those of Nantucket, all the more congenial to him, being a whaleman, that
like a whale-boat these coffin-canoes were without a keel; though that
involved but uncertain steering, and much lee-way adown the dim ages.  Now,
when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the carpenter was at once
commanded to do Queequeg's bidding, whatever it might include.  There was some
heathenish, coffin-colored old lumber aboard, which, upon a long previous
voyage, had been cut from the aboriginal groves of the Lackaday islands, and
from these dark planks the coffin was recommended to be made.  No sooner was
the carpenter apprised of the order, than taking his rule, he forthwith with
all the indifferent promptitude of his character, proceeded into the
forecastle and took Queequeg's measure with great accuracy, regularly
chalking Queequeg's person as he shifted the rule.  Ah!  poor fellow!  he'll
have to die now, ejaculated the Long Island sailor.  Going to his
vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience' sake and general reference, now
transferringly measured on it the exact length the coffin was to be, and then
made the transfer permanent by cutting two notches at its extremities.  This
done, he marshalled the planks and his tools, and to work.
.. <p 475 >
When the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and fitted, he
lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it, inquiring whether they
were ready for it yet in that direction.  Overhearing the indignant but
half-humorous cries with which the people on deck began to drive the coffin
away, Queequeg, to every one's consternation, commanded that the thing should

     be instantly brought to him, nor was there any denying him; seeing that, of
all mortals, some dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they
will shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be
indulged.  Leaning over in his hammock, Queequeg long regarded the coffin
with an attentive eye.  He then called for his harpoon, had the wooden stock
drawn from it, and then had the iron part placed in the coffin along with one
of the paddles of his boat.  All by his own request, also, biscuits were
then ranged round the sides within: a flask of fresh water was placed at the
head, and a small bag of woody earth scraped up in the hold at the foot; and
a piece of sail-cloth being rolled up for a pillow, Queequeg now entreated to
be lifted into his final bed, that he might make trial of its comforts, if
any it had.  He lay without moving a few minutes, then told one to go to his
bag and bring out his little god, Yojo.  Then crossing his arms on his breast
with Yojo between, he called for the coffin lid (hatch he called it) to be
placed over him.  The head part turned over with a leather hinge, and there
lay Queequeg in his coffin with little but his composed countenance in view.

     Rarmai (it will do; it is easy), he murmured at last, and signed to be
replaced in his hammock.  But ere this was done, Pip, who had been slily
hovering near by all this while, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with
soft sobbings, took him by the hand; in the other, holding his tambourine.

     Poor rover!  will ye never have done with all this weary roving?  Where go ye
now?  But if the currents carry ye to those sweet Antilles where the beaches
are only beat with water-lilies, will ye do one little errand for me?  Seek
out one Pip, who's now been missing long: I think he's in those far
Antilles.  If ye find him, then comfort him; for he must be very sad; for
look!
.. <p 476 >
he's left his tambourine behind; --I found it.  Rig-a-dig, dig, dig!  Now,
Queequeg, die; and I'll beat ye your dying march.  I have heard, murmured
Starbuck, gazing down the scuttle, that in violent fevers, men, all
ignorance, have talked in ancient tongues; and that when the mystery is
probed, it turns out always that in their wholly forgotten childhood those
ancient tongues had been really spoken in their hearing by some lofty
scholars.  So, to my fond faith, poor Pip, in this strange sweetness of his
lunacy, brings heavenly vouchers of all our heavenly homes.  Where learned he
that, but there? --Hark!  he speaks again: but more wildly now.  Form two
and two!  Let's make a General of him!  Ho, where's his harpoon?  Lay it
across here. --Rig-a-dig, dig, dig!  huzza!  Oh for a game cock now to sit upon
his head and crow!  queequeg dies game! --mind ye that; queequeg dies game! --
take ye good heed of that; Queequeg dies game!  I say; game, game, game!
but base little Pip, he died a coward; died all a'shiver; --out upon Pip!
Hark ye; if ye find Pip, tell all the Antilles he's a runaway; a coward, a
coward, a coward!  Tell them he jumped from a whale-boat!  I'd never beat my
tambourine over base Pip, and hail him General, if he were once more dying
here.  No, no!  shame upon all cowards --shame upon them!  Let 'em go drown
like Pip, that jumped from a whale-boat.  Shame!  shame!  During all this,
Queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a dream.  Pip was led away, and the
sick man was replaced in his hammock.  But now that he had apparently made
every preparation for death; now that his coffin was proved a good fit,
Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon there seemed no need of the carpenter's box:

     and thereupon, when some expressed their delighted surprise, he, in
substance, said, that the cause of his sudden convalescence was this; --at a
critical moment, he had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was
leaving undone; and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not
die yet, he averred.  They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a
matter of his own sovereign will and pleasure.  He answered, certainly.  In a
word, it was Queequeg's conceit, that if a man
.. <p 477 >
made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him: nothing but a
whale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of
that sort.  Now, there is this noteworthy difference between savage and
civilized; that while a sick, civilized man may be six months convalescing,
generally speaking, a sick savage is almost half-well again in a day.  So, in
good time my Queequeg gained strength; and at length after sitting on the
windlass for a few indolent days (but eating with a vigorous appetite) he
suddenly leaped to his feet, threw out arms and legs, gave himself a good
stretching, yawned a little bit, and then springing into the head of his
hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon, pronounced himself fit for a fight.
With a wild whimsiness, he now used his coffin for a sea-chest; and emptying
into it his canvas bag of clothes, set them in order there.  Many spare hours
he spent, in carving the lid with all manner of grotesque figures and
drawings; and it seemed that hereby he was striving, in his rude way, to copy
parts of the twisted tattooing on his body.  And this tattooing, had been the
work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic
marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the
earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that
Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in
one volume; but whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own
live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in
the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were inscribed,

     and so be unsolved to the last.  And this thought it must have been which
suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his, when one morning turning away
from surveying poor Queequeg -- Oh, devilish tantalization of the gods!
.. <p 478 >
.. < chapter cxi 2  THE PACIFIC >

     When gliding by the Bashee isles we emerged
at last upon the great South Sea; were it not for other things, I could have

     greeted my dear Pacific with uncounted thanks, for now the long supplication
of my youth was answered; that serene ocean rolled eastwards from me a
thousand leagues of blue.  There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about
this sea, whose gently awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul
beneath; like those fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried
Evangelist St.  John.  And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures,
wide-rolling watery prairies and Potters' Fields of all four continents, the
waves should rise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly; for here, millions
of mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all
that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing like
slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by their
restlessness.  To any meditative Magian rover, this serene Pacific, once
beheld, must ever after be the sea of his adoption.  It rolls the midmost
waters of the world, the Indian ocean and Atlantic being but its arms.  The
same waves wash the moles of the new-built Californian towns, but yesterday
planted by the recentest race of men, and lave the faded but still gorgeous
skirts of Asiatic lands, older than Abraham; while all between float
milky-ways of coral isles, and low-lying, endless, unknown Archipelagoes, and

     impenetrable Japans.  Thus this mysterious, divine Pacific zones the world's
whole bulk about; makes all coasts one bay to it; seems the tide-beating
heart of earth.  Lifted by those eternal swells, you needs must own the
seductive god, bowing your head to Pan.  But few thoughts of Pan stirred
Ahab's brain, as standing like an iron statue at his accustomed place beside
the mizen
.. <p 479 >
rigging, with one nostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk from the
Bashee isles (in whose sweet woods mild lovers must be walking), and with
the other consciously inhaled the salt breath of the new found sea; that sea
in which the hated White Whale must even then be swimming.  Launched at length
upon these almost final waters, and gliding towards the Japanese
cruising-ground, the old man's purpose intensified itself.  His firm lips met
like the lips of a vice; the Delta of his forehead's veins swelled like
overladen brooks; in his very sleep, his ringing cry ran through the vaulted
hull, Stern all!  the White Whale spouts thick blood!
.. <p 479 >
.. < chapter cxii 13  THE BLACKSMITH >

     The blacksmith availing himself of the mild,
summer-cool weather that now reigned in these latitudes, and in preparation
for the peculiarly active pursuits shortly to be anticipated, Perth, the
begrimed, blistered old blacksmith, had not removed his portable forge to
the hold again, after concluding his contributory work for Ahab's leg, but
still retained it on deck, fast lashed to ringbolts by the foremast; being
now almost incessantly invoked by the headsmen, and harpooneers, and bowsmen
to do some little job for them; altering, or repairing, or new shaping their
various weapons and boat furniture.  Often he would be surrounded by an eager
circle, all waiting to be served; holding boat-spades, pike-heads, harpoons,
and lances, and jealously watching his every sooty movement, as he toiled.
Nevertheless, this old man's was a patient hammer wielded by a patient arm.
No murmur, no impatience, no petulence did come from him.  Silent, slow, and
solemn; bowing over still further his chronically broken back, he toiled
away, as if toil were life itself, and the heavy beating of his hammer the
heavy beating of his heart.  And so it was. --Most miserable!
.. <p 480 >
A peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful appearing yawing
in his gait, had at an early period of the voyage excited the curiosity of
the mariners.  And to the importunity of their persisted questionings he had
finally given in; and so it came to pass that every one now knew the shameful

     story of his wretched fate.  Belated, and not innocently, one bitter winter's
midnight, on the road running between two country towns, the blacksmith
half-stupidly felt the deadly numbness stealing over him, and sought refuge
in a leaning, dilapidated barn.  The issue was, the loss of the extremities of
both feet.  Out of this revelation, part by part, at last came out the four
acts of the gladness, and the one long, and as yet uncatastrophied fifth act
of the grief of his life's drama.  He was an old man, who, at the age of
nearly sixty, had postponedly encountered that thing in sorrow's technicals
called ruin.  He had been an artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to
do; owned a house and garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving
wife, and three blithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a
cheerful-looking church, planted in a grove.  But one night, under cover of
darkness, and further concealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate
burglar slid into his happy home, and robbed them all of everything.  And
darker yet to tell, the blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this
burglar into his family's heart.  It was the Bottle Conjuror!  Upon the opening
of that fatal cork, forth flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home.  Now,
for prudent, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith's shop was in the
basement of his dwelling, but with a separate entrance to it; so that always

     had the young and loving healthy wife listened with no unhappy nervousness,
but with vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing of her young-armed old
husband's hammer; whose reverberations, muffled by passing through the floors
and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly, in her nursery; and so, to stout
Labor's iron lullaby, the blacksmith's infants were rocked to slumber.  Oh,
woe on woe!  Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely?  Hadst thou
taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came upon him, then
had the young widow had a
.. <p 481 >
delicious grief, and her orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream
of in their after years; and all of them a care-killing competency.  But
Death plucked down some virtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil
solely hung the responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse
than useless old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him
easier to harvest.  Why tell the whole?  The blows of the basement hammer
every day grew more and more between; and each blow every day grew fainter
than the last; the wife sat frozen at the window, with tearless eyes,
glitteringly gazing into the weeping faces of her children; the bellows fell;

     the forge choked up with cinders; the house was sold; the mother dived down
into the long church-yard grass; her children twice followed her thither;
and the houseless, familyless old man staggered off a vagabond in crape; his
every woe unreverenced; his grey head a scorn to flaxen curls!  Death seems
the only desirable sequel for a career like this; but Death is only a
launching into the region of the strange Untried; it is but the first
salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the Wild, the Watery,

     the Unshored; therefore, to the death-longing eyes of such men, who still
have left in them some interior compunctions against suicide, does the
all-contributed and all-receptive ocean alluringly spread forth his whole
plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures;
and from the hearts of infinite Pacifics, the thousand mermaids sing to them
-- Come hither, broken-hearted; here is another life without the guilt of
intermediate death; here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them.
Come hither!  bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally abhorred and
abhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than death.  Come hither!  put up

     thy grave-stone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till we marry
thee!  Hearkening to these voices, East and West, by early sun-rise, and by
fall of eve, the blacksmith's soul responded, Aye, I come!  And so Perth
went a-whaling.
.. <p 482 >
.. < chapter cxiii 2  THE FORGE >

     With matted beard, and swathed in a
bristling shark-skin apron, about mid-day, Perth was standing between his
forge and anvil, the latter placed upon an iron-wood log, with one hand
holding a pike-head in the coals, and with the other at his forge's lungs,
when captain ahab came along, carrying in his hand a small rusty-looking
leathern bag.  While yet a little distance from the forge, moody Ahab paused;

     till at last, Perth, withdrawing his iron from the fire, began hammering it
upon the anvil --the red mass sending off the sparks in thick hovering
flights, some of which flew close to Ahab.  Are these thy Mother Carey's
chickens, Perth?  they are always flying in thy wake; birds of good omen,
too, but not to all; --look here, they burn; but thou--thou liv'st among them
without a scorch.  Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab, answered
Perth, resting for a moment on his hammer; I am past scorching; not easily
can'st thou scorch a scar.  Well, well; no more.  Thy shrunk voice sounds
too calmly, sanely woful to me.  In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of
all misery in others that is not mad.  Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith;
say, why dost thou not go mad?  How can'st thou endure without being mad?  Do
the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad? --What wert thou
making there?  Welding an old pike-head, sir; there were seams and dents in
it.  And can'st thou make it all smooth, again, blacksmith, after such hard
usage as it had?  I think so, sir.  And I suppose thou can'st smoothe
almost any seams and dents; never mind how hard the metal, blacksmith?

     Aye, sir, I think I can; all seams and dents but one.
.. <p 483 >

     Look ye here, then, cried Ahab, passionately advancing, and leaning with
both hands on Perth's shoulders; look ye here -- here --can ye smoothe out a
seam like this, blacksmith, sweeping one hand across his ribbed brow;;if
thou could'st, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay my head upon thy anvil,
and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes.  Answer!  Can'st thou smoothe
this seam?  Oh!  that is the one, sir!  Said I not all seams and dents but
one?  aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable; for
though thou only see'st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into the bone
of my skull -- that is all wrinkles!  But, away with child's play; no more
gaffs and pikes to-day.  Look ye here!  jingling the leathern bag, as if it
were full of gold coins.  I, too, want a harpoon made; one that a thousand
yoke of fiends could not part, Perth; something that will stick in a whale
like his own fin-bone.  There's the stuff, flinging the pouch upon the
anvil.  Look ye, blacksmith, these are the gathered nail-stubbs of the steel
shoes of racing horses.  Horse-shoe stubbs, sir?  Why, Captain Ahab, thou
hast here, then, the best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work.  I
know it, old man; these stubbs will weld together like glue from the melted
bones of murderers.  Quick!  forge me the harpoon.  And forge me first, twelve
rods for its shank; then wind, and twist, and hammer these twelve together
like the yarns and strands of a tow-line.  Quick!  I'll blow the fire.  When
at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one, by spiralling
them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt.  A flaw!  rejecting
the last one.  Work that over again, Perth.  This done, Perth was about to
begin welding the twelve into one, when Ahab stayed his hand, and said he
would weld his own iron.  As, then, with regular, gasping hems, he hammered
on the anvil, Perth passing to him the glowing rods, one after the other,
and the hard pressed forge shooting up its intense straight flame, the Parsee
passed silently, and bowing over his head towards the fire, seemed invoking
some curse or some blessing on the toil.  But, as Ahab looked up, he slid
aside.
.. <p 484 >

     What's that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?  muttered Stubb,
looking on from the forecastle.  That Parsee smells fire like a fusee; and
smells of it himself, like a hot musket's powder-pan.  At last the shank, in
one complete rod, received its final heat; and as perth, to temper it, plunged
it all hissing into the cask of water near by, the scalding steam shot up
into Ahab's bent face.  Would'st thou brand me, Perth?  wincing for a moment
with the pain; have I been but forging my own branding-iron, then?  Pray
God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab.  Is not this harpoon for
the White Whale?  For the white fiend!  But now for the barbs; thou must
make them thyself, man.  Here are my razors --the best of steel; here, and make
the barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea.  For a moment, the old
blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would fain not use them.  Take them,
man, I have no need for them; for I now neither shave, sup, nor pray till
--but here --to work!  Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by
Perth to the shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the
blacksmith was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering
them, he cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near.  No, no --no water for
that; I want it of the true death-temper.  Ahoy, there!  Tashtego, Queequeg,
Daggoo!  What say ye, pagans!  Will ye give me as much blood as will cover
this barb?  holding it high up.  A cluster of dark nods replied, Yes.  Three
punctures were made in the heathen flesh, and the White Whale's barbs were
then tempered.  Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!
deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the
baptismal blood.  Now, mustering the spare poles from below, and selecting one

     of hickory, with the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end to the
socket of the iron.  A coil of new tow-line was then unwound, and some fathoms
of it taken to the windlass, and
.. <p 485 >
stretched to a great tension.  Pressing his foot upon it, till the rope
hummed like a harp-string, then eagerly bending over it, and seeing no
strandings, ahab exclaimed, good!  and now for the seizings.  At one
extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate spread yarns were all
braided and woven round the socket of the harpoon; the pole was then driven
hard up into the socket; from the lower end the rope was traced half way along
the pole's length, and firmly secured so, with intertwistings of twine.
This done, pole, iron, and rope --like the Three Fates --remained inseparable,

     and Ahab moodily stalked away with the weapon; the sound of his ivory leg,
and the sound of the hickory pole, both hollowly ringing along every plank.
But ere he entered his cabin, a light, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most
piteous sound was heard.  Oh, Pip!  thy wretched laugh, thy idle but
unresting eye; all thy strange mummeries not unmeaningly blended with the
black tragedy of the melancholy ship, and mocked it!
.. <p 485 >
.. < chapter cxiv 20  THE GILDER >

     Penetrating further and further into the
heart of the Japanese cruising ground, the Pequod was soon all astir in the
fishery.  Often, in mild, pleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen,
and twenty hours on the stretch, they were engaged in the boats, steadily
pulling, or sailing, or paddling after the whales, or for an interlude of
sixty or seventy minutes calmly awaiting their uprising; though with but
small success for their pains.  At such times, under an abated sun; afloat
all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a
birch canoe; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that
like hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of
dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil
.. <p 486 >
beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that
pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but
conceals a remorseless fang.  These are the times, when in his whale-boat the
rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the
sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship
revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not though
high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when
the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their
hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure.  The long-drawn virgin
vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the
hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these
solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked.

     And all this mixes with your most mystic mood; so that fact and fancy,
half-way meeting, interpenetrate, and form one seamless whole.  Nor did such
soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at least as temporary an effect on
Ahab.  But if these secret golden keys did seem to open in him his own secret
golden treasuries, yet did his breath upon them prove but tarnishing.  Oh,
grassy glades!  oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in ye,
--though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy life, --in ye, men yet
may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some few fleeting
moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them.  Would to God these
blessed calms would last.  But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven
by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm.  There is
no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed
gradations, and at the last one pause: --through infancy's unconscious spell,
boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom), then
scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of
If.  But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys,
and men, and Ifs eternally.  Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no
more?  in what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will
.. <p 487 >
never weary?  Where is the foundling's father hidden?  Our souls are like
those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our
paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.  And that same
day, too, gazing far down from his boat's side into that same golden sea,
Starbuck lowly murmured: -- Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his
young bride's eye! --Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy
kidnapping cannibal ways.  Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I
look deep down and do believe.  And Stubb, fish-like, with sparkling scales,
leaped up in that same golden light: -- I am Stubb, and Stubb has his
history; but here Stubb takes oaths that he has always been jolly!
.. <p 487 >
.. < chapter cxv 16  THE PEQUOD MEETS THE BACHELOR >

     And jolly enough were
the sights and the sounds that came bearing down before the wind, some few
weeks after Ahab's harpoon had been welded.  It was a Nantucket ship, the
Bachelor, which had just wedged in her last cask of oil, and bolted down her
bursting hatches; and now, in glad holiday apparel, was joyously, though
somewhat vain-gloriously, sailing round among the widely-separated ships on
the ground, previous to pointing her prow for home.  The three men at her
mast-head wore long streamers of narrow red bunting at their hats; from the
stern, a whale-boat was suspended, bottom down; and hanging captive from the

     bowsprit was seen the long lower jaw of the last whale they had slain.
Signals, ensigns, and jacks of all colors were flying from her rigging, on
every side.  Sideways lashed in each of her three basketed tops were two
barrels of sperm; above which, in her top-mast cross-trees, you saw slender
breakers of the
.. <p 488 >
same precious fluid; and nailed to her main truck was a brazen lamp.  As was
afterwards learned, the bachelor had met with the most surprising success;
all the more wonderful, for that while cruising in the same seas numerous
other vessels had gone entire months without securing a single fish.  Not only
had barrels of beef and bread been given away to make room for the far more
valuable sperm, but additional supplemental casks had been bartered for,
from the ships she had met; and these were stowed along the deck, and in the
captain's and officers' staterooms.  Even the cabin table itself had been
knocked into kindling-wood; and the cabin mess dined off the broad head of
an oil-butt, lashed down to the floor for a centrepiece.  In the forecastle,
the sailors had actually caulked and pitched their chests, and filled them;
it was humorously added, that the cook had clapped a head on his largest
boiler, and filled it; that the steward had plugged his spare coffee-pot and
filled it; that the harpooneers had headed the sockets of their irons and
filled them; that indeed everything was filled with sperm, except the
captain's pantaloons pockets, and those he reserved to thrust his hands into,
in self-complacent testimony of his entire satisfaction.  As this glad ship of
good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod, the barbarian sound of enormous
drums came from her forecastle; and drawing still nearer, a crowd of her men
were seen standing round her huge try-pots, which, covered with the
parchment-like poke or stomach skin of the black fish, gave forth a loud roar
to every stroke of the clenched hands of the crew.  On the quarter-deck, the
mates and harpooneers were dancing with the olive-hued girls who had eloped
with them from the Polynesian Isles; while suspended in an ornamented boat,
firmly secured aloft between the foremast and mainmast, three Long Island
negroes, with glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory, were presiding over the
hilarious jig.  Meanwhile, others of the ship's company were tumultuously busy
at the masonry of the try-works, from which the huge pots had been removed.
You would have almost thought they were pulling down the cursed Bastile, such
wild cries they raised, as the now useless brick and mortar were being hurled
into the sea.
.. <p 489 >
Lord and master over all this scene, the captain stood erect on the ship's
elevated quarter-deck, so that the whole rejoicing drama was full before him,

     and seemed merely contrived for his own individual diversion.  And Ahab, he
too was standing on his quarter-deck, shaggy and black, with a stubborn
gloom; and as the two ships crossed each other's wakes --one all jubilations
for things passed, the other all forebodings as to things to come --their two
captains in themselves impersonated the whole striking contrast of the scene.

     Come aboard, come aboard!  cried the gay Bachelor's commander, lifting a
glass and a bottle in the air.  Hast seen the White Whale?  gritted Ahab in
reply.  No; only heard of him; but don't believe in him at all, said the
other good-humoredly.  Come aboard!  Thou are too damned jolly.  Sail on.
Hast lost any men?  Not enough to speak of --two islanders, that's all; --but
come aboard, old hearty, come along.  I'll soon take that black from your
brow.  Come along, will ye (merry's the play); a full ship and
homeward-bound.  How wondrous familiar is a fool!  muttered Ahab; then
aloud, Thou art a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayest; well, then,
call me an empty ship, and outward-bound.  So go thy ways, and I will mine.
Forward there!  Set all sail, and keep her to the wind!  And thus, while the
one ship went cheerily before the breeze, the other stubbornly fought against
it; and so the two vessels parted; the crew of the Pequod looking with
grave, lingering glances towards the receding Bachelor; but the Bachelor's
men never heeding their gaze for the lively revelry they were in.  And as
Ahab, leaning over the taffrail, eyed the homeward-bound craft, he took from
his pocket a small vial of sand, and then looking from the ship to the vial,
seemed thereby bringing two remote associations together, for that vial was
filled with Nantucket soundings.
.. <p 490 >
.. < chapter cxvi 2  THE DYING WHALE >

     Not seldom in this life, when, on the
right side, fortune's favorites sail close by us, we, though all adroop
before, catch somewhat of the rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging
sails fill out.  So seemed it with the Pequod.  For next day after
encountering the gay Bachelor, whales were seen and four were slain; and one
of them by Ahab.  It was far down the afternoon; and when all the spearings of

     the crimson fight were done: and floating in the lovely sunset sea and sky,
sun and whale both stilly died together; then, such a sweetness and such
plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy air, that it
almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent valleys of the
Manilla isles, the Spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned sailor, had gone to
sea, freighted with these vesper hymns.  Soothed again, but only soothed to
deeper gloom, Ahab, who had sterned off from the whale, sat intently
watching his final wanings from the now tranquil boat.  For that strange
spectacle observable in all sperm whales dying --the turning sunwards of the
head, and so expiring --that strange spectacle, beheld of such a placid
evening, somehow to Ahab conveyed a wondrousness unknown before.  He turns
and turns him to it, --how slowly, but how steadfastly, his homage-rendering
and invoking brow, with his last dying motions.  He too worships fire; most
faithful, broad, baronial vassal of the sun! --Oh that these too-favoring eyes
should see these too-favoring sights.  Look!  here, far water-locked; beyond
all hum of human weal or woe; in these most candid and impartial seas; where
to traditions no rocks furnish tablets; where for long Chinese ages, the
billows have still rolled on speechless and unspoken to, as stars that shine
upon the Niger's unknown source; here, too, life dies sunwards full of
.. <p 491 >
faith; but see!  no sooner dead, than death whirls round the corpse, and it
heads some other way. -- Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who of drowned
bones hast builded thy separate throne somewhere in the heart of these
unverdured seas; thou art an infidel, thou queen, and too truly speakest to
me in the wide-slaughtering Typhoon, and the hushed burial of its after calm.

     Nor has this thy whale sunwards turned his dying head, and then gone round
again, without a lesson to me.  Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power!
Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed jet! --that one strivest, this one jettest all in

     vain!  In vain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon
all-quickening sun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again.  Yet
dost thou, darker half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith.  All thy
unnamable imminglings, float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of once
living things, exhaled as air, but water now.  Then hail, for ever hail, O
sea, in whose eternal tossings the wild fowl finds his only rest.  Born of
earth, yet suckled by the sea; though hill and valley mothered me, ye
billows are my foster-brothers!
.. <p 491 >
.. < chapter cxvii 23  THE WHALE WATCH >

     The four whales slain that evening
had died wide apart; one, far to windward; one, less distant, to leeward;
one ahead; one astern.  These last three were brought alongside ere
nightfall; but the windward one could not be reached till morning; and the
boat that had killed it lay by its side all night; and that boat was Ahab's.
The waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale's spout-hole; and the
lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled flickering glare upon the
black, glossy back, and far out upon the
.. <p 492 >
midnight waves, which gently chafed the whale's broad flank, like soft surf
upon a beach.  Ahab and all his boat's crew seemed asleep but the Parsee; who
crouching in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrally played round
the whale, and tapped the light cedar planks with their tails.  A sound like
the moaning in squadrons over Asphaltites of unforgiven ghosts of Gomorrah,
ran shuddering through the air.  Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to
face, saw the Parsee; and hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed
the last men in a flooded world.  I have dreamed it again, said he.  Of the
hearses?  Have I not said, old man, that neither hearse nor coffin can be
thine?  And who are hearsed that die on the sea?  But I said, old man, that
ere thou couldst die on this voyage, two hearses must verily be seen by thee
on the sea; the first not made by mortal hands; and the visible wood of the
last one must be grown in America.  Aye, aye!  a strange sight that, Parsee:
--a hearse and its plumes floating over the ocean with the waves for the
pall-bearers.  Ha!  Such a sight we shall not soon see.  Believe it or not,
thou canst not die till it be seen, old man.  And what was that saying about
thyself?  Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy
pilot.  And when thou art so gone before --if that ever befall --then ere I
can follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me still? --Was it not so?

     Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh my pilot!  I have here two pledges
that I shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive it.  Take another pledge, old
man, said the Parsee, as his eyes lighted up like fire-flies in the gloom,
-- Hemp only can kill thee.  The gallows, ye mean. --I am immortal then, on
land and on sea, cried Ahab, with a laugh of derision; -- Immortal on land
and on sea!  Both were silent again, as one man.  The grey dawn came on, and
the slumbering crew arose from the boat's bottom, and ere noon the dead whale
was brought to the ship.

.. <p 493 >
.. < chapter cxviii 2  THE QUADRANT >

     The season for the Line at length drew
near; and every day when Ahab, coming from his cabin, cast his eyes aloft,
the vigilant helmsman would ostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager
mariners quickly run to the braces, and would stand there with all their eyes
centrally fixed on the nailed doubloon; impatient for the order to point the
ship's prow for the equator.  In good time the order came.  It was hard upon
high noon; and Ahab, seated in the bows of his high-hoisted boat, was about
taking his wonted daily obervation of the sun to determine his latitude.  Now,
in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of effulgences.
That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing focus of the glassy
ocean's immeasureable burning-glass.  The sky looks lacquered; clouds there
are none; the horizon floats; and this nakedness of unrelieved radiance is
as the insufferable splendors of God's throne.  Well that Ahab's quadrant
was furnished with colored glasses, through which to take sight of that solar
fire.  So, swinging his seated form to the roll of the ship, and with his
astrological-looking instrument placed to his eye, he remained in that posture
for some moments to catch the precise instant when the sun should gain its
precise meridian.  Meantime while his whole attention was absorbed, the Parsee

     was kneeling beneath him on the ship's deck, and with face thrown up like
Ahab's, was eyeing the same sun with him; only the lids of his eyes half
hooded their orbs, and his wild face was subdued to an earthly
passionlessness.  At length the desired observation was taken; and with his
pencil upon his ivory leg, Ahab soon calculated what his latitude must be at
that precise instant.  Then falling into a moment's revery, he again looked
up towards the sun and murmured to himself: Thou sea-mark!  thou high and
mighty Pilot!  thou tellest me truly
.. <p 494 >
where I am --but canst thou cast the least hint where I shall be?  Or canst
thou tell where some other thing besides me is this moment living?  Where is
Moby Dick?  This instant thou must be eyeing him.  These eyes of mine look
into the very eye that is even now beholding him; aye, and into the eye that
is even now equally beholding the objects on the unknown, thither side of
thee, thou sun!  Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the
other, its numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and
muttered: Foolish toy!  babies' plaything of haughty Admirals, and
Commodores, and Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might;

     but what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where
thou thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that holds
thee: no!  not one jot more!  Thou canst not tell where one drop of water or
one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy impotence thou
insultest the sun!  Science!  Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed be all
the things that cast man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live vividness
but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched with thy light, O
sun!  Level by nature to this earth's horizon are the glances of man's eyes;
not shot from the crown of his head, as if God had meant him to gaze on his
firmament.  Curse thee, thou quadrant!  dashing it to the deck, no longer
will I guide my earthly way by thee; the level ship's compass, and the level
dead-reckoning, by log and by line; these shall conduct me, and show me my
place on the sea.  Aye, lighting from the boat to the deck, thus I
trample on thee, thou paltry thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split
and destroy thee!  As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with
his live and dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and a
fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself --these passed over the mute,
motionless Parsee's face.  Unobserved he rose and glided away; while,
awestruck by the aspect of their commander, the seamen clustered together on
the forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing the deck, shouted out -- To the
braces!  Up helm! --square in!  In an instant the yards swung round; and as
the ship half-wheeled
.. <p 495 >
upon her heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts erectly poised upon her
long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three Horatii pirouetting on one sufficient
steed.  Standing between the knight-heads, Starbuck watched the Pequod's
tumultuous way, and Ahab's also, as he went lurching along the deck.  I
have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its
tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, to
dumbest dust.  Old man of oceans!  of all this fiery life of thine, what will
at length remain but one little heap of ashes!  Aye, cried Stubb, but
sea-coal ashes --mind ye that, Mr. Starbuck --sea-coal, not your common
charcoal.  Well, well; I heard Ahab mutter, "Here some one thrusts these
cards into these old hands of mine; swears that I must play them, and no
others."  And damn me, Ahab, but thou actest right; live in the game, and
die it!
.. <p 495 >
.. < chapter cxix 19  THE CANDLES >

     Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest
fangs: the tiger of Bengal crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure.
Skies the most effulgent but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba
knows tornadoes that never swept tame northern lands.  So, too, it is, that in
these resplendent Japanese seas the mariner encounters the direst of all
storms, the Typhoon.  It will sometimes burst from out that cloudless sky,
like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town.  Towards evening of that
day, the Pequod was torn of her canvas, and bare-poled was left to fight a
Typhoon which had struck her directly ahead.  When darkness came on, sky and
sea roared and split with the thunder, and blazed with the lightning, that
showed the disabled masts fluttering here and there with
.. <p 496 >
the rags which the first fury of the tempest had left for its after sport.
Holding by a shroud, Starbuck was standing on the quarter-deck; at every
flash of the lightning glancing aloft, to see what additional disaster might
have befallen the intricate hamper there; while Stubb and Flask were
directing the men in the higher hoisting and firmer lashing of the boats.  But
all their pains seemed naught.  Though lifted to the very top of the cranes,
the windward quarter boat (Ahab's) did not escape.  A great rolling sea,
dashing high up against the reeling ship's high tetering side, stove in the
boat's bottom at the stern, and left it again, all dripping through like a
sieve.  Bad work, bad work!  Mr. Starbuck, said Stubb, regarding the wreck,

     but the sea will have its way.  Stubb, for one, can't fight it.  You see, Mr.
Starbuck, a wave has such a great long start before it leaps, all round the
world it runs, and then comes the spring!  But as for me, all the start I
have to meet it, is just across the deck here.  But never mind; it's all in
fun: so the old song says; --( sings.) Oh!  jolly is the gale, And a joker
is the whale, A' flourishin' his tail, -- Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty,
joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh!  The scud all a flyin' That's his
flip only foamin'; When he stirs in the spicin', -- Such a funny, sporty,
gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh!  Thunder splits the
ships, But he only smacks his lips, A tastin' of this flip, -- Such a funny,
sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh!  Avast Stubb,
cried Starbuck, let the Typhoon sing, and strike his harp here in our
rigging; but if thou art a brave man thou wilt hold thy peace.  But I am
not a brave man; never said i was a brave man; I am a coward; and I sing to
keep up my spirits.  And I tell you what it is, Mr. Starbuck, there's no way
to stop my singing
.. <p 497 >
in this world but to cut my throat.  And when that's done, ten to one I sing
ye the doxology for a wind-up.  Madman!  look through my eyes if thou hast
none of thine own.  What!  how can you see better of a dark night than
anybody else, never mind how foolish?  Here!  cried Starbuck, seizing
Stubb by the shoulder, and pointing his hand towards the weather bow,

     markest thou not that the gale comes from the eastward, the very course Ahab

     is to run for Moby Dick?  the very course he swung to this day noon?  now
mark his boat there; where is that stove?  In the stern-sheets, man; where
he is wont to stand --his stand-point is stove, man!  Now jump overboard, and
sing away, if thou must!  I don't half understand ye: what's in the wind?

     Yes, yes, round the Cape of Good Hope is the shortest way to Nantucket,
soliloquized Starbuck suddenly, heedless of Stubb's question.  The gale that
now hammers at us to stave us, we can turn it into a fair wind that will
drive us towards home.  Yonder, to windward, all is blackness of doom; but
to leeward, homeward --I see it lightens up there; but not with the
lightning.  At that moment in one of the intervals of profound darkness,
following the flashes, a voice was heard at his side; and almost at the same
instant a volley of thunder peals rolled overhead.  Who's there?  Old
Thunder!  said Ahab, groping his way along the bulwarks to his pivot-hole;
but suddenly finding his path made plain to him by elbowed lances of fire.
Now, as the lightning rod to a spire on shore is intended to carry off the
perilous fluid into the soil; so the kindred rod which at sea some ships
carry to each mast, is intended to conduct it into the water.  But as this
conductor must descend to considerable depth, that its end may avoid all
contact with the hull; and as moreover, if kept constantly towing there, it
would be liable to many mishaps, besides interfering not a little with some
of the rigging, and more or less impeding the vessel's way in the water;
because of all this, the lower parts of a ship's
.. <p 498 >
lightning-rods are not always overboard; but are generally made in long
slender links, so as to be the more readily hauled up into the chains
outside, or thrown down into the sea, as occasion may require.  The rods!
the rods!  cried Starbuck to the crew, suddenly admonished to vigilance by
the vivid lightning that had just been darting flambeaux, to light Ahab to his
post.  Are they overboard?  drop them over, fore and aft.  Quick!  Avast!
cried Ahab; let's have fair play here, though we be the weaker side.  Yet
I'll contribute to raise rods on the Himmalehs and Andes, that all the world
may be secured; but out on privileges!  Let them be, sir.  Look aloft!
cried Starbuck.  The corpusants!  the corpusants!  All the yard-arms were
tipped with a pallid fire; and touched at each tri-pointed lightning-rod-end
with three tapering white flames, each of the three tall masts was silently
burning in that sulphurous air, like three gigantic wax tapers before an
altar.  Blast the boat!  let it go!  cried Stubb at this instant, as a
swashing sea heaved up under his own little craft, so that its gunwale
violently jammed his hand, as he was passing a lashing.  Blast it! --but
slipping backward on the deck, his uplifted eyes caught the flames; and
immediately shifting his tone, he cried -- The corpusants have mercy on us
all!  To sailors, oaths are household words; they will swear in the trance
of the calm, and in the teeth of the tempest; they will imprecate curses
from the topsail-yard-arms, when most they teter over to a seething sea; but
in all my voyagings, seldom have I heard a common oath when God's burning
finger has been laid on the ship; when his mene, mene, Tekel Upharsin has
been woven into the shrouds and the cordage.  While this pallidness was burning
aloft, few words were heard from the enchanted crew; who in one thick
cluster stood on the forecastle, all their eyes gleaming in that pale
phosphorescence, like a far away constellation of stars.  Relieved against
the ghostly light, the gigantic jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his
real stature, and seemed the black cloud from which the thunder had come.
The parted mouth of Tashtego revealed his shark-white teeth, which strangely
gleamed as if they too
.. <p 499 >
had been tipped by corpusants; while lit up by the preternatural light,
Queequeg's tattooing burned like Satanic blue flames on his body.  The tableau
all waned at last with the pallidness aloft; and once more the Pequod and
every soul on her decks were wrapped in a pall.  A moment or two passed, when
Starbuck, going forward, pushed against some one.  It was Stubb.  What
thinkest thou now, man; I heard thy cry; it was not the same in the song.

     No, no, it wasn't; I said the corpusants have mercy on us all; and I hope
they will, still.  But do they only have mercy on long faces? --have they no
bowels for a laugh?  And look ye, Mr. Starbuck --but it's too dark to look.
Hear me, then: I take that mast-head flame we saw for a sign of good luck;
for those masts are rooted in a hold that is going to be chock a' block with
sperm-oil, d'ye see; and so, all that sperm will work up into the masts,
like sap in a tree.  Yes, our three masts will yet be as three spermaceti
candles --that's the good promise we saw.  At that moment Starbuck caught
sight of Stubb's face slowly beginning to glimmer into sight.  Glancing
upwards, he cried: See!  see!  and once more the high tapering flames were
beheld with what seemed redoubled supernaturalness in their pallor.  The
corpusants have mercy on us all, cried Stubb, again.  At the base of the
mainmast, full beneath the doubloon and the flame, the parsee was kneeling
in Ahab's front, but with his head bowed away from him; while near by, from
the arched and overhanging rigging, where they had just been engaged securing

     a spar, a number of the seamen, arrested by the glare, now cohered
together, and hung pendulous, like a knot of numbed wasps from a drooping,
orchard twig.  In various enchanted attitudes, like the standing, or
stepping, or running skeletons in Herculaneum, others remained rooted to the
deck; but all their eyes upcast.  Aye, aye, men!  cried Ahab.  Look up at
it; mark it well; the white flame but lights the way to the White Whale!
Hand me those main-mast links there; I would fain feel this pulse, and let
mine beat against it; blood against fire!  So.
.. <p 500 >
Then turning --the last link held fast in his left hand, he put his foot upon
the Parsee; and with fixed upward eye, and high-flung right arm, he stood
erect before the lofty tri-pointed trinity of flames.  Oh!  thou clear spirit
of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian once did worship, till in the
sacramental act so burned by thee, that to this hour I bear the scar; I now
know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right worship is
defiance.  To neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind; and e'en for hate
thou canst but kill; and all are killed.  No fearless fool now fronts thee.
I own thy speechless, placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake
life will dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me.  In the midst
of the personified impersonal, a personality stands here.  Though but a
point at best; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly
live, the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights.  But
war is pain, and hate is woe.  Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will
kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power; and
though thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there's that in here
that still remains indifferent.  Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy fire thou
madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to thee.
[Sudden, repeated flashes of lightning; the nine flames leap lengthwise to
thrice their previous height; Ahab, with the rest, closes his eyes, his
right hand pressed hard upon them.] I own thy speechless, placeless power;
said I not so?  Nor was it wrung from me; nor do I now drop these links.
Thou canst blind; but I can then grope.  Thou canst consume; but I can then
be ashes.  Take the homage of these poor eyes, and shutter-hands.  I would
not take it.  The lightning flashes through my skull; mine eye-balls ache and
ache; my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning
ground.  Oh, oh!  Yet blindfold, yet will I talk to thee.  Light though thou
be, thou leapest out of darkness; but I am darkness leaping out of light,
leaping out of thee!  The javelins cease; open eyes; see, or not?  There burn
the flames!  Oh, thou magnanimous!  now do I glory in my genealogy.  But thou
art but my fiery father; my sweet mother, I know not.  Oh, cruel!  what hast

.. <p 501 >
thou done with her?  There lies my puzzle; but thine is greater.  Thou knowest
not how came ye, hence callest thyself unbegotten; certainly knowest not thy
beginning, hence callest thyself unbegun.  I know that of me, which thou
knowest not of thyself, oh, thou omnipotent.  There is some unsuffusing thing
beyond thee, thou clear spirit, to whom all thy eternity is but time, all
thy creativeness mechanical.  Through thee, thy flaming self, my scorched
eyes do dimly see it.  Oh, thou foundling fire, thou hermit immemorial, thou
too hast thy incommunicable riddle, thy unparticipated grief.  Here again with
haughty agony, i read my sire.  leap!  leap up, and lick the sky!  I leap
with thee; I burn with thee; would fain be welded with thee; defyingly I
worship thee!  The boat!  the boat!  cried Starbuck, look at thy boat, old

     man!  Ahab's harpoon, the one forged at Perth's fire, remained firmly lashed
in its conspicuous crotch, so that it projected beyond his whale-boat's bow;
but the sea that had stove its bottom had caused the loose leather sheath to
drop off; and from the keen steel barb there now came a levelled flame of
pale, forked fire.  As the silent harpoon burned there like a serpent's
tongue, Starbuck grasped Ahab by the arm -- God, God is against thee, old
man; forbear!  t'is an ill voyage!  ill begun, ill continued; let me square
the yards, while we may, old man, and make a fair wind of it homewards, to
go on a better voyage than this.  Overhearing Starbuck, the panic-stricken
crew instantly ran to the braces --though not a sail was left aloft.  For the
moment all the aghast mate's thoughts seemed theirs; they raised a half
mutinous cry.  But dashing the rattling lightning links to the deck, and
snatching the burning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torch among them;
swearing to transfix with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope's
end.  Petrified by his aspect, and still more shrinking from the fiery dart
that he held, the men fell back in dismay, and Ahab again spoke: -- All
your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine; and heart, soul,
and body, lungs and life, old Ahab is bound.  And that ye may know to what
tune this heart beats;
.. <p 502 >
look ye here; thus I blow out the last fear!  And with one blast of his
breath he extinguished the flame.  As in the hurricane that sweeps the plain,
men fly the neighborhood of some lone, gigantic elm, whose very height and
strength but render it so much the more unsafe, because so much the more a
mark for thunderbolts; so at those last words of ahab's many of the mariners
did run from him in a terror of dismay.
.. <p 502 >
.. < chapter cxx 10  THE DECK TOWARDS THE END OF THE FIRST NIGHT WATCH >


Ahab standing by the helm.  Starbuck approaching him.  We must send down the
main-top-sail yard, sir.  The band is working loose, and the lee lift is
half-stranded.  Shall I strike it, sir?  Strike nothing; lash it.  If I had
sky-sail poles, I'd sway them up now.  Sir? --in God's name! --sir?  Well.

     The anchors are working, sir.  Shall I get them inboard?  Strike nothing,
and stir nothing, but lash everything.  The wind rises, but it has not got
up to my table-lands yet.  Quick, and see to it. --By masts and keels!  he
takes me for the hunch-backed skipper of some coasting smack.  Send down my
main-top-sail yard!  Ho, gluepots!  Loftiest trucks were made for wildest
winds, and this brain-truck of mine now sails amid the cloud-scud.  Shall I
strike that?  Oh, none but cowards send down their brain-trucks in tempest
time.  What a hooroosh aloft there!  I would e'en take it for sublime, did I
not know that the colic is a noisy malady.  Oh, take medicine, take
medicine!
.. <p 503 >
.. < chapter cxxi 2  MIDNIGHT--THE FORECASTLE BULWARKS >

     Stubb and Flask
mounted on them, and passing additional lashings over the anchors there
hanging.  No, Stubb; you may pound that knot there as much as you please,
but you will never pound into me what you were just now saying.  And how long
ago is it since you said the very contrary?  Didn't you once say that whatever
ship Ahab sails in, that ship should pay something extra on its insurance
policy, just as though it were loaded with powder barrels aft and boxes of
lucifers forward?  Stop, now; didn't you say so?  Well, suppose I did?  What
then?  i've part changed my flesh since that time, why not my mind?  Besides,
supposing we are loaded with powder barrels aft and lucifers forward; how
the devil could the lucifers get afire in this drenching spray here?  Why, my
little man, you have pretty red hair, but you couldn't get afire now.  Shake
yourself; you're Aquarius, or the water-bearer, Flask; might fill pitchers
at your coat collar.  Don't you see, then, that for these extra risks the
Marine Insurance companies have extra guarantees?  Here are hydrants,
Flask.  But hark, again, and I'll answer ye the other thing.  First take your
leg off from the crown of the anchor here, though, so I can pass the rope;
now listen.  What's the mighty difference between holding a mast's
lightning-rod in the storm, and standing close by a mast that hasn't got any
lightning-rod at all in a storm?  Don't you see, you timber-head, that no
harm can come to the holder of the rod, unless the mast is first struck?
What are you talking about, then?  Not one ship in a hundred carries rods,
and Ahab, --aye, man, and all of us, --were in no more danger then, in my poor
opinion, than all the crews in ten thousand ships now sailing the seas.  Why,
you King-Post, you, I suppose you would have every man in the world go about
.. <p 504 >
with a small lightning-rod running up the corner of his hat, like a militia
officer's skewered feather, and trailing behind like his sash.  Why don't ye
be sensible, Flask?  it's easy to be sensible; why don't ye, then?  any man
with half an eye can be sensible.  I don't know that, Stubb.  You sometimes
find it rather hard.  Yes, when a fellow's soaked through, it's hard to be
sensible, that's a fact.  And I am about drenched with this spray.  Never
mind; catch the turn there, and pass it.  Seems to me we are lashing down
these anchors now as if they were never going to be used again.  tying these
two anchors here, Flask, seems like tying a man's hands behind him.  And what
big generous hands they are, to be sure.  These are your iron fists, hey?
What a hold they have, too!  I wonder, Flask, whether the world is anchored
anywhere; if she is, she swings with an uncommon long cable, though.  There,
hammer that knot down, and we've done.  So; next to touching land, lighting
on deck is the most satisfactory.  I say, just wring out my jacket skirts,
will ye?  Thank ye.  They laugh at long-togs so, Flask; but seems to me, a
long tailed coat ought always to be worn in all storms afloat.  The tails
tapering down that way, serve to carry off the water, d'ye see.  Same with
cocked hats; the cocks form gable-end eave-troughs, Flask.  No more
monkey-jackets and tarpaulins for me; I must mount a swallow-tail, and drive
down a beaver; so.  Halloa!  whew!  there goes my tarpaulin overboard; Lord,

     Lord, that the winds that come from heaven should be so unmannerly!  This is
a nasty night, lad.
.. <p 505 >
.. < chapter cxxii 2  MIDNIGHT ALOFT--THUNDER AND LIGHTNING >

     The
Main-top-sail yard. --Tashtego passing new lashings around it.  Um, um, um.
Stop that thunder!  Plenty too much thunder up here.  What's the use of
thunder?  Um, um, um.  We don't want thunder; we want rum; give us a glass
of rum.  Um, um, um!
.. <p 505 >
.. < chapter cxxiii 10  THE MUSKET >

     During the most violent shocks of the
Typhoon, the man at the Pequod's jaw-bone tiller had several times been
reelingly hurled to the deck by its spasmodic motions, even though preventer
tackles had been attached to it --for they were slack -- because some play to
the tiller was indispensable.  In a severe gale like this, while the ship is
but a tossed shuttle-cock to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see
the needles in the compasses, at intervals, go round and round.  It was thus

     with the Pequod's; at almost every shock the helmsman had not failed to
notice the whirling velocity with which they revolved upon the cards; it is a
sight that hardly any one can behold without some sort of unwonted emotion.
Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much, that through the
strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb --one engaged forward and the other
aft --the shivered remnants of the jib and fore and main-top-sails were cut
adrift from the spars, and went eddying away to leeward, like the feathers
of
.. <p 506 >
an albatross, which sometimes are cast to the winds when that storm-tossed
bird is on the wing.  The three corresponding new sails were now bent and
reefed, and a storm-trysail was set further aft; so that the ship soon went
through the water with some precision again; and the course --for the present,
East-south-east --which he was to steer, if practicable, was once more given
to the helmsman.  For during the violence of the gale, he had only steered
according to its vicissitudes.  But as he was now bringing the ship as near
her course as possible, watching the compass meanwhile, lo!  a good sign!
the wind seemed coming round astern; aye!  the foul breeze became fair!
Instantly the yards were squared, to the lively song of Ho!  the fair

     wind!  oh-he-yo, cheerly, men!  the crew singing for joy, that so
promising an event should so soon have falsified the evil portents preceding
it.  In compliance with the standing order of his commander -- to report
immediately, and at any one of the twenty-four hours, any decided change in
the affairs of the deck, --Starbuck had no sooner trimmed the yards to the
breeze --however reluctantly and gloomily, --than he mechanically went below to
apprise Captain Ahab of the circumstance.  Ere knocking at his state-room, he
involuntarily paused before it a moment.  The cabin lamp --taking long swings
this way and that --was burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the
old man's bolted door, --a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of
upper panels.  The isolated subterraneousness of the cabin made a certain
humming silence to reign there, though it was hooped round by all the roar of
the elements.  The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly revealed, as
they stood upright against the forward bulkhead.  Starbuck was an honest,
upright man; but out of Starbuck's heart, at that instant when he saw the
muskets, there strangely evolved an evil thought; but so blent with its
neutral or good accompaniments that for the instant he hardly knew it for
itself.  He would have shot me once, he murmured, yes, there's the very
musket that he pointed at me; --that one with the studded stock; let me touch
it --lift it.  Strange, that I, who have
.. <p 507 >
handled so many deadly lances, strange, that I should shake so now.  Loaded?
I must see.  Aye, aye; and powder in the pan; -- that's not good.  Best spill
it? --wait.  I'll cure myself of this. I'll hold the musket boldly while I
think. --I come to report a fair wind to him.  But how fair?  Fair for death
and doom, -- that's fair for Moby Dick.  It's a fair wind that's only fair for
that accursed fish. --The very tube he pointed at me! --the very one; this one
--I hold it here; he would have killed me with the very thing I handle now.
--Aye and he would fain kill all his crew.  Does he not say he will not strike
his spars to any gale?  Has he not dashed his heavenly quadrant?  and in these
same perilous seas, gropes he not his way by mere dead reckoning of the
error-abounding log?  and in this very Typhoon, did he not swear that he
would have no lightning-rods?  But shall this crazed old man be tamely
suffered to drag a whole ship's company down to doom with him? --Yes, it would
make him the wilful murderer of thirty men and more, if this ship come to any
deadly harm; and come to deadly harm, my soul swears this ship will, if Ahab

     have his way.  If, then, he were this instant--put aside, that crime would
not be his.  Ha!  is he muttering in his sleep?  Yes, just there, --in there,
he's sleeping.  Sleeping?  aye, but still alive, and soon awake again.  I
can't withstand thee, then, old man.  Not reasoning; not remonstrance; not
entreaty wilt thou hearken to; all this thou scornest.  Flat obedience to thy
own flat commands, this is all thou breathest.  Aye, and say'st the men
have vow'd thy vow; say'st all of us are Ahabs.  Great God forbid! -- But is
there no other way?  no lawful way? --Make him a prisoner to be taken home?
What!  hope to wrest this old man's living power from his own living hands?
Only a fool would try it.  Say he were pinioned even; knotted all over with
ropes and hawsers; chained down to ring-bolts on this cabin floor; he would
be more hideous than a caged tiger, then.  I could not endure the sight;
could not possibly fly his howlings; all comfort, sleep itself, inestimable
reason would leave me on the long intolerable voyage.  What, then, remains?
The land is hundreds of leagues away, and locked Japan the nearest.  I stand
alone here upon an open sea, with two oceans and a whole continent between
me and law. --Aye, aye, 'tis so. --Is heaven a murderer
.. <p 508 >
when its lightning strikes a would-be murderer in his bed, tindering sheets
and skin together? --And would I be a murderer, then, if --and slowly,
stealthily, and half sideways looking, he placed the loaded musket's end
against the door.  On this level, Ahab's hammock swings within; his head
this way.  A touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child
again. --Oh Mary!  Mary! --boy!  boy!  boy! --But if I wake thee not to death, old
man, who can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck's body this day week may
sink, with all the crew!  Great God, where art thou?  Shall I?  shall I? --The
wind has gone down and shifted, sir; the fore and main topsails are reefed
and set; she heads her course.  Stern all!  Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart
at last!  Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old man's
tormented sleep, as if Starbuck's voice had caused the long dumb dream to
speak.  The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard's arm against the panel;

     Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel; but turning from the door, he
placed the death-tube in its rack, and left the place.  He's too sound
asleep, Mr Stubb; go thou down, and wake him, and tell him.  I must see to
the deck here.  Thou know'st what to say.
.. <p 508 >
.. < chapter cxxiv 25  THE NEEDLE >

     Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea
rolled in long slow billows of mighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod's
gurgling track, pushed her on like giants' palms outspread.  The strong,
unstaggering breeze abounded so, that sky and air seemed vast outbellying
sails; the whole world boomed before the wind.  Muffled in the full morning
light, the invisible sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place;

     where his bayonet
.. <p 509 >
rays moved on in stacks.  Emblazonings, as of crowned Babylonian kings and
queens, reigned over everything.  The sea was as a crucible of molten gold,
that bubblingly leaps with light and heat.  Long maintaining an enchanted
silence, Ahab stood apart; and every time the tetering ship loweringly
pitched down her bowsprit, he turned to eye the bright sun's rays produced
ahead; and when she profoundly settled by the stern, he turned behind, and
saw the sun's rearward place, and how the same yellow rays were blending with
his undeviating wake.  Ha, ha, my ship!  thou mightest well be taken now for
the sea-chariot of the sun.  Ho, ho!  all ye nations before my prow, I bring
the sun to ye!  Yoke on the further billows; hallo!  a tandem, I drive the
sea!  But suddenly reined back by some counter thought, he hurried towards
the helm, huskily demanding how the ship was heading.  East-sou-east,
sir, said the frightened steersman.  Thou liest!  smiting him with his
clenched fist.  Heading East at this hour in the morning, and the sun
astern?  Upon this every soul was confounded; for the phenomenon just then
observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else; but its very
blinding palpableness must have been the cause.  Thrusting his head half way
into the binnacle, Ahab caught one glimpse of the compasses; his uplifted
arm slowly fell; for a moment he almost seemed to stagger.  Standing behind
him Starbuck looked, and lo!  the two compasses pointed East, and the
Pequod was as infallibly going West.  But ere the first wild alarm could get
out abroad among the crew, the old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, I have
it!  It has happened before.  Mr. Starbuck, last night's thunder turned our
compasses --that's all.  Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take
it.  Aye; but never before has it happened to me, sir, said the pale
mate, gloomily.  Here, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in
more than one case occurred to ships in violent storms.  The
.. <p 510 >
magnetic energy, as developed in the mariner's needle, is, as all know,
essentially one with the electricity beheld in heaven; hence it is not to be
much marvelled at, that such things should be.  In instances where the
lightning has actually struck the vessel, so as to smite down some of the
spars and rigging, the effect upon the needle has at times been still more
fatal; all its loadstone virtue being annihilated, so that the before
magnetic steel was of no more use than an old wife's knitting needle.  But in
either case, the needle never again, of itself, recovers the original virtue
thus marred or lost; and if the binnacle compasses be affected, the same
fate reaches all the others that may be in the ship; even were the lowermost
one inserted into the kelson.  Deliberately standing before the binnacle, and
eyeing the transpointed compasses, the old man, with the sharp of his
extended hand, now took the precise bearing of the sun, and satisfied that
the needles were exactly inverted, shouted out his orders for the ship's
course to be changed accordingly.  The yards were hard up; and once more the
Pequod thrust her undaunted bows into the opposing wind, for the supposed
fair one had only been juggling her.  Meanwhile, whatever were his own secret
thoughts, Starbuck said nothing, but quietly he issued all requisite orders;

     while Stubb and Flask --who in some small degree seemed then to be sharing
his feelings --likewise unmurmuringly acquiesced.  As for the men, though some
of them lowly rumbled, their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of
Fate.  But as ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost wholly
unimpressed; or if impressed, it was only with a certain magnetism shot into
their congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab's.  For a space the old man walked
the deck in rolling reveries.  But chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he
saw the crushed copper sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before
dashed to the deck.  Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun's pilot!  yesterday

     I wrecked thee, and to-day the compasses would feign have wrecked me.  So,
so.  But Ahab is lord over the level load-stone
.. <p 511 >
yet.  Mr. Starbuck--a lance without a pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of
the sail-maker's needles.  Quick!  Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse
dictating the thing he was now about to do, were certain prudential motives,
whose object might have been to revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of
his subtile skill, in a matter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses.

     Besides, the old man well knew that to steer by transpointed needles, though
clumsily practicable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious
sailors, without some shudderings and evil portents.  Men, said he,
steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate handed him the things he had
demanded, my men, the thunder turned old Ahab's needles; but out of this
bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own, that will point as true as any.
Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as this was
said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic might follow.  But
Starbuck looked away.  With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel

     head of the lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining,
bade him hold it upright, without its touching the deck.  Then, with the
maul, after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this iron rod, he placed the
blunted needle endwise on the top of it, and less strongly hammered that,
several times, the mate still holding the rod as before.  Then going through
some small strange motions with it --whether indispensable to the magnetizing
of the steel, or merely intended to augment the awe of the crew, is uncertain
--he called for linen thread; and moving to the binnacle, slipped out the two
reversed needles there, and horizontally suspended the sail-needle by its
middle, over one of the compass-cards.  At first, the steel went round and
round, quivering and vibrating at either end; but at last it settled to its
place, when Ahab, who had been intently watching for this result, stepped
frankly back from the binnacle, and pointing his stretched arm towards it,
exclaimed, --Look ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not the lord of the level
loadstone!  The sun is East, and that compass swears it!  One after another
they peered in, for nothing but their own
.. <p 512 >
eyes could persuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another they
slunk away.  In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all
his fatal pride.
.. <p 512 >
.. < chapter cxxv 6  THE LOG AND LINE >

     While now the fated Pequod had been
so long afloat this voyage, the log and line had but very seldom been in use.

     Owing to a confident reliance upon other means of determining the vessel's
place, some merchantmen, and many whalemen, especially when cruising,
wholly neglect to heave the log; though at the same time, and frequently more
for form's sake than anything else, regularly putting down upon the customary
slate the course steered by the ship, as well as the presumed average rate of
progression every hour.  It had been thus with the Pequod.  The wooden reel
and angular log attached hung, long untouched, just beneath the railing of
the after bulwarks.  Rains and spray had damped it; the sun and wind had
warped it; all the elements had combined to rot a thing that hung so idly.
But heedless of all this, his mood seized Ahab, as he happened to glance
upon the reel, not many hours after the magnet scene, and he remembered how
his quadrant was no more, and recalled his frantic oath about the level log
and line.  The ship was sailing plungingly; astern the billows rolled in
riots.  Forward, there!  Heave the log!  Two seamen came.  The golden-hued
Tahitian and the grizzly Manxman.  Take the reel, one of ye, I'll heave.
They went towards the extreme stern, on the ship's lee side, where the deck,
with the oblique energy of the wind, was now almost dipping into the creamy,
sidelong-rushing sea.  The Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up, by
the projecting handle-ends of the spindle, round which the spool
.. <p 513 >
of line revolved, so stood with the angular log hanging downwards, till Ahab
advanced to him.  Ahab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some thirty

     or forty turns to form a preliminary hand-coil to toss overboard, when the
old Manxman, who was intently eyeing both him and the line, made bold to
speak.  Sir, I mistrust it; this line looks far gone, long heat and wet
have spoiled it. 'Twill hold, old gentleman.  Long heat and wet, have they
spoiled thee?  Thou seem'st to hold.  Or, truer perhaps, life holds thee; not
thou it.  I hold the spool, sir.  But just as my captain says.  With these
grey hairs of mine 'tis not worth while disputing, 'specially with a
superior, who'll ne'er confess.  What's that?  There now's a patched
professor in Queen Nature's granite-founded College; but methinks he's too
subservient.  Where wert thou born?  In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir.

     Excellent!  Thou'st hit the world by that.  I know not, sir, but I was born
there.  In the Isle of Man, hey?  Well, the other way, it's good.  Here's a
man from Man; a man born in once independent Man, and now unmanned of Man;
which is sucked in --by what?  Up with the reel!  The dead, blind wall butts
all inquiring heads at last.  Up with it!  So.  The log was heaved.  The
loose coils rapidly straightened out in a long dragging line astern, and
then, instantly, the reel began to whirl.  In turn, jerkingly raised and
lowered by the rolling billows, the towing resistance of the log caused the
old reelman to stagger strangely.  Hold hard!  Snap!  the overstrained line
sagged down in one long festoon; the tugging log was gone.  I crush the
quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and now the mad sea parts the
log-line.  But Ahab can mend all.  Haul in here, Tahitian; reel up, Manxman.
And look ye, let the carpenter make another log, and mend thou the line.  See

     to it.
.. <p 514 >

     There he goes now; to him nothing's happened; but to me, the skewer seems
loosening out of the middle of the world.  Haul in, haul in, Tahitian!  These
lines run whole, and whirling out: come in broken, and dragging slow.  Ha,
Pip?  come to help; eh, Pip?  Pip?  whom call ye Pip?  Pip jumped from the
whale-boat.  pip's missing.  let's see now if ye haven't fished him up here,
fisherman.  It drags hard; I guess he's holding on.  Jerk him, Tahiti!  Jerk
him off; we haul in no cowards here.  Ho!  there's his arm just breaking
water.  A hatchet!  a hatchet!  cut it off -- we haul in no cowards here.
Captain Ahab!  sir, sir!  here's Pip, trying to get on board again.  Peace,
thou crazy loon, cried the Manxman, seizing him by the arm.  Away from the
quarter-deck!  The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser, muttered Ahab,
advancing.  Hands off from that holiness!  Where sayest thou Pip was, boy?

     Astern there, sir, astern!  Lo, lo!  And who art thou, boy?  I see not my
reflection in the vacant pupils of thy eyes.  Oh God!  that man should be a
thing for immortal souls to sieve through!  Who art thou, boy?  Bell-boy,
sir; ship's-crier; ding, dong, ding!  Pip!  Pip!  Pip!  One hundred pounds
of clay reward for Pip; five feet high-- looks cowardly --quickest known by
that!  Ding, dong, ding!  Who's seen Pip the coward?  There can be no hearts
above the snow-line.  Oh, ye frozen heavens!  look down here.  Ye did beget
this luckless child, and have abandoned him, ye creative libertines.  Here,
boy; Ahab's cabin shall be Pip's home henceforth, while Ahab lives.  Thou
touchest my inmost centre, boy; thou art tied to me by cords woven of my
heart-strings.  Come, let's down.  What's this?  here's velvet shark-skin,
intently gazing at Ahab's hand, and feeling it.  Ah, now, had poor Pip but
felt so kind a thing as this, perhaps he had ne'er been lost!  This seems to
me, sir, as a man-rope; something that weak souls may hold by.  Oh, sir, let
old Perth now come and rivet these two hands together; the black one with the
white, for I will not let this go.
.. <p 515 >

     Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should thereby drag thee to worse horrors
than are here.  come, then, to my cabin.  Lo!  ye believers in gods all
goodness, and in man all ill, lo you!  see the omniscient gods oblivious of
suffering man; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not what he does, yet
full of the sweet things of love and gratitude.  Come!  I feel prouder leading

     thee by thy black hand, than though I grasped an Emperor's!  There go two
daft ones now, muttered the old Manxman.  One daft with strength, the other
daft with weakness.  But here's the end of the rotten line --all dripping, too.

     Mend it, eh?  I think we had best have a new line altogether.  I'll see Mr.
Stubb about it.
.. <p 515 >
.. < chapter cxxvi 14  THE LIFE-BUOY >

     Steering now south-eastward by Ahab's
levelled steel, and her progress solely determined by Ahab's level log and
line; the Pequod held on her path towards the Equator.  Making so long a
passage through such unfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long,
sideways impelled by unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously mild;
all these seemed the strange calm things preluding some riotous and desperate
scene.  At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were, of
the Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goes before the
dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets; the watch --then headed by
Flask --was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and unearthly --like
half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod's murdered Innocents
--that one and all, they started from their reveries, and for the space of
some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all transfixedly listening, like the
carved Roman slave, while that wild cry remained within hearing.  The
Christian or civilized part of the crew said it was mermaids, and shuddered;
but the pagan harpooneers remained
.. <p 516 >
unappalled.  Yet the grey Manxman --the oldest mariner of all -- declared that
the wild thrilling sounds that were heard, were the voices of newly drowned
men in the sea.  below in his hammock, ahab did not hear of this till grey
dawn, when he came to the deck; it was then recounted to him by Flask, not
unaccompanied with hinted dark meanings.  He hollowly laughed, and thus
explained the wonder.  Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort
of great numbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams,
or some dams that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and kept
company with her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of wail.  But this
only the more affected some of them, because most mariners cherish a very
superstitious feeling about seals, arising not only from their peculiar tones

     when in distress, but also from the human look of their round heads and
semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from the water alongside.  In
the sea, under certain circumstances, seals have more than once been mistaken
for men.  But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most
plausible confirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning.  At
sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore; and
whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for sailors
sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus with the man,
there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he had not been long at
his perch, when a cry was heard --a cry and a rushing --and looking up, they
saw a falling phantom in the air; and looking down, a little tossed heap of
white bubbles in the blue of the sea.  The life-buoy --a long slender cask --was
dropped from the stern, where it always hung obedient to a cunning spring;
but no hand rose to seize it, and the sun having long beat upon this cask
it had shrunken, so that it slowly filled, and the parched wood also filled
at its every pore; and the studded iron-bound cask followed the sailor to the
bottom, as if to yield him his pillow, though in sooth but a hard one.  And
thus the first man of the pequod that mounted the mast to look out for the
White Whale, on the White Whale's own
.. <p 517 >
peculiar ground; that man was swallowed up in the deep.  But few, perhaps,
thought of that at the time.  Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at
this event, at least as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a
foreshadowing of evil in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already
presaged.  They declared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks
they had heard the night before.  But again the old Manxman said nay.  The
lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to see to it;
but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and as in the feverish
eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of the voyage, all hands were
impatient of any toil but what was directly connected with its final end,
whatever that might prove to be; therefore, they were going to leave the
ship's stern unprovided with a buoy, when by certain strange signs and
inuendoes Queequeg hinted a hint concerning his coffin.  A life-buoy of a
coffin!  cried Starbuck, starting.  Rather queer, that, I should say, said
Stubb.  It will make a good enough one, said Flask, the carpenter here can
arrange it easily.  Bring it up; there's nothing else for it, said
Starbuck, after a melancholy pause.  Rig it, carpenter; do not look at me
so -- the coffin, I mean.  Dost thou hear me?  Rig it.  And shall I nail down
the lid, sir?  moving his hand as with a hammer.  aye.  And shall I caulk
the seams, sir?  moving his hand as with a caulking-iron.  Aye.  And shall
I then pay over the same with pitch, sir?  moving his hand as with a
pitch-pot.  Away!  What possesses thee to this?  Make a life-buoy of the
coffin, and no more. --Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me.  He goes
off in a huff.  The whole he can endure; at the parts he baulks.  Now I don't
like this.  i make a leg for captain ahab, and he wears it like a gentleman;
but I make a bandbox for Queequeg, and he wont put his head into it.  Are
.. <p 518 >
all my pains to go for nothing with that coffin?  And now I'm ordered to make
a life-buoy of it.  It's like turning an old coat; going to bring the flesh on
the other side now.  I don't like this cobbling sort of business --I don't like
it at all; it's undignified; it's not my place.  Let tinkers' brats do
tinkerings; we are their betters.  I like to take in hand none but clean,
virgin, fair-and-square mathematical jobs, something that regularly begins
at the beginning, and is at the middle when midway, and comes to an end at
the conclusion; not a cobbler's job, that's at an end in the middle, and at
the beginning at the end.  It's the old woman's tricks to be giving cobbling
jobs.  Lord!  what an affection all old women have for tinkers.  I know an old

     woman of sixty-five who ran away with a bald-headed young tinker once.  And
that's the reason I never would work for lonely widow old women ashore, when
I kept my job-shop in the Vineyard; they might have taken it into their
lonely old heads to run off with me.  But heigh-ho!  there are no caps at sea
but snow-caps.  Let me see.  Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay over
the same with pitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the snap-spring
over the ship's stern.  Were ever such things done before with a coffin?  Some
superstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied up in the rigging, ere they
would do the job.  But I'm made of knotty Aroostook hemlock; I don't budge.
Cruppered with a coffin!  Sailing about with a grave-yard tray!  But never
mind.  We workers in woods make bridal-bedsteads and card-tables, as well as
coffins and hearses.  We work by the month, or by the job, or by the profit;
not for us to ask the why and wherefore of our work, unless it be too
confounded cobbling, and then we stash it if we can.  hem!  i'll do the job,
now, tenderly.  I'll have me --let's see --how many in the ship's company, all
told?  But I've forgotten.  Any way, I'll have me thirty separate,
Turk's-headed life-lines, each three feet long hanging all round to the
coffin.  Then, if the hull go down, there'll be thirty lively fellows all
fighting for one coffin, a sight not seen very often beneath the sun!  Come
hammer, calking-iron, pitch-pot, and marling-spike!  Let's to it.
.. <p 519 >
.. < chapter cxxvii 2  THE DECK >

     The coffin laid upon two line-tubs, between
the vice-bench and the open hatchway; the Carpenter calking its seams; the
string of twisted oakum slowly unwinding from a large roll of it placed in the
bosom of his frock. --Ahab comes slowly from the cabin-gangway, and hears Pip
following him.  Back, lad; I will be with ye again presently.  He goes!  Not
this hand complies with my humor more genially than that boy. -- Middle aisle
of a church!  What's here?  Life buoy, sir.  Mr. Starbuck's orders.  Oh,
look, sir!  Beware the hatchway!  Thank ye, man.  Thy coffin lies handy to
the vault.  Sir?  The hatchway?  oh!  So it does, sir, so it does.  Art
not thou the leg-maker?  Look, did not this stump come from thy shop?  I
believe it did, sir; does the ferrule stand, sir?  Well enough.  But art
thou not also the undertaker?  Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a
coffin for Queequeg; but they've set me now to turning it into something
else.  Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, inter-meddling,
monopolizing, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the next
day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those same
coffins?  Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a
jack-of-all-trades.  But I do not mean anything, sir.  I do as I do.  The
gods again.  hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working about a coffin?  The
Titans, they say, hummed snatches when chipping out the craters for volcanoes;

     and the grave-digger in the play sings, spade in hand.  Dost thou never?

     Sing, sir?  Do I sing?  Oh, I'm indifferent enough, sir, for that; but the
reason why the grave-digger made music must
.. <p 520 >
have been because there was none in his spade, sir.  But the calking mallet is
full of it.  Hark to it.  Aye, and that's because the lid there's a
sounding-board; and what in all things makes the sounding-board is this
--there's naught beneath.  And yet, a coffin with a body in it rings pretty
much the same, Carpenter.  Hast thou ever helped carry a bier, and heard the
coffin knock against the churchyard gate, going in?  Faith, sir, I've--

     Faith?  What's that?  Why, faith, sir, it's only a sort of exclamation-like
--that's all, sir.  Um, um; go on.  I was about to say, sir, that-- Art
thou a silk-worm?  Dost thou spin thy own shroud out of thyself?  Look at thy
bosom!  Despatch!  and get these traps out of sight.  He goes aft.  That was
sudden, now; but squalls come sudden in hot latitudes.  I've heard that the
Isle of Albemarle, one of the Gallipagos, is cut by the Equator right in the
middle.  Seems to me some sort of Equator cuts yon old man, too, right in his
middle.  He's always under the Line--fiery hot, I tell ye!  He's looking this
way --come, oakum; quick.  Here we go again.  This wooden mallet is the cork,
and I'm the professor of musical glasses --tap, tap! ( Ahab to himself.)

     There's a sight!  There's sound!  The greyheaded woodpecker tapping the
hollow tree!  Blind and dumb might well be envied now.  See!  that thing rests
on two line-tubs, full of tow-lines.  A most malicious wag, that fellow.
Rat-tat!  So man's seconds tick!  Oh!  how immaterial are all materials!  What

     things real are there, but imponderable thoughts?  Here now's the very
dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the
help and hope of most endangered life.  A life-buoy of a coffin!  Does it go
further?  Can it be that in some spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but
an immortality-preserver!  I'll think of that.  But no.  So far gone
.. <p 521 >
am I in the dark side of earth, that its other side, the theoretic bright one,
seems but uncertain twilight to me.  Will ye never have done, Carpenter, with
that accursed sound?  I go below; let me not see that thing here when I return
again.  Now, then, Pip, we'll talk this over; I do suck most wondrous
philosophies from thee!  Some unknown conduits from the unknown worlds must
empty into thee!
.. <p 521 >
.. < chapter cxxviii 9  THE PEQUOD MEETS THE RACHEL >

     Next day, a large
ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing directly down upon the Pequod, all her
spars thickly clustering with men.  At the time the Pequod was making good
speed through the water; but as the broad-winged windward stranger shot nigh
to her, the boastful sails all fell together as blank bladders that are
burst, and all life fled from the smitten hull.  Bad news; she brings bad
news, muttered the old Manxman.  But ere her commander, who, with trumpet to
mouth, stood up in his boat; ere he could hopefully hail, Ahab's voice was
heard.  Hast seen the White Whale?  Aye, yesterday.  Have ye seen a
whale-boat adrift?  Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this
unexpected question; and would then have fain boarded the stranger, when
the stranger captain himself, having stopped his vessel's way, was seen
descending her side.  A few keen pulls, and his boat-hook soon clinched the
Pequod's main-chains, and he sprang to the deck.  Immediately he was
recognized by ahab for a nantucketer he knew.  But no formal salutation was
exchanged.  Where was he? --not killed! --not killed!  cried Ahab, closely
advancing.  How was it?  It seemed that somewhat late on the afternoon of the
day previous, while three of the stranger's boats were engaged with
.. <p 522 >
a shoal of whales, which had led them some four or five miles from the ship;
and while they were yet in swift chase to windward, the white hump and head of
Moby Dick had suddenly loomed up out of the blue water, not very far to
leeward; whereupon, the fourth rigged boat --a reserved one --had been
instantly lowered in chase.  After a keen sail before the wind, this fourth
boat --the swiftest keeled of all --seemed to have succeeded in fastening --at
least, as well as the man at the mast-head could tell anything about it.  In
the distance he saw the diminished dotted boat; and then a swift gleam of
bubbling white water; and after that nothing more; whence it was concluded
that the stricken whale must have indefinitely run away with his pursuers, as
often happens.  There was some apprehension, but no positive alarm, as yet.
The recall signals were placed in the rigging; darkness came on; and forced
to pick up her three far to windward boats --ere going in quest of the fourth
one in the precisely opposite direction --the ship had not only been
necessitated to leave that boat to its fate till near midnight, but, for the
time, to increase her distance from it.  But the rest of her crew being at
last safe aboard, she crowded all sail --stunsail on stunsail --after the
missing boat; kindling a fire in her try-pots for a beacon; and every
other man aloft on the look-out.  But though when she had thus sailed a
sufficient distance to gain the presumed place of the absent ones when last
seen; though she then paused to lower her spare boats to pull all around her;

     and not finding anything, had again dashed on; again paused, and lowered her
boats; and though she had thus continued doing till day light; yet not the
least glimpse of the missing keel had been seen.  The story told, the
stranger Captain immediately went on to reveal his object in boarding the
Pequod.  He desired that ship to unite with his own in the search; by sailing
over the sea some four or five miles apart, on parallel lines, and so sweeping
a double horizon, as it were.  I will wager something now, whispered Stubb
to Flask, that some one in that missing boat wore off that Captain's best
coat; mayhap, his watch --he's so cursed anxious to get it back.  Who ever
heard of two pious whale-ships cruising after
.. <p 523 >
one missing whale-boat in the height of the whaling season?  See, Flask, only
see how pale he looks --pale in the very buttons of his eyes --look --it wasn't
the coat --it must have been the-- My boy, my own boy is among them.  For
God's sake --I beg, I conjure --here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab,
who thus far had but icily received his petition.  For eight-and-forty hours
let me charter your ship --I will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it
--if there be no other way --for eight-and-forty hours only --only that --you
must, oh, you must, and you shall do this thing.  His son!  cried Stubb,

     oh, it's his son he's lost!  I take back the coat and watch --what says Ahab?

     We must save that boy.  He's drowned with the rest on 'em, last night, said
the old Manx sailor standing behind them; I heard; all of ye heard their
spirits.  Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the
Rachel's the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of
the Captain's sons among the number of the missing boat's crew; but among the
number of the other boat's crews, at the same time, but on the other hand,
separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the chase, there had
been still another son; as that for a time, the wretched father was plunged
to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity; which was only solved for him by
his chief mate's instinctively adopting the ordinary procedure of a whale-ship
in such emergencies, that is, when placed between jeopardized but divided
boats, always to pick up the majority first.  But the captain, for some
unknown constitutional reason, had refrained from mentioning all this, and not
till forced to it by Ahab's iciness did he allude to his one yet missing boy;
a little lad, but twelve years old, whose father with the earnest but
unmisgiving hardihood of a Nantucketer's paternal love, had thus early sought
to initiate him in the perils and wonders of a vocation almost immemorially
the destiny of all his race.  Nor does it unfrequently occur, that Nantucket
captains will send a son of such tender age away from them, for a protracted
three or four years' voyage in some other ship than their own; so that their
first knowledge of a whaleman's career shall be unenervated by any chance
display
.. <p 524 >
of a father's natural but untimely partiality, or undue apprehensiveness
and concern.  Meantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of
Ahab; and Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but
without the least quivering of his own.  I will not go, said the stranger,

     till you say aye to me.  Do to me as you would have me do to you in the like
case.  For you too have a boy, Captain Ahab --though but a child, and nestling
safely at home now --a child of your old age too -- Yes, yes, you relent; I
see it --run, run, men, now, and stand by to square in the yards.  Avast,
cried Ahab -- touch not a rope-yarn; then in a voice that prolongingly
moulded every word -- Captain Gardiner, I will not do it.  Even now I lose
time.  Good bye, good bye.  God bless ye, man, and may I forgive myself,
but I must go.  Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle watch, and in three
minutes from this present instant warn off all strangers: then brace forward
again, and let the ship sail as before.  Hurriedly turning, with averted face,

     he descended into his cabin, leaving the strange captain transfixed at this
unconditional and utter rejection of his so earnest suit.  But starting from
his enchantment, Gardiner silently hurried to the side; more fell than
stepped into his boat, and returned to his ship.  Soon the two ships diverged
their wakes; and long as the strange vessel was in view, she was seen to yaw
hither and thither at every dark spot, however small, on the sea.  This way
and that her yards were swung round; starboard and larboard, she continued to
tack; now she beat against a head sea; and again it pushed her before it;
while all the while, her masts and yards were thickly clustered with men, as
three tall cherry trees, when the boys are cherrying among the boughs.  But by
her still halting course and winding, woful way, you plainly saw that this
ship that so wept with spray, still remained without comfort.  She was
Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were not.
.. <p 525 >
.. < chapter cxxix 2  THE CABIN >

     (Ahab moving to go on deck; Pip catches
him by the hand to follow.) Lad, lad, I tell thee thou must not follow Ahab
now.  The hour is coming when Ahab would not scare thee from him, yet would
not have thee by him.  There is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too
curing to my malady.  Like cures like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes
my most desired health.  Do thou abide below here, where they shall serve
thee, as if thou wert the captain.  Aye, lad, thou shalt sit here in my own
screwed chair; another screw to it, thou must be.  No, no, no!  ye have not
a whole body, sir; do ye but use poor me for your one lost leg; only tread
upon me, sir; I ask no more, so I remain a part of ye.  Oh!  spite of
million villains, this makes me a bigot in the fadeless fidelity of man! --and
a black!  and crazy! --but methinks like-cures-like applies to him too; he
grows so sane again.  They tell me, sir, that Stubb did once desert poor
little Pip, whose drowned bones now show white, for all the blackness of his
living skin.  But I will never desert ye, sir, as Stubb did him.  Sir, I must
go with ye.  If thou speakest thus to me much more, Ahab's purpose keels up
in him.  I tell thee no; it cannot be.  Oh good master, master, master!

     Weep so, and I will murder thee!  have a care, for Ahab too is mad.
Listen, and thou wilt often hear my ivory foot upon the deck, and still know
that I am there.  And now I quit thee.  Thy hand! --Met!  True art thou, lad,
as the circumference to its centre.  So: God for ever bless thee; and if it
come to that, -- God for ever save thee, let what will befall.
.. <p 526 >

     Ahab goes; Pip steps one step forward.) Here he this instant stood;
I stand in his air, --but I'm alone.  Now were even poor Pip here I could
endure it, but he's missing.  Pip!  Pip!  Ding, dong, ding!  Who's seen Pip?
He must be up here; let's try the door.  What?  neither lock, nor bolt, nor
bar; and yet there's no opening it.  It must be the spell; he told me to
stay here: Aye, and told me this screwed chair was mine.  Here, then, I'll
seat me, against the transom, in the ship's full middle, all her keel and
her three masts before me.  Here, our old sailors say, in their black
seventy-fours great admirals sometimes sit at table, and lord it over rows
of captains and lieutenants.  Ha!  what's this?  epaulets!  epaulets!  the
epaulets all come crowding!  Pass round the decanters; glad to see ye; fill
up, monsieurs!  What an odd feeling, now, when a black boy's host to white men
with gold lace upon their coats! --Monsieurs, have ye seen one Pip? --a little
negro lad, five feet high,  hang-dog look, and cowardly!  Jumped from a
whale-boat once; --seen him?  No!  Well then, fill up again, captains, and
let's drink shame upon all cowards!  I name no names.  Shame upon them!  Put
one foot upon the table.  Shame upon all cowards. --Hist!  above there, I hear
ivory --Oh, master, master!  I am indeed down-hearted when you walk over me.

     But here I'll stay, though this stern strikes rocks; and they bulge
through; and oysters come to join me.
.. <p 526 >
.. < chapter cxxx 26  THE HAT >

     And now that at the proper time and place,
after so long and wide a preliminary cruise, Ahab, --all other whaling waters
swept --seemed to have chased his foe into an ocean-fold, to slay him the more
securely there; now, that he found himself hard by the very latitude and
longitude where his tormenting wound
.. <p 527 >
had been inflicted; now that a vessel had been spoken which on the very day
preceding had actually encountered Moby Dick; --and now that all his successive
meetings with various ships contrastingly concurred to show the demoniac
indifference with which the white whale tore his hunters, whether sinning or
sinned against; now it was that there lurked a something in the old man's
eyes, which it was hardly sufferable for feeble souls to see.  As the
unsetting polar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months' night
sustains its piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab's purpose now fixedly
gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew.  It domineered
above them so, that all their bodings, doubts, misgivings, fears, were fain
to hide beneath their souls, and not sprout forth a single spear or leaf.  In
this foreshadowing interval too, all humor, forced or natural, vanished.
Stubb no more strove to raise a smile; Starbuck no more strove to check one.
Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to finest dust, and
powdered, for the time, in the clamped mortar of ahab's iron soul.  like
machines, they dumbly moved about the deck, ever conscious that the old
man's despot eye was on them.  But did you deeply scan him in his more secret
confidential hours; when he thought no glance but one was on him; then you
would have seen that even as Ahab's eyes so awed the crew's, the inscrutable
Parsee's glance awed his; or somehow, at least, in some wild way, at times
affected it.  Such an added, gliding strangeness began to invest the thin
Fedallah now; such ceaseless shudderings shook him; that the men looked
dubious at him; half uncertain, as it seemed, whether indeed he were a
mortal substance, or else a tremulous shadow cast upon the deck by some
unseen being's body.  And that shadow was always hovering there.  For not by
night, even, had Fedallah ever certainly been known to slumber, or go below.
He would stand still for hours: but never sat or leaned; his wan but
wondrous eyes did plainly say --We two watchmen never rest.  Nor, at any time,
by night or day could the mariners now step up the deck, unless Ahab was
before them; either standing in his pivot-hole, or exactly pacing the planks
between two
.. <p 528 >
undeviating limits, --the main-mast and the mizen; or else they saw him
standing in the cabin-scuttle, --his living foot advanced upon the deck, as if
to step; his hat slouched heavily over his eyes; so that however motionless
he stood, however the days and nights were added on, that he had not swung
in his hammock; yet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they could never tell
unerringly whether, for all this, his eyes were really closed at times; or
whether he was still intently scanning them; no matter, though he stood so
in the scuttle for a whole hour on the stretch, and the unheeded night-damp
gathered in beads of dew upon that stone-carved coat and hat.  The clothes
that the night had wet, the next day's sunshine dried upon him; and so,
day after day, and night after night; he went no more beneath the planks;
whatever he wanted from the cabin that thing he sent for.  He ate in the same
open air; that is, his two only meals, -- breakfast and dinner: supper he
never touched; nor reaped his beard; which darkly grew all gnarled, as
unearthed roots of trees blown over, which still grow idly on at naked base,
though perished in the upper verdure.  But though his whole life was now
become one watch on deck; and though the Parsee's mystic watch was without
intermission as his own; yet these two never seemed to speak --one man to the
other --unless at long intervals some passing unmomentous matter made it
necessary.  Though such a potent spell seemed secretly to join the twain;
openly, and to the awe-struck crew, they seemed pole-like asunder.  If by day
they chanced to speak one word; by night, dumb men were both, so far as
concerned the slightest verbal interchange.  At times, for longest hours,
without a single hail, they stood far parted in the starlight; Ahab in his
scuttle, the Parsee by the mainmast; but still fixedly gazing upon each
other; as if in the Parsee Ahab saw his forethrown shadow, in Ahab the
Parsee his abandoned substance.  And yet, somehow, did Ahab --in his own proper
self, as daily, hourly, and every instant, commandingly revealed to his
subordinates, --Ahab seemed an independent lord; the Parsee but his slave.
Still again both seemed yoked together, and an unseen
.. <p 529 >
tyrant driving them; the lean shade siding the solid rib.  For be this Parsee
what he may, all rib and keel was solid Ahab.  At the first faintest
glimmering of the dawn, his iron voice was heard from aft -- Man the
mast-heads! --and all through the day, till after sunset and after twilight,
the same voice every hour, at the striking of the helmsman's bell, was heard
-- What d'ye see? --sharp!  sharp!  But when three or four days had slided by,
after meeting the children-seeking Rachel; and no spout had yet been seen;
the monomaniac old man seemed distrustful of his crew's fidelity; at least,
of nearly all except the Pagan harpooneers; he seemed to doubt, even, whether
Stubb and Flask might not willingly overlook the sight he sought.  But if
these suspicions were really his, he sagaciously refrained from verbally
expressing them, however his actions might seem to hint them.  I will have
the first sight of the whale myself, --he said.  Aye!  Ahab must have the
doubloon!  and with his own hands he rigged a nest of basketed bowlines; and
sending a hand aloft, with a single sheaved block, to secure to the
main-mast head, he received the two ends of the downward-reeved rope; and
attaching one to his basket prepared a pin for the other end, in order to
fasten it at the rail.  This done, with that end yet in his hand and standing
beside the pin, he looked round upon his crew, sweeping from one to the
other; pausing his glance long upon Daggoo, Queequeg, Tashtego; but shunning

     Fedallah; and then settling his firm relying eye upon the chief mate, said,
-- Take the rope, sir --I give it into thy hands, Starbuck.  Then arranging
his person in the basket, he gave the word for them to hoist him to his
perch, Starbuck being the one who secured the rope at last; and afterwards
stood near it.  And thus, with one hand clinging round the royal mast, Ahab
gazed abroad upon the sea for miles and miles, --ahead, astern, this side, and
that, --within the wide expanded circle commanded at so great a height.  When
in working with his hands at some lofty almost isolated place in the rigging,
which chances to afford no foothold, the sailor at sea is hoisted up to that
spot, and sustained there by
.. <p 530 >
the rope; under these circumstances, its fastened end on deck is always given
in strict charge to some one man who has the special watch of it.  Because in
such a wilderness of running rigging, whose various different relations aloft
cannot always be infallibly discerned by what is seen of them at the deck;
and when the deck-ends of these ropes are being every few minutes cast down
from the fastenings, it would be but a natural fatality, if, unprovided with
a constant watchman, the hoisted sailor should by some carelessness of the
crew be cast adrift and fall all swooping to the sea.  So Ahab's proceedings
in this matter were not unusual; the only strange thing about them seemed to
be, that Starbuck, almost the one only man who had ever ventured to oppose
him with anything in the slightest degree approaching to decision --one of
those too, whose faithfulness on the look-out he had seemed to doubt somewhat;
--it was strange, that this was the very man he should select for his watchman;

     freely giving his whole life into such an otherwise distrusted person's
hands.  Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft; ere he had been there ten
minutes; one of those red-billed savage sea-hawks which so often fly
incommodiously close round the manned mast-heads of whalemen in these
latitudes; one of these birds came wheeling and screaming round his head in a
maze of untrackably swift circlings.  Then it darted a thousand feet straight
up into the air; then spiralized downwards, and went eddying again round his
head.  But with his gaze fixed upon the dim and distant horizon, Ahab seemed
not to mark this wild bird; nor, indeed, would any one else have marked it
much, it being no uncommon circumstance; only now almost the least heedful
eye seemed to see some sort of cunning meaning in almost every sight.  Your
hat, your hat, sir!  suddenly cried the Sicilian seaman, who being posted at
the mizen-mast-head, stood directly behind Ahab, though somewhat lower than
his level, and with a deep gulf of air dividing them.  But already the sable
wing was before the old man's eyes; the long hooked bill at his head: with a
scream, the black hawk darted away with his prize.
.. <p 531 >
an eagle flew thrice round Tarquin's head, removing his cap to replace it,
and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin would be king of Rome.

     But only by the replacing of the cap was that omen accounted good.  Ahab's
hat was never restored; the wild hawk flew on and on with it; far in
advance of the prow: and at last disappeared; while from the point of that
disappearance, a minute black spot was dimly discerned, falling from that vast
height into the sea.
.. <p 531 >
.. < chapter cxxxi 10  THE PEQUOD MEETS THE DELIGHT >

     The intense Pequod
sailed on; the rolling waves and days went by; the life-buoy-coffin still
lightly swung; and another ship, most miserably misnamed the Delight, was
descried.  As she drew nigh, all eyes were fixed upon her broad beams,
called shears, which, in some whaling-ships, cross the quarter-deck at the
height of eight or nine feet; serving to carry the spare, unrigged, or
disabled boats.  Upon the stranger's shears were beheld the shattered, white
ribs, and some few splintered planks, of what had once been a whale-boat; but
you now saw through this wreck, as plainly as you see through the peeled,
half-unhinged, and bleaching skeleton of a horse.  Hast seen the White
Whale?  Look!  replied the hollow-cheeked captain from his taffrail; and
with his trumpet he pointed to the wreck.  Hast killed him?  The harpoon is
not yet forged that will ever do that, answered the other, sadly glancing
upon a rounded hammock on the deck, whose gathered sides some noiseless
sailors were busy in sewing together.  Not forged!  and snatching Perth's
levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab held it out, exclaiming -- Look ye,
Nantucketer;
.. <p 532 >
here in this hand I hold his death!  Tempered in blood, and tempered by
lightning are these barbs; and I swear to temper them triply in that hot
place behind the fin, where the white whale most feels his accursed life!

     Then God keep thee, old man --see'st thou that --pointing to the hammock -- I
bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only yesterday; but were dead
ere night.  Only that one I bury; the rest were buried before they died;
you sail upon their tomb.  Then turning to his crew -- Are ye ready there?
place the plank then on the rail, and lift the body; so, then -- Oh!  God
--advancing towards the hammock with uplifted hands -- may the resurrection and
the life-- Brace forward!  Up helm!  cried Ahab like lightning to his men.
But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape the sound of
the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea; not so quick,
indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have sprinkled her hull with
their ghostly baptism.  As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the
strange life-buoy hanging at the Pequod's stern came into conspicuous relief.

     Ha!  yonder!  look yonder, men!  cried a foreboding voice in her wake.  In
vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial; ye but turn us your taffrail
to show us your coffin!
.. <p 532 >
.. < chapter cxxxii 26  THE SYMPHONY >

     It was a clear steel-blue day.  The
firmaments of air and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure;
only, the pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman's look,
and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells,
as Samson's chest in his sleep.
.. <p 533 >
Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small,
unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; but to
and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed mighty
leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, troubled,
murderous thinkings of the masculine sea.  But though thus contrasting within,

     the contrast was only in shades and shadows without; those two seemed one;
it was only the sex, as it were, that distinguished them.  Aloft, like a royal
czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle air to this bold and rolling
sea; even as bride to groom.  And at the girdling line of the horizon, a
soft and tremulous motion --most seen here at the equator --denoted the fond,
throbbing trust, the loving alarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom
away.  Tied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles; haggardly firm
and unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the ashes of
ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the morn; lifting his
splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl's forehead of heaven.  Oh,
immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure!  Invisible winged creatures
that frolic all round us!  Sweet childhood of air and sky!  how oblivious were
ye of old Ahab's close-coiled woe!  But so have I seen little Miriam and
Martha, laughing-eyed elves, heedlessly gambol around their old sire;
sporting with the circle of singed locks which grew on the marge of that
burnt-out crater of his brain.  Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle,
Ahab leaned over the side, and watched how his shadow in the water sank and
sank to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the
profundity.  But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to
dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul.  That glad, happy air,
that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world,
so long cruel -- forbidding --now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn
neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however
wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her
.. <p 534 >
heart to save and to bless.  From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear
into the sea; nor did all the pacific contain such wealth as that one wee
drop.  Starbuck saw the old man; saw him, how he heavily leaned over the
side; and he seemed to hear in his own true heart the measureless sobbing
that stole out of the centre of the serenity around.  Careful not to touch
him, or be noticed by him, he yet drew near to him, and stood there.  Ahab
turned.  Starbuck!  Sir.  Oh, Starbuck!  it is a mild, mild wind, and a
mild looking sky.  On such a day --very much such a sweetness as this --I
struck my first whale --a boy-harpooneer of eighteen!  Forty-- forty--forty years
ago! --ago!  Forty years of continual whaling!  forty years of privation, and
peril, and storm-time!  forty years on the pitiless sea!  for forty years has
Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors
of the deep!  Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent

     three ashore.  When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of
solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's exclusiveness,
which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without
--oh, weariness!  heaviness!  Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command! --when
I think of all this; only half-suspected, not so keenly known to me before
--and how for forty years I have fed upon dry salted fare -- fit emblem of the
dry nourishment of my soul --when the poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to
his daily hand, and broken the world's fresh bread to my mouldy crusts --away,

     whole oceans away, from that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and
sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage
pillow --wife?  wife? --rather a widow with her husband alive!  Aye, I widowed
that poor girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the madness, the
frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand
lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey --more a demon
than a man! --aye, aye!  what a forty years' fool --fool --old fool, has old
Ahab been!  Why this strife of the chase?  why weary,
.. <p 535 >
and palsy the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance?  how the richer or
better is Ahab now?  Behold.  Oh, Starbuck!  is it not hard, that with this
weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under me?
Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep.  Locks
so grey did never grow but from out some ashes!  But do I look very old, so
very, very old, Starbuck?  I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though
I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise.  God!
God!  God! --crack my heart!-- stave my brain! --mockery!  mockery!  bitter,
biting mockery of grey hairs, have I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem
and feel thus intolerably old?  Close!  stand close to me, Starbuck; let me
look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better
than to gaze upon God.  By the green land; by the bright hearth-stone!  this
is the magic glass, man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye.  No, no;
stay on board, on board! --lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase

     to Moby Dick.  That hazard shall not be thine.  No, no!  not with the far
away home I see in that eye!  Oh, my Captain!  my Captain!  noble soul!
grand old heart, after all!  why should any one give chase to that hated fish!

     Away with me!  let us fly these deadly waters!  let us home!  Wife and child,
too, are Starbuck's --wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow
youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, longing,
paternal old age!  Away!  let us away! --this instant let me alter the course!
How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl on our way to
see old Nantucket again!  I think, sir, they have some such mild blue days,
even as this, in nantucket.  they have, they have.  I have seen them --some
summer days in the morning.  About this time --yes, it is his noon nap now --
the boy vivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mother tells him of me,
of cannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back to
dance him again.  Tis my Mary, my Mary herself!  She promised that my boy,
every morning, should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of
his father's sail!  Yes, yes!  no more!  it is done!  we head for Nantucket!
Come, my Captain, study out the course,
.. <p 536 >
and let us away!  See, see!  the boy's face from the window!  the boy's hand
on the hill!  But Ahab's glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he
shook, and cast his last, cindered apple to the soil.  What is it, what
nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozzening, hidden lord and
master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural
lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on
all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural
heart, I durst not so much as dare?  Is Ahab, Ahab?  Is it I, God, or who,
that lifts this arm?  But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an
errand-boy in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible

     power; how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think
thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that
living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this
world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike.  And all the time,
lo!  that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea!  Look!  see yon Albicore!  who
put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish?  Where do murderers go,
man!  Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar?  But it is
a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky; and the air smells now, as if it
blew from a far-away meadow; they have been making hay somewhere under the
slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and the mowers are sleeping among the
new-mown hay.  Sleeping?  Aye, toil we how we may, we all sleep at last on the
field.  Sleep?  Aye, and rust amid greenness; as last year's scythes flung
down, and left in the half-cut swaths --Starbuck!  But blanched to a
corpse's hue with despair, the Mate had stolen away.  Ahab crossed the deck
to gaze over on the other side; but started at two reflected, fixed eyes in
the water there.  Fedallah was motionlessly leaning over the same rail.
.. <p 537 >
.. < chapter cxxxiii 2  THE CHASE--FIRST DAY >

     That night, in the mid-watch,
when the old man --as his wont at intervals --stepped forth from the scuttle in
which he leaned, and went to his pivot-hole, he suddenly thrust out his
face fiercely, snuffing up the sea air as a sagacious ship's dog will, in
drawing nigh to some barbarous isle.  He declared that a whale must be near.
Soon that peculiar odor, sometimes to a great distance given forth by the
living sperm whale, was palpable to all the watch; nor was any mariner
surprised when, after inspecting the compass, and then the dog-vane, and
then ascertaining the precise bearing of the odor as nearly as possible, Ahab
rapidly ordered the ship's course to be slightly altered, and the sail to be
shortened.  The acute policy dictating these movements was sufficiently
vindicated at daybreak, by the sight of a long sleek on the sea directly and
lengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resembling in the pleated watery
wrinkles bordering it, the polished metallic-like marks of some swift
tide-rip, at the mouth of a deep, rapid stream.  Man the mast-heads!  Call
all hands!  Thundering with the butts of three clubbed handspikes on the
forecastle deck, Daggoo roused the sleepers with such judgment claps that
they seemed to exhale from the scuttle, so instantaneously did they appear
with their clothes in their hands.  What d'ye see?  cried Ahab, flattening
his face to the sky.  Nothing, nothing, sir!  was the sound hailing down in
reply.  T'gallant sails! --stunsails!  alow and aloft, and on both sides!  All
sail being set, he now cast loose the life-line, reserved for swaying him to
the main royal-mast head; and in a few moments they were hoisting him
thither, when, while but two thirds of the way aloft, and while peering
ahead through the horizontal vacancy between the main-top-sail and
top-gallant-sail,
.. <p 538 >
he raised a gull-like cry in the air, There she blows! --there she blows!  A
hump like a snow-hill!  It is Moby Dick!  Fired by the cry which seemed
simultaneously taken up by the three look-outs, the men on deck rushed to the
rigging to behold the famous whale they had so long been pursuing.  Ahab had
now gained his final perch, some feet above the other look-outs, Tashtego
standing just beneath him on the cap of the top-gallant mast, so that the
Indian's head was almost on a level with Ahab's heel.  From this height the
whale was now seen some mile or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing
his high sparkling hump, and regularly jetting his silent spout into the air.

     To the credulous mariners it seemed the same silent spout they had so long
ago beheld in the moonlit Atlantic and Indian Oceans.  And did none of ye see
it before?  cried Ahab, hailing the perched men all around him.  I saw him
almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did, and I cried out, said
Tashtego.  Not the same instant; not the same --no, the doubloon is mine,
Fate reserved the doubloon for me.  I only; none of ye could have raised the
White Whale first.  There she blows!  there she blows! --there she blows!
There again! --there again!  he cried, in long-drawn, lingering, methodic
tones, attuned to the gradual prolongings of the whale's visible jets.  He's
going to sound!  In stunsails!  Down top-gallant-sails!  Stand by three
boats.  Mr. Starbuck, remember, stay on board, and keep the ship.  Helm
there!  Luff, luff a point!  So; steady, man, steady!  There go flukes!  No,
no; only black water!  All ready the boats there?  Stand by, stand by!
Lower me, Mr. Starbuck; lower, lower, --quick, quicker!  and he slid through
the air to the deck.  He is heading straight to leeward, sir, cried Stubb,

     right away from us; cannot have seen the ship yet.  Be dumb, man!  Stand
by the braces!  Hard down the helm! --brace up!  Shiver her! --shiver her!  So;
well that!  Boats, boats!  Soon all the boats but Starbuck's were dropped;
all the boat-sails set --all the paddles plying; with rippling swiftness,
shooting to leeward; and Ahab heading the onset.  A pale, death-glimmer
.. <p 539 >
lit up Fedallah's sunken eyes; a hideous motion gnawed his mouth.  Like
noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; but only
slowly they neared the foe.  As they neared him, the ocean grew still more
smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a noon-meadow, so
serenely it spread.  At length the breathless hunter came so nigh his
seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump was distinctly
visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, and continually
set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish foam.  He saw the vast,
involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head beyond.  Before it, far out
on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went the glistening white shadow from his
broad, milky forehead, a musical rippling playfully accompanying the shade;
and behind, the blue waters interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley
of his steady wake; and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his
side.  But these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowl
softly feathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight; and like to
some flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but
shattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale's back; and
at intervals one of the cloud of soft-toed fowls hovering, and to and fro
skimming like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and rocked on this
pole, the long tail feathers streaming like pennons.  A gentle joyousness --a
mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested the gliding whale.  Not the
white bull Jupiter swimming away with ravished Europa clinging to his graceful

     horns; his lovely, leering eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth
bewitching fleetness, rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not
Jove, not that great majesty Supreme!  did surpass the glorified White Whale
as he so divinely swam.  On each soft side --coincident with the parted swell,
that but once leaving him, then flowed so wide away --on each bright side,
the whale shed off enticings.  No wonder there had been some among the hunters
who namelessly transported and allured by all this serenity, had ventured to
assail it; but had fatally
.. <p 540 >
found that quietude but the vesture of tornadoes.  Yet calm, enticing calm,
oh, whale!  thou glidest on, to all who for the first time eye thee, no
matter how many in that same way thou may'st have bejuggled and destroyed
before.  And thus, through the serene tranquillities of the tropical sea,
among waves whose hand-clappings were suspended by exceeding rapture, Moby
Dick moved on, still withholding from sight the full terrors of his submerged
trunk, entirely hiding the wrenched hideousness of his jaw.  But soon the
fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an instant his whole
marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia's Natural Bridge, and
warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air, the grand god revealed
himself, sounded, and went out of sight.  Hoveringly halting, and dipping on
the wing, the white sea-fowls longingly lingered over the agitated pool that
he left.  With oars apeak, and paddles down, the sheets of their sails
adrift, the three boats now stilly floated, awaiting Moby Dick's
reappearance.  An hour, said Ahab, standing rooted in his boat's stern;
and he gazed beyond the whale's place, towards the dim blue spaces and wide
wooing vacancies to leeward.  It was only an instant; for again his eyes
seemed whirling round in his head as he swept the watery circle.  The breeze
now freshened; the sea began to swell.  The birds! --the birds!  cried
Tashtego.  In long Indian file, as when herons take wing, the white birds
were now all flying towards Ahab's boat; and when within a few yards began
fluttering over the water there, wheeling round and round, with joyous,
expectant cries.  Their vision was keener than man's; Ahab could discover no
sign in the sea.  But suddenly as he peered down and down into its depths, he
profoundly saw a white living spot no bigger than a white weasel, with
wonderful celerity uprising, and magnifying as it rose, till it turned, and
then there were plainly revealed two long crooked rows of white, glistening
teeth, floating up from the undiscoverable bottom.  It was Moby Dick's open
mouth and scrolled jaw; his vast, shadowed bulk still half blending with the
blue of the sea.  The glittering mouth yawned beneath
.. <p 541 >
the boat like an open-doored marble tomb; and giving one side-long sweep with
his steering oar, Ahab whirled the craft aside from this tremendous
apparition.  Then, calling upon Fedallah to change places with him, went
forward to the bows, and seizing Perth's harpoon, commanded his crew to
grasp their oars and stand by to stern.  Now, by reason of this timely
spinning round the boat upon its axis, its bow, by anticipation, was made to
face the whale's head while yet under water.  But as if perceiving this
strategem, moby dick, with that malicious intelligence ascribed to him,
sidelingly transplanted himself, as it were, in an instant, shooting his
pleated head lengthwise beneath the boat.  Through and through; through every
plank and each rib, it thrilled for an instant, the whale obliquely lying on
his back, in the manner of a biting shark, slowly and feelingly taking its
bows full within his mouth, so that the long, narrow, scrolled lower jaw
curled high up into the open air, and one of the teeth caught in a row-lock.
The bluish pearl-white of the inside of the jaw was within six inches of
Ahab's head, and reached higher than that.  In this attitude the White Whale
now shook the slight cedar as a mildly cruel cat her mouse.  With unastonished

     eyes Fedallah gazed, and crossed his arms; but the tiger-yellow crew were
tumbling over each other's heads to gain the uttermost stern.  And now, while
both elastic gunwales were springing in and out, as the whale dallied with
the doomed craft in this devilish way; and from his body being submerged
beneath the boat, he could not be darted at from the bows, for the bows were
almost inside of him, as it were; and while the other boats involuntarily
paused, as before a quick crisis impossible to withstand, then it was that
monomaniac Ahab, furious with this tantalizing vicinity of his foe, which
placed him all alive and helpless in the very jaws he hated; frenzied with
all this, he seized the long bone with his naked hands, and wildly strove to
wrench it from its gripe.  As now he thus vainly strove, the jaw slipped
from him; the frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws,
like an enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in
twain, and locked themselves fast again in
.. <p 542 >
the sea, midway between the two floating wrecks.  These floated aside, the
broken ends drooping, the crew at the stern-wreck clinging to the gunwales,
and striving to hold fast to the oars to lash them across.  At that preluding
moment, ere the boat was yet snapped, Ahab, the first to perceive the whale's
intent, by the crafty upraising of his head, a movement that loosed his
hold for the time; at that moment his hand had made one final effort to push
the boat out of the bite.  But only slipping further into the whale's mouth,
and tilting over sideways as it slipped, the boat had shaken off his hold on
the jaw; spilled him out of it, as he leaned to the push; and so he fell
flat-faced upon the sea.  Ripplingly withdrawing from his prey, Moby Dick now
lay at a little distance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head up and
down in the billows; and at the same time slowly revolving his whole spindled
body; so that when his vast wrinkled forehead rose --some twenty or more feet
out of the water --the now rising swells, with all their confluent waves,
dazzlingly broke against it; vindictively tossing their shivered spray still
higher into the air.  So, in a gale, the but half-baffled Channel billows only
recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to overleap its summit
with their scud.  But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam
swiftly round and round the wrecked crew; sideways churning the water in his
vengeful wake, as if lashing himself up to still another and more deadly
assault.  The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the blood
of grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus's elephants in the book of
Maccabees.  Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in the foam of the whale's insolent
tail, and too much of a cripple to swim, --though he could still keep afloat,
even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that; helpless Ahab's head was seen,

     like a tossed bubble which the least chance shock might burst.  From the
boat's fragmentary
.. <p 543 >
stern, Fedallah incuriously and mildly eyed him; the clinging crew, at the
other drifting end, could not succor him; more than enough was it for them
to look to themselves.  For so revolvingly appalling was the White Whale's
aspect, and so planetarily swift the ever-contracting circles he made, that
he seemed horizontally swooping upon them.  And though the other boats,
unharmed, still hovered hard by; still they dared not pull into the eddy to
strike, lest that should be the signal for the instant destruction of the
jeopardized castaways, Ahab and all; nor in that case could they themselves
hope to escape.  With straining eyes, then, they remained on the outer edge
of the direful zone, whose centre had now become the old man's head.
Meantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from the ship's mast
heads; and squaring her yards, she had borne down upon the scene; and was
now so nigh, that Ahab in the water hailed her; -- Sail on the --but that
moment a breaking sea dashed on him from Moby Dick, and whelmed him for the
time.  But struggling out of it again, and chancing to rise on a towering
crest, he shouted, -- Sail on the whale! --Drive him off!  The Pequod's
prows were pointed; and breaking up the charmed circle, she effectually
parted the white whale from his victim.  As he sullenly swam off, the boats
flew to the rescue.  Dragged into Stubb's boat with blood-shot, blinded eyes,
the white brine caking in his wrinkles; the long tension of Ahab's bodily
strength did crack, and helplessly he yielded to his body's doom: for a
time, lying all crushed in the bottom of Stubb's boat, like one trodden under
foot of herds of elephants.  Far inland, nameless wails came from him, as
desolate sounds from out ravines.  But this intensity of his physical
prostration did but so much the more abbreviate it.  In an instant's compass,
great hearts sometimes condense to one deep pang, the sum total of those
shallow pains kindly diffused through feebler men's whole lives.  And so, such
hearts, though summary in each one suffering; still, if the gods decree it,
in their life-time aggregate a whole age of woe, wholly made up of
instantaneous intensities; for even in their pointless centres, those noble
natures contain the entire circumferences of inferior souls.
.. <p 544 >

     The harpoon, said Ahab, half way rising, and draggingly leaning on one
bended arm -- is it safe?  Aye, sir, for it was not darted; this is it, said
Stubb, showing it.  Lay it before me; --any missing men?  One, two, three,
four, five; --there were five oars, sir, and here are five men.  That's
good. --Help me, man; I wish to stand.  So, so, I see him!  there!  there!
going to leeward still; what a leaping spout!  Hands off from me!  The eternal
sap runs up in Ahab's bones again!  Set the sail; out oars; the helm!  It
is often the case that when a boat is stove, its crew, being picked up by
another boat, help to work that second boat; and the chase is thus continued
with what is called double-banked oars.  It was thus now.  But the added power
of the boat did not equal the added power of the whale, for he seemed to have

     treble-banked his every fin; swimming with a velocity which plainly showed,
that if now, under these circumstances, pushed on, the chase would prove an
indefinitely prolonged, if not a hopeless one; nor could any crew endure for
so long a period, such an unintermitted, intense straining at the oar; a
thing barely tolerable only in some one brief vicissitude.  The ship itself,
then, as it sometimes happens, offered the most promising intermediate means
of overtaking the chase.  Accordingly, the boats now made for her, and were
soon swayed up to their cranes --the two parts of the wrecked boat having been
previously secured by her --and then hoisting everything to her side, and
stacking her canvas high up, and sideways outstretching it with stun-sails,
like the double-jointed wings of an albatross; the Pequod bore down in the
leeward wake of Moby Dick.  At the well known, methodic intervals, the
whale's glittering spout was regularly announced from the manned mast-heads;
and when he would be reported as just gone down, Ahab would take the time,
and then pacing the deck, binnacle-watch in hand, so soon as the last second
of the allotted hour expired, his voice was heard. -- Whose is the doubloon
now?  D'ye see him?  and if the reply was, No, sir!  straightway he
commanded them to lift him to his perch.  In this way the day wore on; Ahab,

.. <p 545 >
now aloft and motionless; anon, unrestingly pacing the planks.  As he was thus
walking, uttering no sound, except to hail the men aloft, or to bid them
hoist a sail still higher, or to spread one to a still greater breadth --thus
to and fro pacing, beneath his slouched hat, at every turn he passed his own
wrecked boat, which had been dropped upon the quarter-deck, and lay there
reversed; broken bow to shattered stern.  At last he paused before it; and
as in an already over-clouded sky fresh troops of clouds will sometimes sail
across, so over the old man's face there now stole some such added gloom as
this.  Stubb saw him pause; and perhaps intending, not vainly, though, to
evince his own unabated fortitude, and thus keep up a valiant place in his
Captain's mind, he advanced, and eyeing the wreck exclaimed -- The thistle
the ass refused; it pricked his mouth too keenly, sir; ha!  ha!  What
soulless thing is this that laughs before a wreck?  Man, man!  did I not know
thee brave as fearless fire (and as mechanical) I could swear thou wert a
poltroon.  Groan nor laugh should be heard before a wreck.  Aye, sir, said
Starbuck drawing near, 'tis a solemn sight; an omen, and an ill one.

     Omen?  omen? --the dictionary!  If the gods think to speak outright to man,
they will honorably speak outright; not shake their heads, and give an old
wives' darkling hint. --Begone!  Ye two are the opposite poles of one thing;
Starbuck is Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck; and ye two are all
mankind; and Ahab stands alone among the millions of the peopled earth, nor
gods nor men his neighbors!  Cold, cold --I shiver! --How now?  Aloft there!
D'ye see him?  Sing out for every spout, though he spout ten times a second!
The day was nearly done; only the hem of his golden robe was rustling.  Soon,
it was almost dark, but the look-out men still remained unset.  Can't see
the spout now, sir; --too dark --cried a voice from the air.  How heading when
last seen?  As before, sir, --straight to leeward.  Good!  he will travel
slower now 'tis night.  Down royals and
.. <p 546 >
top-gallant stun-sails, Mr. Starbuck.  We must not run over him before
morning; he's making a passage now, and may heave-to a while.  Helm there!
keep her full before the wind! --Aloft!  come down! --Mr. Stubb, send a fresh
hand to the fore-mast head, and see it manned till morning. --Then advancing
towards the doubloon in the main-mast -- Men, this gold is mine, for I earned
it; but I shall let it abide here till the White Whale is dead; and then,
whosoever of ye first raises him, upon the day he shall be killed, this gold
is that man's; and if on that day I shall again raise him, then, ten times
its sum shall be divided among all of ye!  Away now! --the deck is thine, sir.

     And so saying, he placed himself half way within the scuttle, and slouching
his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at intervals rousing himself to
see how the night wore on.
.. <p 542n. >
This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale.  It receives its designation
(pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary up-and-down poise
of the whale-lance, in the exercise called pitchpoling, previously
described.  By this motion the whale must best and most comprehensively view
whatever objects may be encircling him.
.. <p 546 >
.. < chapter cxxxiv 16  THE CHASE--SECOND DAY >

     At day-break, the three
mast-heads were punctually manned afresh.  D'ye see him?  cried Ahab, after
allowing a little space for the light to spread.  see nothing, sir.  Turn
up all hands and make sail!  he travels faster than I thought for; --the
top-gallant sails! --aye, they should have been kept on her all night.  But no
matter --'tis but resting for the rush.  Here be it said, that this
pertinacious pursuit of one particular whale, continued through day into
night, and through night into day, is a thing by no means unprecedented in
the South sea fishery.  For such is the wonderful skill, prescience of
experience, and invincible confidence acquired by some great natural geniuses
among the Nantucket commanders; that from the simple observation of a whale
when last descried, they will,
.. <p 547 >
under certain given circumstances, pretty accurately foretell both the
direction in which he will continue to swim for a time, while out of sight,
as well as his probable rate of progression during that period.  And, in these
cases, somewhat as a pilot, when about losing sight of a coast, whose
general trending he well knows, and which he desires shortly to return to
again, but at some further point; like as this pilot stands by his compass,
and takes the precise bearing of the cape at present visible, in order the
more certainly to hit aright the remote, unseen headland, eventually to be
visited: so does the fisherman, at his compass, with the whale; for after
being chased, and diligently marked, through several hours of daylight,
then, when night obscures the fish, the creature's future wake through the
darkness is almost as established to the sagacious mind of the hunter, as the
pilot's coast is to him.  So that to this hunter's wondrous skill, the
proverbial evanescence of a thing writ in water, a wake, is to all desired
purposes well nigh as reliable as the steadfast land.  And as the mighty iron
Leviathan of the modern railway is so familiarly known in its every pace,
that, with watches in their hands, men time his rate as doctors that of a
baby's pulse; and lightly say of it, the up train or the down train will
reach such or such a spot, at such or such an hour; even so, almost, there
are occasions when these Nantucketers time that other Leviathan of the deep,
according to the observed humor of his speed; and say to themselves, so many
hours hence this whale will have gone two hundred miles, will have about
reached this or that degree of latitude or longitude.  But to render this
acuteness at all successful in the end, the wind and the sea must be the
whaleman's allies; for of what present avail to the becalmed or windbound
mariner is the skill that assures him he is exactly ninety-three leagues and a
quarter from his port?  Inferable from these statements, are many
collateral subtile matters touching the chase of whales.  The ship tore on;
leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a cannon-ball, missent, becomes a
plough-share and turns up the level field.  By salt and hemp!  cried Stubb,

     but this swift motion of the deck creeps up one's legs and tingles at the
heart.  This
.. <p 548 >
ship and I are two brave fellows! --Ha!  ha!  Some one take me up, and launch
me, spine-wise, on the sea, --for by live-oaks!  my spine's a keel.  Ha, ha!
we go the gait that leaves no dust behind!  There she blows --she blows! --she
blows! --right ahead!  was now the mast-head cry.  Aye, aye!  cried Stubb.

     I knew it --ye can't escape --blow on and split your spout, O whale!  the mad
fiend himself is after ye!  blow your trump --blister your lungs! --Ahab will
dam off your blood, as a miller shuts his water-gate upon the stream!  And
Stubb did but speak out for well nigh all that crew.  The frenzies of the
chase had by this time worked them bubblingly up, like old wine worked anew.
Whatever pale fears and forebodings some of them might have felt before;
these were not only now kept out of sight through the growing awe of Ahab,
but they were broken up, and on all sides routed, as timid prairie hares
that scatter before the bounding bison.  The hand of Fate had snatched all
their souls; and by the stirring perils of the previous day; the rack of the
past night's suspense; the fixed, unfearing, blind, reckless way in which
their wild craft went plunging towards its flying mark; by all these things,
their hearts were bowled along.  The wind that made great bellies of their
sails, and rushed the vessel on by arms invisible as irresistible; this
seemed the symbol of that unseen agency which so enslaved them to the race.
They were one man, not thirty.  For as the one ship that held them all;
though it was put together of all contrasting things --oak, and maple, and pine
wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp --yet all these ran into each other in the one
concrete hull, which shot on its way, both balanced and directed by the long
central keel; even so, all the individualities of the crew, this man's
valor, that man's fear; guilt and guiltiness, all varieties were welded
into oneness, and were all directed to that fatal goal which Ahab their one
lord and keel did point to.  The rigging lived.  The mast-heads, like the tops
of tall palms, were outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs.  Clinging to a
spar with one hand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings;
others, shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat
.. <p 549 >
far out on the rocking yards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals,
ready and ripe for their fate.  Ah!  how they still strove through that
infinite blueness to seek out the thing that might destroy them!  Why sing ye
not out for him, if ye see him?  cried Ahab, when, after the lapse of some
minutes since the first cry, no more had been heard.  Sway me up, men; ye
have been deceived; not moby dick casts one odd jet that way, and then
disappears.  It was even so; in their headlong eagerness, the men had
mistaken some other thing for the whale-spout, as the event itself soon
proved; for hardly had Ahab reached his perch; hardly was the rope belayed
to its pin on deck, when he struck the key-note to an orchestra, that made
the air vibrate as with the combined discharges of rifles.  The triumphant
halloo of thirty buckskin lungs was heard, as --much nearer to the ship than
the place of the imaginary jet, less than a mile ahead --Moby Dick bodily
burst into view!  For not by any calm and indolent spoutings; not by the
peaceable gush of that mystic fountain in his head, did the White Whale now
reveal his vicinity; but by the far more wondrous phenomenon of breaching.
Rising with his utmost velocity from the furthest depths, the Sperm Whale
thus booms his entire bulk into the pure element of air, and piling up a
mountain of dazzling foam, shows his place to the distance of seven miles and
more.  In those moments, the torn, enraged waves he shakes off, seem his
mane; in some cases, this breaching is his act of defiance.  There she
breaches!  there she breaches!  was the cry, as in his immeasureable
bravadoes the White Whale tossed himself salmon-like to Heaven.  So suddenly
seen in the blue plain of the sea, and relieved against the still bluer
margin of the sky, the spray that he raised, for the moment, intolerably
glittered and glared like a glacier; and stood there gradually fading and
fading away from its first sparkling intensity, to the dim mistiness of an
advancing shower in a vale.  Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick!
cried Ahab, thy hour and thy harpoon are at hand! --Down!  down all of ye,
but one man at the fore.  The boats! --stand by!
.. <p 550 >
Unmindful of the tedious rope-ladders of the shrouds, the men, like shooting
stars, slid to the deck, by the isolated back-stays and halyards; while
Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly was dropped from his perch.  Lower
away, he cried, so soon as he had reached his boat --a spare one, rigged the
afternoon previous.  Mr. Starbuck, the ship is thine --keep away from the
boats, but keep near them.  Lower, all!  As if to strike a quick terror into
them, by this time being the first assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned,
and was now coming for the three crews.  Ahab's boat was central; and
cheering his men, he told them he would take the whale head-and-head, --that
is, pull straight up to his forehead, --a not uncommon thing; for when within
a certain limit, such a course excludes the coming onset from the whale's
sidelong vision.  But ere that close limit was gained, and while yet all
three boats were plain as the ship's three masts to his eye; the White Whale
churning himself into furious speed, almost in an instant as it were,
rushing among the boats with open jaws, and a lashing tail, offered
appalling battle on every side; and heedless of the irons darted at him from
every boat, seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank of which
those boats were made.  But skilfully manoeuvred, incessantly wheeling like
trained chargers in the field; the boats for a while eluded him; though, at
times, but by a plank's breadth; while all the time, Ahab's unearthly slogan
tore every other cry but his to shreds.  But at last in his untraceable
evolutions, the White Whale so crossed and recrossed, and in a thousand ways
entangled the slack of the three lines now fast to him, that they
foreshortened, and, of themselves, warped the devoted boats towards the
planted irons in him; though now for a moment the whale drew aside a little,
as if to rally for a more tremendous charge.  Seizing that opportunity, Ahab
first paid out more line: and then was rapidly hauling and jerking in upon it
again --hoping that way to disencumber it of some snarls --when lo! --a sight
more savage than the embattled teeth of sharks!  Caught and twisted
--corkscrewed in the mazes of the line, loose harpoons and lances, with all
their bristling barbs and
.. <p 551 >
points, came flashing and dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab's
boat.  Only one thing could be done.  Seizing the boat-knife, he critically
reached within --through --and then, without --the rays of steel; dragged in
the line beyond, passed it, inboard, to the bowsman, and then, twice
sundering the rope near the chocks --dropped the intercepted fagot of steel
into the sea; and was all fast again.  That instant, the White Whale made
a sudden rush among the remaining tangles of the other lines; by so doing,
irresistibly dragged the more involved boats of Stubb and Flask towards his
flukes; dashed them together like two rolling husks on a surf-beaten beach,
and then, diving down into the sea, disappeared in a boiling maelstrom, in
which, for a space, the odorous cedar chips of the wrecks danced round and
round, like the grated nutmeg in a swiftly stirred bowl of punch.  While the
two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching out after the revolving
line-tubs, oars, and other floating furniture, while aslope little Flask
bobbed up and down like an empty vial, twitching his legs upwards to escape
the dreaded jaws of sharks; and Stubb was lustily singing out for some one
to ladle him up; and while the old man's line --now parting -- admitted of his
pulling into the creamy pool to rescue whom he could; --in that wild
simultaneousness of a thousand concreted perils, --Ahab's yet unstricken boat
seemed drawn up towards Heaven by invisible wires, --as, arrow-like, shooting
perpendicularly from the sea, the White Whale dashed his broad forehead
against its bottom, and sent it, turning over and over, into the air; till
it fell again --gunwale downwards --and Ahab and his men struggled out from
under it, like seals from a seaside cave.  The first uprising momentum of the
whale --modifying its direction as he struck the surface --involuntarily
launched him along it, to a little distance from the centre of the
destruction he had made; and with his back to it, he now lay for a moment
slowly feeling with his flukes from side to side; and whenever a stray oar,
bit of plank, the least chip or crumb of the boats touched his skin, his tail
swiftly drew back, and came sideways smiting the sea.  But soon, as if
satisfied that his work for that time was done, he pushed his pleated
forehead through the
.. <p 552 >
ocean, and trailing after him the intertangled lines, continued his leeward
way at a traveller's methodic pace.  As before, the attentive ship having
descried the whole fight, again came bearing down to the rescue, and dropping
a boat, picked up the floating mariners, tubs, oars and whatever else could
be caught at, and safely landed them on her decks.  Some sprained shoulders,
wrists, and ankles; livid contusions; wrenched harpoons and lances;
inextricable intricacies of rope; shattered oars and planks; all these were
there; but no fatal or even serious ill seemed to have befallen any one.  As
with Fedallah the day before, so Ahab was now found grimly clinging to his
boat's broken half, which afforded a comparatively easy float; nor did it so
exhaust him as the previous day's mishap.  But when he was helped to the deck,
all eyes were fastened upon him; as instead of standing by himself he still
half-hung upon the shoulder of Starbuck, who had thus far been the foremost
to assist him.  His ivory leg had been snapped off, leaving but one short
sharp splinter.  Aye, aye, Starbuck, 'tis sweet to lean sometimes, be the
leaner who he will; and would old Ahab had leaned oftener than he has.  The
ferrule has not stood, sir, said the carpenter, now coming up; I put good
work into that leg.  But no bones broken, sir, I hope, said Stubb with true
concern.  Aye!  and all splintered to pieces, Stubb! --d'ye see it. -- But
even with a broken bone, old Ahab is untouched; and I account no living bone
of mine one jot more me, than this dead one that's lost.  Nor white whale,
nor man, nor fiend, can so much as graze old Ahab in his own proper and
inaccessible being.  Can any lead touch yonder floor, any mast scrape yonder
roof? -- Aloft there!  which way?  Dead to leeward, sir.  Up helm, then;
pile on the sail again, ship keepers!  down the rest of the spare boats and
rig them --Mr. Starbuck away, and muster the boat's crews.  Let me first help
thee towards the bulwarks, sir.  Oh, oh, oh!  how this splinter gores me now!

     Accursed fate!
.. <p 553 >
that the unconquerable captain in the soul should have such a craven mate!

     Sir?  My body, man, not thee.  Give me something for a cane -- there, that
shivered lance will do.  Muster the men.  Surely I have not seen him yet.  By
heaven it cannot be! --missing? -- quick!  call them all.  The old man's hinted
thought was true.  Upon mustering the company, the Parsee was not there.

     The Parsee!  cried Stubb -- he must have been caught in-- The black vomit
wrench thee! --run all of ye above, alow, cabin, forecastle --find him --not gone
--not gone!  But quickly they returned to him with the tidings that the Parsee
was nowhere to be found.  Aye, sir, said Stubb -- caught among the tangles of
your line --I thought I saw him dragging under.  My line!  my line?  Gone?
--gone?  What means that little word? --What death-knell rings in it, that old
Ahab shakes as if he were the belfry.  The harpoon, too! --toss over the litter

     there, --d'ye see it? --the forged iron, men, the white whale's -- no, no, no,
--blistered fool; this hand did dart it! --'tis in the fish! --Aloft there!
keep him nailed --quick! --all hands to the rigging of the boats --collect the
oars --harpooneers!  the irons, the irons! -- hoist the royals higher --a pull
on all the sheets! --helm there!  steady, steady for your life!  I'll ten
times girdle the unmeasured globe; yea and dive straight through it, but
I'll slay him yet!  Great God!  but for one single instant show thyself,
cried Starbuck; never, never wilt thou capture him, old man --In Jesus' name
no more of this, that's worse than devil's madness.  Two days chased; twice
stove to splinters; thy very leg once more snatched from under thee; thy
evil shadow gone --all good angels mobbing thee with warnings: --what more
wouldst thou have? --Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish till he swamps
the last man?  Shall we be dragged by him to the bottom of the sea?  Shall we
be towed by him to the infernal world?  Oh, oh, -- Impiety and blasphemy to
hunt him more!  Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved to thee; ever
since that hour we both saw --thou know'st what, in one another's
.. <p 554 >
eyes.  But in this matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the
palm of this hand --a lipless, unfeatured blank.  Ahab is for ever Ahab, man.
This whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion
years before this ocean rolled.  Fool!  I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act
under orders.  Look thou, underling!  that thou obeyest mine. --Stand round
me, men.  Ye see an old man cut down to the stump; leaning on a shivered
lance; propped up on a lonely foot. 'Tis Ahab --his body's part; but Ahab's
soul's a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs.  I feel strained, half
stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a gale; and I may look so.
But ere I break, ye'll hear me crack; and till ye hear that, know that
Ahab's hawser tows his purpose yet.  Believe ye, men, in the things called
omens?  Then laugh aloud, and cry encore!  For ere they drown, drowning things
will twice rise to the surface; then rise again, to sink for evermore.  So
with Moby Dick --two days he's floated --to-morrow will be the third.  Aye, men,
he'll rise once more, --but only to spout his last!  D'ye feel brave men,
brave?  As fearless fire, cried Stubb.  And as mechanical, muttered Ahab.
Then as the men went forward, he muttered on: -- The things called omens!
And yesterday I talked the same to Starbuck there, concerning my broken
boat.  Oh!  how valiantly I seek to drive out of others' hearts what's
clinched so fast in mine! --The Parsee --the Parsee! -- gone, gone?  and he
was to go before: --but still was to be seen again ere I could perish --How's
that? --There's a riddle now might baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts
of the whole line of judges: --like a hawk's beak it pecks my brain.  I'll,

     I'll solve it, though!  When dusk descended, the whale was still in sight
to leeward.  So once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed
nearly as on the previous night; only, the sound of hammers, and the hum of
the grindstone was heard till nearly daylight, as the men toiled by lanterns
in the complete and careful rigging of the spare boats and sharpening their
fresh weapons for the morrow.  Meantime, of the broken keel of Ahab's wrecked

     craft the carpenter made him another leg; while still as on the
.. <p 555 >
night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his scuttle; his hid,
heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on its dial; sat due eastward
for the earliest sun.
.. <p 555 >
THE CHASE--THIRD DAY The morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and
once more the solitary night-man at the fore-mast-head was relieved by crowds
of the daylight look-outs, who dotted every mast and almost every spar.

     D'ye see him?  cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight.  In his
infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that's all.  Helm there;
steady, as thou goest, and hast been going.  What a lovely day again; were it
a new-made world, and made for a summer-house to the angels, and this
morning the first of its throwing open to them, a fairer day could not dawn
upon that world.  Here's food for thought, had Ahab time to think; but Ahab
never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels; that's tingling enough for
mortal man!  to think's audacity.  God only has that right and privilege.
Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a calmness; and our poor hearts
throb, and our poor brains beat too much for that.  And yet, I've sometimes
thought my brain was very calm --frozen calm, this old skull cracks so, like
a glass in which the contents turned to ice, and shiver it.  And still this
hair is growing now; this moment growing, and heat must breed it; but no,
it's like that sort of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the
earthy clefts of Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava.  How the wild winds blow
it; they whip it about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the tossed
ship they cling to.  A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this through
prison corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them,
and now comes blowing hither as innocent as
.. <p 556 >
fleeces.  Out upon it! --it's tainted.  Were I the wind, I'd blow no more on
such a wicked, miserable world.  I'd crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink
there.  And yet, 'tis a noble and heroic thing, the wind!  who ever
conquered it?  In every fight it has the last and bitterest blow.  Run tilting
at it, and you but run through it.  Ha!  a coward wind that strikes stark
naked men, but will not stand to receive a single blow.  Even Ahab is a braver

     thing --a nobler thing that that.  Would now the wind but had a body; but
all the things that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things
are bodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as agents.  There's a most
special, a most cunning, oh, a most malicious difference!  And yet, I say
again, and swear it now, that there's something all glorious and gracious in
the wind.  These warm Trade Winds, at least, that in the clear heavens blow
straight on, in strong and steadfast, vigorous mildness; and veer not from
their mark, however the baser currents of the sea may turn and tack, and
mightiest Mississippies of the land swift and swerve about, uncertain where
to go at last.  And by the eternal Poles!  these same Trades that so directly
blow my good ship on; these Trades, or something like them --something so
unchangeable, and full as strong, blow my keeled soul along!  To it!  Aloft
there!  What d'ye see?  Nothing, sir.  Nothing!  and noon at hand!  The
doubloon goes a-begging!  See the sun!  Aye, aye, it must be so.  I've
oversailed him.  How, got the start?  Aye, he's chasing me now; not I, him
--that's bad; I might have known it, too.  Fool!  the lines --the harpoons
he's towing.  Aye, aye, I have run him by last night.  About!  about!  Come
down, all of ye, but the regular look outs!  Man the braces!  Steering as
she had done, the wind had been somewhat on the Pequod's quarter, so that
now being pointed in the reverse direction, the braced ship sailed hard upon
the breeze as she rechurned the cream in her own white wake.  Against the
wind he now steers for the open jaw, murmured Starbuck to himself, as he
coiled the new-hauled main-brace upon the rail.  God keep us, but already my
bones feel
.. <p 557 >
damp within me, and from the inside wet my flesh.  I misdoubt me that I
disobey my God in obeying him!  Stand by to sway me up!  cried Ahab,
advancing to the hempen basket.  We should meet him soon.  Aye, aye, sir,
and straightway Starbuck did Ahab's bidding, and once more Ahab swung on high.

     a whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages.  time itself now held long
breaths with keen suspense.  But at last, some three points off the weather
bow, Ahab descried the spout again, and instantly from the three mast-heads
three shrieks went up as if the tongues of fire had voiced it.  Forehead to
forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick!  On deck there! --brace
sharper up; crowd her into the wind's eye.  He's too far off to lower yet,
Mr. Starbuck.  The sails shake!  Stand over that helmsman with a top-maul!
So, so; he travels fast, and I must down.  But let me have one more good
round look aloft here at the sea; there's time for that.  An old, old sight,

     and yet somehow so young; aye, and not changed a wink since I first saw it,

     a boy, from the sand-hills of Nantucket!  The same! --the same! --the same to
Noah as to me.  There's a soft shower to leeward.  Such lovely leewardings!
They must lead somewhere --to something else than common land, more palmy than
the palms.  Leeward!  the white whale goes that way; look to windward, then;
the better if the bitterer quarter.  But good bye, good bye, old mast-head!
What's this? -- green?  aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks.  No such green

     weather stains on Ahab's head!  There's the difference now between man's old
age and matter's.  But aye, old mast, we both grow old together; sound in
our hulls, though, are we not, my ship?  Aye, minus a leg, that's all.  By
heaven this dead wood has the better of my live flesh every way.  I can't
compare with it; and I've known some ships made of dead trees outlast the
lives of men made of the most vital stuff of vital fathers.  What's that he
said?  he should still go before me, my pilot; and yet to be seen again?  But
where?  Will I have eyes at the bottom of the sea, supposing I descend those
endless stairs?  and all night I've been sailing from him, wherever he did
sink to.  Aye,
.. <p 558 >
aye, like many more thou told'st direful truth as touching thyself, O Parsee;

     but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short.  Good by, mast-head --keep a good eye
upon the whale, the while I'm gone.  We'll talk to-morrow, nay, to-night,
when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail.  He gave the
word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered through the cloven
blue air to the deck.  In due time the boats were lowered, but as standing in
his shallop's stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he
waved to the mate, --who held one of the tackle-ropes on deck --and bade him
pause.  Starbuck!  Sir?  For the third time my soul's ship starts upon
this voyage, Starbuck.  Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so.  Some ships sail
from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing, Starbuck!  Truth, sir:
saddest truth.  Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the
full of the flood; --and I feel now like a billow that's all one crested comb,
Starbuck.  I am old; --shake hands with me, man.  Their hands met; their eyes
fastened; Starbuck's tears the glue.  Oh, my captain, my captain! --noble
heart --go not --go not! -- see, it's a brave man that weeps; how great the
agony of the persuasion then!  Lower away! --cried Ahab, tossing the mate's
arm from him.  Stand by the crew!  In an instant the boat was pulling round
close under the stern.  The sharks!  the sharks!  cried a voice from the low
cabin-window there; O master, my master, come back!  But Ahab heard
nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then; and the boat leaped on.
Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pushed from the ship, when
numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark waters beneath the
hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time they dipped
in the water; and in this
.. <p 559 >
way accompanied the boat with their bites.  It is a thing not uncommonly
happening to the whale-boats in those swarming seas; the sharks at times
apparently following them in the same prescient way that vultures hover over
the banners of marching regiments in the east.  But these were the first
sharks that had been observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been
first descried; and whether it was that Ahab's crew were all such
tiger-yellow barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the senses
of the sharks --a matter sometimes well known to affect them, --however it was,
they seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others.  Heart of
wrought steel!  murmured Starbuck gazing over the side, and following with
his eyes the receding boat -- canst thou yet ring boldly to that sight?
--lowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed by them, open-mouthed
to the chase; and this the critical third day? --For when three days flow
together in one continuous intense pursuit; be sure the first is the morning,

     the second the noon, and the third the evening and the end of that thing --be
that end what it may.  Oh!  my God!  what is this that shoots through me, and
leaves me so deadly calm, yet expectant, --fixed at the top of a shudder!
Future things swim before me, as in empty outlines and skeletons; all the
past is somehow grown dim.  Mary, girl!  thou fadest in pale glories behind
me; boy!  I seem to see but thy eyes grown wondrous blue.  Strangest problems
of life seem clearing; but clouds sweep between --Is my journey's end coming?
My legs feel faint; like his who has footed it all day.  Feel thy heart,
--beats it yet? --Stir thyself, Starbuck! --stave it off-- move, move!  speak
aloud! --Mast-head there!  See ye my boy's hand on the hill? --Crazed; --aloft
there! --keep thy keenest eye upon the boats: --mark well the whale! --Ho!
again! --drive off that hawk!  see!  he pecks --he tears the vane --pointing to
the red flag flying at the main-truck -- Ha!  he soars away with it! -- Where's
the old man now?  sees't thou that sight, oh Ahab! -- shudder, shudder!  The
boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the mast-heads --a downward
pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had sounded; but intending to be near
him at the next rising, he
.. <p 560 >
held on his way a little sideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew
maintaining the profoundest silence, as the head-beat waves hammered and
hammered against the opposing bow.  Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves!
to their uttermost heads, drive them in!  ye but strike a thing without a
lid; and no coffin and no hearse can be mine: --and hemp only can kill me!
Ha!  ha!  Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles;
then quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of ice,
swiftly rising to the surface.  A low rumbling sound was heard; a
subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with
trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, but
obliquely from the sea.  Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it
hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping back into
the deep.  Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for an instant
like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of flakes, leaving
the circling surface creamed like new milk round the marble trunk of the
whale.  Give way!  cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted forward
to the attack; but maddened by yesterday's fresh irons that corroded in him,
Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell from heaven.

     The wide tiers of welded tendons overspreading his broad white forehead,
beneath the transparent skin, looked knitted together; as head on, he came
churning his tail among the boats; and once more flailed them apart;
spilling out the irons and lances from the two mates' boats, and dashing in
one side of the upper part of their bows, but leaving Ahab's almost without a
scar.  While Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained planks; and as
the whale swimming out from them, turned, and showed one entire flank as he
shot by them again; at that moment a quick cry went up.  Lashed round and
round to the fish's back; pinioned in the turns upon turns in which, during
the past night, the whale had reeled the involutions of the lines around him,

     the half torn body of the Parsee was seen; his sable raiment frayed to
shreds; his distended eyes turned full upon old Ahab.
.. <p 561 >
The harpoon dropped from his hand.  Befooled, befooled! --drawing in a long
lean breath -- Aye, Parsee!  I see thee again. --Aye, and thou goest before;
and this, this then is the hearse that thou didst promise.  But I hold thee

     to the last letter of thy word.  Where is the second hearse?  Away, mates, to
the ship!  those boats are useless now; repair them if ye can in time, and
return to me; if not, Ahab is enough to die --Down, men!  the first thing
that but offers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon.  Ye
are not other men, but my arms and my legs; and so obey me. --Where's the
whale?  gone down again?  But he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bent
upon escaping with the corpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the
last encounter had been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby Dick was now
again steadily swimming forward; and had almost passed the ship, --which thus
far had been sailing in the contrary direction to him, though for the present
her headway had been stopped.  He seemed swimming with his utmost velocity,
and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight path in the sea.  Oh!
Ahab, cried Starbuck, not too late is it, even now, the third day, to
desist.  See!  Moby Dick seeks thee not.  It is thou, thou, that madly
seekest him!  Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly
impelled to leeward, by both oars and canvas.  And at last when Ahab was
sliding by the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguish Starbuck's face as
he leaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn the vessel about, and follow
him, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval.  Glancing upwards, he saw
Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three mast-heads;
while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats which had but just been
hoisted to the side, and were busily at work in repairing them.  One after
the other, through the portholes, as he sped, he also caught flying glimpses
of Stubb and Flask, busying themselves on deck among bundles of new irons and
lances.  As he saw all this; as he heard the hammers in the broken boats;
far other hammers seemed driving a nail into his heart.  But he rallied.  And
now marking that the vane or
.. <p 562 >
flag was gone from the main-mast-head, he shouted to Tashtego, who had just
gained that perch, to descend again for another flag, and a hammer and
nails, and so nail it to the mast.  Whether fagged by the three days' running
chase, and the resistance to his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or
whether it was some latent deceitfulness and malice in him: whichever was
true, the White Whale's way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat
so rapidly nearing him once more; though indeed the whale's last start had not
been so long a one as before.  And still as Ahab glided over the waves the
unpitying sharks accompanied him; and so pertinaciously stuck to the boat;
and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the blades became jagged and
crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at almost every dip.  Heed
them not!  those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars.  Pull on! 'tis the
better rest, the shark's jaw than the yielding water.  But at every bite,
sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller!  They will last long enough!
pull on! --But who can tell --he muttered -- whether these sharks swim to feast
on the whale or on ahab? --But pull on!  Aye, all alive, now --we near him.  The

     helm!  take the helm; let me pass, --and so saying, two of the oarsmen
helped him forward to the bows of the still flying boat.  At length as the
craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging along with the White Whale's
flank, he seemed strangely oblivious of its advance --as the whale sometimes
will --and Ahab was fairly within the smoky mountain mist, which, thrown off
from the whale's spout, curled round his great, Monadnock hump; he was even
thus close to him; when, with body arched back, and both arms lengthwise
high-lifted to the poise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far fiercer
curse into the hated whale.  As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as
if sucked into a morass, Moby Dick sideways writhed; spasmodically rolled
his nigh flank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so
suddenly canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of
the gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed
into the sea.
.. <p 563 >
As it was, three of the oarsmen --who foreknew not the precise instant of the
dart, and were therefore unprepared for its effects -- these were flung out;
but so fell, that, in an instant two of them clutched the gunwale again, and
rising to its level on a combing wave, hurled themselves bodily inboard
again; the third man helplessly dropping astern, but still afloat and
swimming.  Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungraduated,
instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the weltering sea.
But when Ahab cried out to the steersman to take new turns with the line, and
hold it so; and commanded the crew to turn round on their seats, and tow the
boat up to the mark; the moment the treacherous line felt that double strain
and tug, it snapped in the empty air!  What breaks in me?  Some sinew cracks!
--'tis whole again; oars!  oars!  Burst in upon him!  Hearing the tremendous
rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale wheeled round to present his blank
forehead at bay; but in that evolution, catching sight of the nearing black
hull of the ship; seemingly seeing in it the source of all his persecutions;
bethinking it --it may be --a larger and nobler foe; of a sudden, he bore down
upon its advancing prow, smiting his jaws amid fiery showers of foam.  Ahab
staggered; his hand smote his forehead.  I grow blind; hands!  stretch out
before me that I may yet grope my way.  Is't night?  The whale!  The ship!
cried the cringing oarsmen.  Oars!  oars Slope downwards to thy depths, O
sea, that ere it be for ever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time
upon his mark; I see: the ship!  the ship!  Dash on, my men!  Will ye not
save my ship?  But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the
sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two planks burst
through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat lay nearly
level with the waves; its half-wading, splashing crew, trying hard to stop
the gap and bale out the pouring water.  Meantime, for that one beholding
instant, Tashtego's mast-head hammer remained suspended in his hand; and the
red
.. <p 564 >
flag, half-wrapping him as with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out
from him, as his own forward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb,
standing upon the bowsprit beneath, caught sight of the down-coming monster
just as soon as he.  The whale, the whale!  Up helm, up helm!  Oh, all ye
sweet powers of air, now hug me close!  Let not Starbuck die, if die he
must, in a woman's fainting fit.  Up helm, I say --ye fools, the jaw!  the
jaw!  Is this the end of all my bursting prayers?  all my life-long fidelities?

     Oh, Ahab, Ahab, lo, thy work.  Steady!  helmsman, steady.  Nay, nay!  Up
helm again!  He turns to meet us!  Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards
one, whose duty tells him he cannot depart.  My God, stand by me now!

     Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now help
Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here.  I grin at thee, thou grinning whale!
Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb's own unwinking eye?
And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattrass that is all too soft; would it
were stuffed with brushwood!  I grin at thee, thou grinning whale!  Look ye,
sun, moon, and stars!  I call ye assassins of as good a fellow as ever spouted
up his ghost.  For all that, I would yet ring glasses with ye, would ye but
hand the cup!  Oh, oh!  oh, oh!  thou grinning whale, but there'll be plenty
of gulping soon!  Why fly ye not, O Ahab!  For me, off shoes and jacket to
it; let Stubb die in his drawers!  A most mouldy and over salted death,
though; --cherries!  cherries!  cherries!  Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we
die!  Cherries?  I only wish that we were where they grow.  Oh, Stubb, I
hope my poor mother's drawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few coppers will now
come to her, for the voyage is up.  From the ship's bows, nearly all the
seamen now hung inactive; hammers, bits of plank, lances, and harpoons,
mechanically retained in their hands, just as they had darted from their
various employments; all their enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which
from side to side strangely vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad
band of overspreading semicircular foam before him as he rushed.  Retribution,

     swift vengeance, eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all
that mortal man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead
.. <p 565 >
smote the ship's starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled.  Some fell flat
upon their faces.  Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft
shook on their bull-like necks.  Through the breach, they heard the waters
pour, as mountain torrents down a flume.  The ship!  The hearse! --the second
hearse!  cried ahab from the boat; its wood could only be American!
Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its keel;
but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far off the
other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab's boat, where, for a time, he lay
quiescent.  I turn my body from the sun.  What ho, Tashtego!  Let me hear thy
hammer.  Oh!  ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and
only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed
prow, --death-glorious ship!  must ye then perish, and without me?  Am I cut
off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains?  Oh, lonely
death on lonely life!  Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost
grief.  Ho, ho!  from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold
billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death!

     Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last
I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I
spit my last breath at thee.  Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common
pool!  and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still
chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale!  Thus, I give up the
spear!  The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with
igniting velocity the line ran through the groove; --ran foul.  Ahab stooped to
clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the neck,
and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was shot out of
the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone.  Next instant, the heavy eye-splice
in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty tub, knocked down an
oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its depths.  For an instant,
the tranced boat's crew stood still; then turned.  The ship?  Great God,
where is the ship?  Soon they through dim, bewildering mediums saw her
sidelong fading phantom,

.. <p 566 >
as in the gaseous Fata Morgana; only the uppermost masts out of water;
while fixed by infatuation, or fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches,

     the pagan harpooneers still maintained their sinking lookouts on the sea.
And now, concentric circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew,
and each floating oar, and every lance-pole, and spinning, animate and
inanimate, all round and round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of
the Pequod out of sight.  But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured
themselves over the sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few
inches of the erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of
the flag, which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the
destroying billows they almost touched; --at that instant, a red arm and a
hammer hovered backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing the

     flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar.  A sky-hawk that tauntingly
had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home among the stars,
pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; this bird now chanced
to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the hammer and the wood; and

     simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, the submerged savage beneath,
in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen there; and so the bird of heaven,
with archangelic shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his
whole captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his ship,
which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had dragged a living part
of heaven along with her, and helmeted herself with it.  Now small fowls flew
screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its
steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as
it rolled five thousand years ago.
.. < epilogue / This text of Melville's Moby-Dick is based on the Hendricks
House / edition.  It was prepared by Professor Eugene F. Irey AT THE +UNIVERSIT
Y / OF +COLORADO, +BOULDER, +COLORADO 80309, +U.+S.+A. / +ANY SUBSEQUENT COP
IES OF THIS DATA MUST INCLUDE THIS NOTICE / AND ANY PUBLICATIONS RESULTING FRO
M ANALYSIS OF THIS DATA MUST INCLUDE / REFERENCE TO +PROFESSOR +IREY'S WORK.
2  +AND +I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE. +JOB. +THE DRAMA'S DONE.
+WHY THEN HERE DOES ANY ONE STEP FORTH? --+BECAUSE ONE DID SURVIVE THE WRECK. +
IT SO CHANCED, THAT AFTER THE +PARSEE'S DISAPPEARANCE, +I WAS HE WHOM THE +FA
TES ORDAINED TO TAKE THE PLACE OF +AHAB'S BOWSMAN, WHEN THAT BOWSMAN ASSUMED TH
E VACANT POST; THE SAME, WHO, WHEN ON THE LAST DAY THE THREE MEN WERE TOSSED F
ROM OUT THE ROCKING BOAT, WAS DROPPED ASTERN. +SO, FLOATING ON THE MARGIN OF

     THE ENSUING SCENE, AND IN FULL SIGHT OF IT, WHEN THE HALF-SPENT SUCTION OF T
HE SUNK SHIP REACHED ME, +I WAS THEN, BUT SLOWLY, DRAWN TOWARDS THE CLOSING VO
RTEX. +WHEN +I REACHED IT, IT HAD SUBSIDED TO A CREAMY POOL. +ROUND AND ROUND
, THEN, AND EVER CONTRACTING TOWARDS THE BUTTON-LIKE BLACK BUBBLE AT THE AXIS

     OF THAT SLOWLY WHEELING CIRCLE, LIKE ANOTHER +IXION +I DID REVOLVE. +TILL, G
AINING THAT VITAL CENTRE, THE BLACK BUBBLE UPWARD BURST; AND NOW, LIBERATED
BY REASON OF ITS CUNNING SPRING, AND OWING TO ITS GREAT BUOYANCY, RISING WITH

     GREAT FORCE, THE COFFIN LIFE-BUOY SHOT LENGTHWISE FROM THE SEA, FELL OVER,
AND FLOATED BY MY SIDE. +BUOYED UP BY THAT COFFIN, FOR ALMOST ONE WHOLE DAY
AND NIGHT, +I FLOATED ON A SOFT AND DIRGE-LIKE MAIN. +THE UNHARMING SHARKS,
THEY GLIDED BY AS IF WITH PADLOCKS ON THEIR MOUTHS; THE SAVAGE SEA-HAWKS SAILE
D WITH SHEATHED BEAKS. +ON THE SECOND DAY, A SAIL DREW NEAR, NEARER, AND PIC
KED ME UP AT LAST. +IT WAS THE DEVIOUS-CRUISING +RACHEL, THAT IN HER RETRACIN
ə