Orakel Classics
Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale
Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville, prepared as a public-domain Orakel edition with 138 chapter-aware companion links.
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ETYMOLOGY.
ETYMOLOGY. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. The pale Usher—threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his
Open2EXTRACTS.
EXTRACTS. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. “Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him; One would think the deep to be hoary.”
Open3CHAPTER 1. Loomings.
CHAPTER 1. Loomings. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I
Open4CHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag.
CHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that place would offer, till the following
Open5CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn.
CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large oilpainting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of
Open6CHAPTER 4. The Counterpane.
CHAPTER 4. The Counterpane. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg’s arm thrown over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost thought I had been his wife. The counterpane was of patchwork, full of odd little parti-coloured squares and triangles; and this arm of his tattooed all over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure, no two parts of which were of one precise shade—owing I suppose to his
Open7CHAPTER 5. Breakfast.
CHAPTER 5. Breakfast. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. I quickly followed suit, and descending into the bar-room accosted the grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no malice towards him, though he had been skylarking with me not a little in the matter of my
Open8CHAPTER 6. The Street.
CHAPTER 6. The Street. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society of a civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking my first daylight stroll through the streets of New
Open9CHAPTER 7. The Chapel.
CHAPTER 7. The Chapel. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman’s Chapel, and few are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I did
Open10CHAPTER 8. The Pulpit.
CHAPTER 8. The Pulpit. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back upon admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the congregation, sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen, among whom he was a very great favourite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in
Open11CHAPTER 9. The Sermon.
CHAPTER 9. The Sermon. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority ordered the scattered people to condense. “Starboard gangway, there! side away to larboard—larboard gangway to starboard! Midships!
Open12CHAPTER 10. A Bosom Friend.
CHAPTER 10. A Bosom Friend. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found Queequeg there quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the benediction some time. He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on the stove hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face that little negro idol of his; peering hard into its face, and with a jack-knife gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to himself in
Open13CHAPTER 11. Nightgown.
CHAPTER 11. Nightgown. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free and easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like getting up again, though day-break was yet some way down the
Open14CHAPTER 12. Biographical.
CHAPTER 12. Biographical. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never
Open15CHAPTER 13. Wheelbarrow.
CHAPTER 13. Wheelbarrow. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, for a block, I settled my own and comrade’s bill; using, however, my comrade’s money. The grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between me and Queequeg—especially as Peter Coffin’s cock and bull stories about him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very
Open16CHAPTER 14. Nantucket.
CHAPTER 14. Nantucket. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in
Open17CHAPTER 15. Chowder.
CHAPTER 15. Chowder. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend to no business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord of the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept hotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had assured us that Cousin
Open18CHAPTER 16. The Ship.
CHAPTER 16. The Ship. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise and no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he had been diligently consulting Yojo—the name of his black little god—and Yojo had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it everyway, that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet in harbor, and in concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say,
Open19CHAPTER 17. The Ramadan.
CHAPTER 17. The Ramadan. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. As Queequeg’s Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue all day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards night-fall; for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obligations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool; or those other creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of
Open20CHAPTER 18. His Mark.
CHAPTER 18. His Mark. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship, Queequeg carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal, and furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that craft, unless they previously produced their
Open21CHAPTER 19. The Prophet.
CHAPTER 19. The Prophet. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us, levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent small-pox had in all
Open22CHAPTER 20. All Astir.
CHAPTER 20. All Astir. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the Pequod. Not only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short, everything betokened that the ship’s preparations were hurrying to a close. Captain Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam keeping a sharp look-out upon the hands: Bildad did all the purchasing and
Open23CHAPTER 21. Going Aboard.
CHAPTER 21. Going Aboard. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. It was nearly six o’clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn, when we drew nigh the
Open24CHAPTER 22. Merry Christmas.
CHAPTER 22. Merry Christmas. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. At length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship’s riggers, and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf, and after the ever-thoughtful Charity had come off in a whale-boat, with her last gift—a night-cap for Stubb, the second mate, her brother-in-law, and a spare Bible for the steward—after all this, the two Captains, Peleg and Bildad, issued from the cabin, and turning to the chief mate,
Open25CHAPTER 23. The Lee Shore.
CHAPTER 23. The Lee Shore. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the
Open26CHAPTER 24. The Advocate.
CHAPTER 24. The Advocate. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling; and as this business of whaling has somehow come to be regarded among landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuit; therefore, I am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby done to us hunters of
Open27CHAPTER 25. Postscript.
CHAPTER 25. Postscript. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might tell eloquently upon his cause—such an advocate, would he not be
Open28CHAPTER 26. Knights and Squires.
CHAPTER 26. Knights and Squires. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood would not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time of general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for
Open29CHAPTER 27. Knights and Squires.
CHAPTER 27. Knights and Squires. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence, according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky; neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged for the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his
Open30CHAPTER 28. Ahab.
CHAPTER 28. Ahab. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches was seen of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each other at the watches, and for aught that could be seen to the contrary, they seemed to be the only commanders of the ship; only they sometimes issued from the cabin with orders so sudden and peremptory, that after all it was plain they but commanded vicariously. Yes, their supreme lord and
Open31CHAPTER 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb.
CHAPTER 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod now went rolling through the bright Quito spring, which, at sea, almost perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of the Tropic. The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up—flaked up, with rose-water snow. The starred and stately nights seemed haughty dames
Open32CHAPTER 30. The Pipe.
CHAPTER 30. The Pipe. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a sailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool on the weather side of the deck, he sat and
Open33CHAPTER 31. Queen Mab.
CHAPTER 31. Queen Mab. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. “Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know the old man’s ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I tried to kick back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off! And then, presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I, like a blazing fool, kept kicking at it. But what was still more curious, Flask—you know how curious all dreams are—through all this rage that I was in, I somehow
Open34CHAPTER 32. Cetology.
CHAPTER 32. Cetology. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harbourless immensities. Ere that come to pass; ere the Pequod’s weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of the leviathan; at the outset it is but well to attend to a matter almost indispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding of the more special leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts which
Open35CHAPTER 33. The Specksnyder.
CHAPTER 33. The Specksnyder. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good a place as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on ship-board, arising from the existence of the harpooneer class of officers, a class unknown of course in any other marine than the
Open36CHAPTER 34. The Cabin-Table.
CHAPTER 34. The Cabin-Table. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. It is noon; and Dough-Boy, the steward, thrusting his pale loaf-of-bread face from the cabin-scuttle, announces dinner to his lord and master; who, sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has just been taking an observation of the sun; and is now mutely reckoning the latitude on the smooth, medallion-shaped tablet, reserved for that daily purpose on the upper part of his ivory leg. From his complete inattention to the
Open37CHAPTER 35. The Mast-Head.
CHAPTER 35. The Mast-Head. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation with the other seamen my first mast-head came
Open38CHAPTER 36. The Quarter-Deck.
CHAPTER 36. The Quarter-Deck. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one morning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended the cabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually walk at that hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take a few turns in the
Open39CHAPTER 37. Sunset.
CHAPTER 37. Sunset. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I
Open40CHAPTER 38. Dusk.
CHAPTER 38. Dusk. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. My soul is more than matched; she’s overmanned; and by a madman! Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it. Will I, nill I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with a cable I have no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who’s over him, he cries;—aye, he
Open41CHAPTER 39. First Night-Watch.
CHAPTER 39. First Night-Watch. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!—I’ve been thinking over it ever since, and that ha, ha’s the final consequence. Why so? Because a laugh’s the wisest, easiest answer to all that’s queer; and come what will, one comfort’s always left—that unfailing comfort is, it’s all predestinated. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck; but to my poor eye Starbuck then looked something as I the other evening felt. Be sure the
Open42CHAPTER 40. Midnight, Forecastle.
CHAPTER 40. Midnight, Forecastle. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. (Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging, leaning, and lying in various attitudes, all singing in
Open43CHAPTER 41. Moby Dick.
CHAPTER 41. Moby Dick. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest; my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, and more did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul. A wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab’s quenchless feud seemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous monster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of
Open44CHAPTER 42. The Whiteness of the Whale.
CHAPTER 42. The Whiteness of the Whale. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he was to me, as yet remains
Open45CHAPTER 43. Hark!
CHAPTER 43. Hark! from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. It was the middle-watch: a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-butt. Standing, for the most part, on the hallowed precincts of the quarter-deck, they were careful not to speak or rustle their feet. From hand to hand, the buckets went in the
Open46CHAPTER 44. The Chart.
CHAPTER 44. The Chart. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after the squall that took place on the night succeeding that wild ratification of his purpose with his crew, you would have seen him go to a locker in the transom, and bringing out a large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea charts, spread them before him on his screwed-down table. Then seating himself before it, you would have seen him intently study the various lines
Open47CHAPTER 45. The Affidavit.
CHAPTER 45. The Affidavit. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and, indeed, as indirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious particulars in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in its earlier part, is as important a one as will be found in this volume; but the leading matter of it requires to be still further and more familiarly enlarged upon, in order to be adequately understood, and moreover
Open48CHAPTER 46. Surmises.
CHAPTER 46. Surmises. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby Dick; though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that one passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature and long habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman’s ways, altogether to abandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage. Or at least if this
Open49CHAPTER 47. The Mat-Maker.
CHAPTER 47. The Mat-Maker. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-coloured waters. Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword-mat, for an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subdued and yet somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation of reverie lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into his
Open50CHAPTER 48. The First Lowering.
CHAPTER 48. The First Lowering. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose the tackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat had always been deemed one of the spare boats, though technically called the captain’s, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter. The figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white tooth
Open51CHAPTER 49. The Hyena.
CHAPTER 49. The Hyena. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard
Open52CHAPTER 50. Ahab’s Boat and Crew. Fedallah.
CHAPTER 50. Ahab’s Boat and Crew. Fedallah. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. “Who would have thought it, Flask!” cried Stubb; “if I had but one leg you would not catch me in a boat, unless maybe to stop the plug-hole with my timber toe. Oh! he’s a wonderful old
Open53CHAPTER 51. The Spirit-Spout.
CHAPTER 51. The Spirit-Spout. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had slowly swept across four several cruising-grounds; that off the Azores; off the Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off the mouth of the Rio de la Plata; and the Carrol Ground, an unstaked, watery locality, southerly from St.
Open54CHAPTER 52. The Albatross.
CHAPTER 52. The Albatross. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. South-eastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a good cruising ground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney (Albatross) by name. As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perch at the fore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight so remarkable to a tyro in the far ocean fisheries—a whaler at sea, and long absent from
Open55CHAPTER 53. The Gam.
CHAPTER 53. The Gam. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler we had spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But even had this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have boarded her—judging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasions—if so it had been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained a negative answer to the question he put. For, as it eventually turned out, he cared
Open56CHAPTER 54. The Town-Ho’s Story.
CHAPTER 54. The Town-Ho’s Story. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round about there, is much like some noted four corners of a great highway, where you meet more travellers than in any other
Open57CHAPTER 55. Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales.
CHAPTER 55. Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open58CHAPTER 56. Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True
CHAPTER 56. Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open59CHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in
CHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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,
Open60CHAPTER 58. Brit.
CHAPTER 58. Brit. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open61CHAPTER 59. Squid.
CHAPTER 59. Squid. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open62CHAPTER 60. The Line.
CHAPTER 60. The Line. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open63CHAPTER 61. Stubb Kills a Whale.
CHAPTER 61. Stubb Kills a Whale. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to Queequeg it was quite a different
Open64CHAPTER 62. The Dart.
CHAPTER 62. The Dart. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open65CHAPTER 63. The Crotch.
CHAPTER 63. The Crotch. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in productive subjects, grow the
Open66CHAPTER 64. Stubb’s Supper.
CHAPTER 64. Stubb’s Supper. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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;
Open67CHAPTER 65. The Whale as a Dish.
CHAPTER 65. The Whale as a Dish. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open68CHAPTER 66. The Shark Massacre.
CHAPTER 66. The Shark Massacre. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open69CHAPTER 67. Cutting In.
CHAPTER 67. Cutting In. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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; every sailor a butcher. You would have thought we were offering up ten thousand red oxen to the sea
Open70CHAPTER 68. The Blanket.
CHAPTER 68. The Blanket. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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. My original opinion remains unchanged; but it is only an
Open71CHAPTER 69. The Funeral.
CHAPTER 69. The Funeral. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open72CHAPTER 70. The Sphynx.
CHAPTER 70. The Sphynx. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open73CHAPTER 71. The Jeroboam’s Story.
CHAPTER 71. The Jeroboam’s Story. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but the breeze came faster than the ship, and soon the Pequod began to
Open74CHAPTER 72. The Monkey-Rope.
CHAPTER 72. The Monkey-Rope. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale, there is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands are wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no staying in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has to be done everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the description of the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was
Open75CHAPTER 73. Stubb and Flask kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk
CHAPTER 73. Stubb and Flask kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open76CHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale’s Head—Contrasted View.
CHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale’s Head—Contrasted View. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together; let us join them, and lay together our
Open77CHAPTER 75. The Right Whale’s Head—Contrasted View.
CHAPTER 75. The Right Whale’s Head—Contrasted View. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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,
Open78CHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram.
CHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open79CHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun.
CHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open80CHAPTER 78. Cistern and Buckets.
CHAPTER 78. Cistern and Buckets. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Nimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft; and without altering his erect posture, runs straight out upon the overhanging mainyard-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
Open81CHAPTER 79. The Prairie.
CHAPTER 79. The Prairie. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open82CHAPTER 80. The Nut.
CHAPTER 80. The Nut. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist his brain seems that geometrical circle which it is impossible to
Open83CHAPTER 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin.
CHAPTER 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. The predestinated day arrived, and we duly met the ship Jungfrau, Derick De Deer, master, of
Open84CHAPTER 82. The Honor and Glory of Whaling.
CHAPTER 82. The Honor and Glory of Whaling. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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 belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a
Open85CHAPTER 83. Jonah Historically Regarded.
CHAPTER 83. Jonah Historically Regarded. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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; and yet their doubting those traditions did not
Open86CHAPTER 84. Pitchpoling.
CHAPTER 84. Pitchpoling. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open87CHAPTER 85. The Fountain.
CHAPTER 85. The Fountain. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open88CHAPTER 86. The Tail.
CHAPTER 86. The Tail. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open89CHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada.
CHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open90CHAPTER 88. Schools and Schoolmasters.
CHAPTER 88. Schools and Schoolmasters. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open91CHAPTER 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish.
CHAPTER 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. The allusion to the waif 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
Open92CHAPTER 90. Heads or Tails.
CHAPTER 90. Heads or Tails. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. “De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam.” Bracton, l. 3, c.
Open93CHAPTER 91. The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud.
CHAPTER 91. The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. “In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this Leviathan, insufferable fetor denying not inquiry.” Sir T. Browne,
Open94CHAPTER 92. Ambergris.
CHAPTER 92. Ambergris. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born 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
Open95CHAPTER 93. The Castaway.
CHAPTER 93. The Castaway. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open96CHAPTER 94. A Squeeze of the Hand.
CHAPTER 94. A Squeeze of the Hand. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open97CHAPTER 95. The Cassock.
CHAPTER 95. The Cassock. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open98CHAPTER 96. The Try-Works.
CHAPTER 96. The Try-Works. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open99CHAPTER 97. The Lamp.
CHAPTER 97. The Lamp. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open100CHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up.
CHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open101CHAPTER 99. The Doubloon.
CHAPTER 99. The Doubloon. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his quarter-deck, taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle 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
Open102CHAPTER 100. Leg and Arm.
CHAPTER 100. Leg and Arm. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. So cried Ahab, once more hailing a ship showing English colours, 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
Open103CHAPTER 101. The Decanter.
CHAPTER 101. The Decanter. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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 & 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 1775,
Open104CHAPTER 102. A Bower in the Arsacides.
CHAPTER 102. A Bower in the Arsacides. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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 behooves 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
Open105CHAPTER 103. Measurement of The Whale’s Skeleton.
CHAPTER 103. Measurement of The Whale’s Skeleton. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open106CHAPTER 104. The Fossil Whale.
CHAPTER 104. The Fossil Whale. from Moby-Dick; Or, The 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 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
Open107CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish?
CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish? from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open108CHAPTER 106. Ahab’s Leg.
CHAPTER 106. Ahab’s Leg. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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 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,
Open109CHAPTER 107. The Carpenter.
CHAPTER 107. The Carpenter. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open110CHAPTER 108. Ahab and the Carpenter.
CHAPTER 108. Ahab and the Carpenter. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. (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
Open111CHAPTER 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin.
CHAPTER 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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 unfavourable
Open112CHAPTER 110. Queequeg in His Coffin.
CHAPTER 110. Queequeg in His Coffin. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open113CHAPTER 111. The Pacific.
CHAPTER 111. The Pacific. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open114CHAPTER 112. The Blacksmith.
CHAPTER 112. The Blacksmith. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open115CHAPTER 113. The Forge.
CHAPTER 113. The Forge. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open116CHAPTER 114. The Gilder.
CHAPTER 114. The Gilder. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open117CHAPTER 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor.
CHAPTER 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open118CHAPTER 116. The Dying Whale.
CHAPTER 116. The Dying Whale. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune’s favourites 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
Open119CHAPTER 117. The Whale Watch.
CHAPTER 117. The Whale Watch. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open120CHAPTER 118. The Quadrant.
CHAPTER 118. The Quadrant. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open121CHAPTER 119. The Candles.
CHAPTER 119. The Candles. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open122CHAPTER 120. The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch.
CHAPTER 120. The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. “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,
Open123CHAPTER 121. Midnight.—The Forecastle Bulwarks.
CHAPTER 121. Midnight.—The Forecastle Bulwarks. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. Stubb and Flask mounted on them, and passing additional lashings over the anchors there
Open124CHAPTER 122. Midnight Aloft.—Thunder and Lightning.
CHAPTER 122. Midnight Aloft.—Thunder and Lightning. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. “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,
Open125CHAPTER 123. The Musket.
CHAPTER 123. The Musket. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open126CHAPTER 124. The Needle.
CHAPTER 124. The Needle. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open127CHAPTER 125. The Log and Line.
CHAPTER 125. The Log and Line. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open128CHAPTER 126. The Life-Buoy.
CHAPTER 126. The Life-Buoy. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open129CHAPTER 127. The Deck.
CHAPTER 127. The Deck. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. The coffin laid upon two line-tubs, between the vice-bench and the open hatchway; the Carpenter caulking 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
Open130CHAPTER 128. The Pequod Meets The Rachel.
CHAPTER 128. The Pequod Meets The Rachel. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open131CHAPTER 129. The Cabin.
CHAPTER 129. The Cabin. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. “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
Open132CHAPTER 130. The Hat.
CHAPTER 130. The Hat. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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 had been inflicted; now that a vessel had been spoken which on the very day preceding had actually encountered
Open133CHAPTER 131. The Pequod Meets The Delight.
CHAPTER 131. The Pequod Meets The Delight. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open134CHAPTER 132. The Symphony.
CHAPTER 132. The Symphony. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open135CHAPTER 133. The Chase—First Day.
CHAPTER 133. The Chase—First Day. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open136CHAPTER 134. The Chase—Second Day.
CHAPTER 134. The Chase—Second Day. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. “D’ye see him?” cried Ahab after allowing a little space for the light to
Open137CHAPTER 135. The Chase.—Third Day.
CHAPTER 135. The Chase.—Third Day. from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. 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
Open138Epilogue
Epilogue from Moby-Dick; Or, The Whale. The drama’s done. Why then here does any one step forth?—Because one did survive the
Open