MELVILLE, Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Herman Melville: Moby Dick; or, The Whale

Besides, passengers get seasick – grow quarrelsome – don’t sleep of nights – do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing; - no, I never go as a passenger, nor though I am something of a salt, … What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Who is not a slave?
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 3



…they make a point of paying me, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay; and urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! How cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 3



Finally I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the forecastle deck.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 4



But I soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from under the sill of the window that this plan would never do at all, especially as another current from the rickety door met the one from the window, and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the night.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 12



But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not to say a word til spoken to.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 15




Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 4
But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition state – neither caterpillar nor butterfly. Hew was just enough civilized to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manner. His education was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate.



If he had not been a small degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubled himself with boots at all; but then, if he had not been still a savage, he never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on. ( pg. 21)
I was preparing to hear some good stories about whaling; to my no small surprise, nearly every man maintained a profound silence. And not only that, but they looked embarrassed. Yes, here were a set of sea-dogs, many of whom without the slightest bashfulness had boarded great whales on the high seas – entire strangers to them – and duelled them dead without winking,; and yet, here they sat at asocial breakfast table – all of the same calling, all of a kindred tastes - looking around as sheepishly at each other as though they had never been out of sight of some sheepfold among the Green Mountains.
But as for Queequeg – why, Queequeg sat there among them – at the head of the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To be sure I cannot say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not have cordially justified his bringing his harpoon in to breakfast with him, and using it there without ceremony; reaching over the table with it, to the imminent jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks towards him. That was certainly very coolly done by him, and every one knows that in most people’s estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteely. (pg. 22)
Herman Melville, Moby Dick



They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite at ease in manner, quite self possessed in company. Not always… but perhaps the mere crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs… or the taking a long solitary walk on an empty stomach, in the negro heart of Africa… this kind of travel, I say, may not be the very best mode of attaining a high social polish.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 22


Herman Melville, Moby Dick
But observe his prayer and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as heis, Jonah does not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feelsthat his punishment is just. He leaves all his deliverance to God. …here is true and faithful repentance, not clamorous for pardon, butgrateful for punishment. And how pleasing to God was this conduct inJonah, is show in the eventual deliverance of him from the sea and thewhale.… I do not place him before you as a model for repentance. Sin not,but if you do, take heed to repent of it like Jonah.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 34, 35, chapter 9

To preach the truth to the face of Falsehood! …That was it. This,shipmates is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the livingGod who slights it. Who to him whom this world charms from Gospelduty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God hasbrewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seek to please rather than toappal. Woe to him whose good names is more to him than goodness. …Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 36, chapter 9

Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship ofthis base treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is tohim, who give no quarter in the truth, and kill, burns, and destroysall sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators andJudges. Delight, - top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges nolaw or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 36, chapter 9

A Bosom friend
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 36. Chapter 10

You can't hide the soul.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 37, chapter 10

Queequeg was George Washington cannibalistically developed.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 38, chapter 10

and yet he seemed entirely at his ease, preserving the utmostserenity, content with his own companionship; always equal to himself.Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 38, chapter 10

I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infalliblePresbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolaterin worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? Thought I. Doyou suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and earth– pagan and all included – can possibly be jealous of an insignificantbit of black wood? Impossible. But what is worship? – to do the willof God – that is worship. And what is the will of God? – to do to myfellow man what I would have my fellowman to do to me – that is thewill of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellowman. And what do I wish thatthis Queequeg is would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particularPresbyterian form of worship… Consequently I must unit unite with himin his;
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 39, chapter 10

I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in thesethings; and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals,pagans, and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on thesesubjects. … Queequeg thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; heseemed to be content; and there let him rest. All our arguing with himwould not avail; let him be, I say; and Heaven have mercy on us all –Presbyterians and Pagans alike – for we are all somehow dreadfullycracked about the head, and sadly need mending.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 61, chapter 17

The poor fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was sweptoverboard; all hands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at theboom to stay it, seemed madness. It flew from right to left and backagain, almost in one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed onthe point of snapping into splinters. Nothing was done and nothingseemed capable of being done, those on deck rushed towards the bows,and stood eyeing the boom as if it were the lower jaw of anexasperated whale. In the midst of this consternation, Queequegdropped deftly to his knees, and crawling under the path of the boom,whipped hold of a rope, secured one end to the bulwarks, and thenflinging the other like a lasso, caught it round the boom …. And allwas safe. …Queequeg, stripped to the waist, darted from the side witha long living arc of a leap. For three minutes or more he was seenswimming like a dog, throwing his long arms straight out before him,and by turns revealing his brawny shoulders through the freezingfoam….Queequeg now took an instant's glance around him and seeming tosee just how matters were, dived down and disappeared. A few minutesmore and he rose again, one arm still striking out, and with the otherdragging a lifeless form. The boat soon picked them up The poorbumpkin was restored. All hands voted Queequeg a noble trump,
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 45, chapter 13

But to my surprise and not small concern, Queequeg now gave me tounderstand that he had been diligently consulting Yojo – the name ofhis black little god – and Yojo had told him two or three times over,and strongly insisted upon it every way ….
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 50, chapter 16

And when these things unite in a man of greatly superior naturalforce, with a globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also bythe willingness and seclusion of many long night watches in theremotest waters, and beneath constellations never seen here at thenorth, been led to think untraditionally and independently; receivingall nature's sweet or savage impressions…
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 54, chapter 16

Now Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being anincorrigible old bunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hardtask-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems acurious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, hiscrew, upon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to thehospital, sore exhausted, and worn out. For a pious man, especiallyfor a Quaker, he was certainly rather hard-hearted to say the least.He never used to swear, though at his men they said, but somehow hegot an inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out ofthem. When Bildad was a chief mate, to have his drab coloured eyeintently looking at you, made you feel completely nervous till youcould clutch something -= a hammer or a marling spike, and go to worklike mad, at something, or other, never mind what. Indolence andidleness perished from before him. His own person was the exactembodiment of his utilitarian character.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 55 – 56, chapter 16
ADVOCATE

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 amonglandsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuits; therefore,I am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice herebydone to us hunters of whales. (pg. 79)
…If a stranger were introduced into any miscellaneous metropolitansociety; it would but slightly advance the general opinion of hismerits, were he presented to the company as a harpooner.…Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honouring uswhalemen is this: they think that, at best, our vocation amounts to abutchering sort of business; and that when actively engaged therein,we are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers we are, thatis true. But butchers also, and butchers of the bloodiest badge, havebeen all martial commanders whom the world invariable delightst tohonour.…ye shall soon be initiated into certain facts hitherto prettygenerally unknown, …
(pg. 79)
… Why did Louis XVI of France, as his own personal expense, fit outwhaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to that town somescore or two of families from our own island of Nantucket?
(pg. 80)
…It was the whaleman who first broke through the jealous policy of theSpanish Crown, touching those colonies; and if space permitted, itmight be distinctly shown how from these whalemen at last eventuatedthe liberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain,and the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts.
(pg. 80)
… you still declare that whaling has no aesthetically nobleassociations connected with it…no famous author… no famouschronicler…? Who wrote the first account of our Leviathan? Who butmighty Job! And who composed the first narrative of a whaling voyage?Who, but no less a prince than Alfred the Great, who with his ownroyal pen, took down the words from Other, The Norwegian whale-hunterof those times!
(pg. 81)
…not respectable? Whaling is imperial! By old English statutory law,the whale is declared "a royal fish."
(pg. 81)
…No dignity…? The dignity of our calling the very heavens attest. Cetus is a constellation in the South! No more! Drive down your hat inthe presence of the Czar, and take it off to Queequeg! No more! I knowa man that, in his lifetime, has taken three hundred and fifty whales,I account that man more honourable than that great Captain ofantiquity who boasted of taking as many walled towns.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 79 - 82, chapter 23


… I prospectively ascribe all the honour and the glory to waling; for a whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 82, chapter 24


… what kind of oil is used a coronations? … sperm oil… the sweetest of all oils.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 83, chapter 25
(my limited research shows it was olive oil)


Starbuck… looking into his eyes you seemed to see there yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted through life.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 83, chapter 26



“I will have no man in my boat,” said Starbuck, “who is not afraid of a whale.” … an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 83, chapter 26


“What …made Stubb such an easy going unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a world full of grave peddlers, all bowed to the ground with their packs; what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humour of his – that thing must have been his pipe.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 86, chapter 26


… for everyone knows that this earthly air is terribly infected with the nameless miseries of the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it; and as in time of the cholera, some people go about with a camphorated handkerchief to their mounts; so likewise, against all mortal tribulations, Stubb’s tobacco smoke might have operated as a sort of disinfecting agent.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 86, chapter 26


As a carpenter’s nails are divided into wrought nails and cut nails, so mankind may be similarly divided. Little Flask was one of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight and last long.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 86, chapter 26


The warm 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 in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns! For sleeping man t’was hard to choose between such winsome days and such seducing nights.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 91, chapter 29



Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 91, chapter 29



Here goes for a snooze. Damn me, it’s worth a fellow’s while to be born into the world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think of it, that’s about the first thing babies do, and that’s a sort of queer, too. Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of ‘em. But that’s against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can is my twelfth.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 93, chapter 29



No, you were kicked by a great man, and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb. It’s an honor… In old England, the greatest Lord think it great glory to be slapped by a queen … ye were kicked by Old Ahab and made a wise man of… account his kicks honours.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 95, chapter 31



… For nowadays, the whale-fishery furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded young men, disgusted with the carking cares of the earth, and seeking sentiment in tar and blubber.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 116, chapter 35



“What do ye do when ye see a whale men?” “Sing out for him.”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 118, chapter 36



…that white whale must be the same that some call Moby Dick.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 119, chapter 36



That it was only then, on the homeward voyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania seized him, seems all but certain from the fact that, at intervals during the passage, he was a raving lunatic; and though unlimbed of a leg, yet such vital strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified by his delirium, that his mates were forced to lace him fast, even there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a strait-jacket, he swung to the mad rockings of the gales. And when running into more sufferable latitudes, the ship, … floated across tranquil tropics, and to all appearances, the old man’s delirium seemed left behind him with the Cape Horn swells, and he came forth from his dark den into the blessed light and air; even then, when he bore that firm, collected front, however pale, and issued his calm orders once again; and his mates thanked God the direful madness was now gone; even then, Ahab in his hidden self, raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and feline thing. When you think it fled, it subsided not, but deepening contracted;…
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 136, chapter 41



Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own … various nations have in some way recognized a certain royal pre-eminence in this hue, … it applies to the human race itself, giving the white man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe… like among the Romans, a white stone marked a joyful day … among the Red Man of America, the giving of the white belt of wampum was the deepest pledged of honor … in the higher mysteries of the most august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness and power … by the Persian fire worshippers … the white forked flame, … Greek mythologies … a snow white bull, … to the noble Iroquois … the sacred White dog … This elusive quality … to heighten that terror … witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics – what, but their smooth flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent horrors they are?
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 138-139, chapter 42

… a vulture feeds upon that heart forever; that vulture the very creature he creates.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 150, chapter 44


… in order to be adequately understood and moreover to take away any incredulity which a profound ignorance of the entire subject may induce in some minds.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 150, chapter 45


… it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what wonderous habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an erect posture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most riotously perverse and cross-running seas; … yet more curious for sustaining himself with a cod, indifferent, easy, unthought of barbaric majesty, the noble negro to every roll of the sea harmonously rolled his fine form.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 164, chapter 48



There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes his 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.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 168, chapter 49



Mr. Flask… you are very experienced in these things, and I am not … will you tell me whether it is an unalterable law…for an oarman to break his own back, pulling himself back foremost into death’s jaws?
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 169, chapter 49



I thought I might as well go below and make a rough draft of my will.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 169, chapter 49



Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward, we could forever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in tormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims before all human hearts – while chasing such over this round globe, they either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 176, chapter 52


But however prolonged and exhausted the chase, the harpooneer is expected to pull his oar meanwhile the uttermost; indeed, he is expected to set an example of superhuman activity to the rest, not only by incredible rowing, but by repeating loud and intrepid exclamations, and what it is to keep shouting at the top of one’s compass, while all the other muscles are strained and half started – what that is none know but those who have tried it.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 214, chapter 62



Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters.
erman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 214, chapter 63



… 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 this grand monomaniac object.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 216, chapter 64



Of all divers, thou hast dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun how gleams, has moved amid this worlds’ foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; wherein her murderous hold his frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was they most familiar home. Thou has been where bell or diver never went; has 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 neighbouring ship that would nave 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 on syllable is thine!
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 230, chapter 70



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.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 235, chapter 71



It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we proceed further, it must be said that monkey-rope was fast at both ends, fast to Queequeg’s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow leather one. So that for better or for worse, we to, for the time, were wedded ; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honour demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me down in his wake. … So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation the, that while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to perceive that my own individuality was not merged ina joint-stock company of two; that my free will had received a mortal wound
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 236, chapter 72



…I saw some sharks astern – St. Bernard’s dogs, you know – relieve distressed travelers. Hurrah! This is the way to sail now. … Here we go like three tin kettles at the tail of a mad cougar! This puts me in the mind of fastening to an elephant in a tilbury on a plain – makes the wheelspokes 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 ones – al la rush down an endless inclined plan! Hurrah! This whale carries the everlasting mail!
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 262, chapter 81



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 on de 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.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 264, chapter 81



It was not long after the sinking of the body that a cry was heard from the Pequod’s masthead, announcing that the Jungfrau was again lowering her boats; though the only spout in sight was that of 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 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.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 267, chapter 81


Now in the whale ship, it is not everyone that goes into the boats Some few hands are reserved called shipkeepers, whose province is to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general thing, there shipkeepers 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 shipkeeper
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 304, chapter 93



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 sometime happen when Leap from the boat, is still better. Stubb suddenly dropped all advice, and concluded with a peremptory command. “Stick to the boat, Pip, or by the Lord, I won’t pick you up if you jump, mind that. We can’t afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for thirty time what you would Pip in Alabama. Bear that in mind , and don’t jump anymore.”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 305, chapter 93


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.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 306, chapter 93



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 think slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of boiling out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably increased, beside perhaps improving it in quality.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 310, chapter 95



In merchant men, 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 wale man, 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.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 314, chapter 97



Yes; and many is the time, when, after the severest uninterrupted labours, 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 the slash, and in the 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 things again. Oh! My friend, but his 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, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its defilement, 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.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 316, chapter 98




“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.”
“Didst though 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.”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 325, chapter 100


In 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express purpose, and at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderby’s, boldly rounded Cape Horn, and was the first among the nations to lower a whale boat of any sort in the great South Sea. They 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….
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 327, chapter 101

Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness of the more enormous creatures of the glove, yet what shall we say to Harto, the Historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one hunting the King of Siam took 4000 elephants, 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 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.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 340, chapter 105



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 Art, and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like the Netherlands, to kill off it’s 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.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 341, chapter 105


“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 the slippery world that can hold, man.”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 346, chapter 108


“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, yet tow to the soul.”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 347, chapter 108




“… 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.”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 349, chapter 109



He has 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… But one night, under cover of darkness, and further concealed in almost 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 this family’s heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror! Upon the opening of that fatal cork, forth flew the fiend, and shriveled up his home.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 356, chapter 112




Oh Death, why canst though 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 delicious grief, and her orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after years…”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 356, chapter 112



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 leveled 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! ‘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 homeward, to go on a better voyage than this.”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 371, chapter 119



Oh Death, why canst though 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 delicious grief, and her orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after years…”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 356, chapter 112


“What soulless thing is this that laughs before a wreck? Man, man! did I knot know thee breave as fearless fire (and as mechanical) I could swear thou wert a poltroon. Groan nor laugh should be heard before a wreck.”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 403, chapter 133



For such is the wonderful skill prescience of experience, and invincible confidence acquired by some great natural genius among the Nantucket commanders, that from the single observation of a whale when last descried, they will, 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.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 404, chapter 134

Aye, aye, Starbuck, ‘is sweet to lean sometimes, be the leaner who he will; and would old Ahab had leaned oftener than he has.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 409, chapter 134


Never, never wilt thou capture him, old man … Two days chased, twice stove to splinters; they very leg once more snatched from under thee; thy evil shadow gone – all good angles mobbing thee with warnings – what more wouldst thou have? Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish till he swamps the last man? … blasphemy to hunt him more!
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 410, chapter 134



Ahab is for ever Ahab
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 410, chapter 134




Here’s food for thought, had Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels, that 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 turn to ice, and shiver it.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 411, chapter 135



Were I the wind, I’d blow nor more on such a a wicked miserable world. I’d crawl somewhere to 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.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 411, chapter 135




“I misdoubt me that I disobey my God in obeying him!”
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 412, chapter 135



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.
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, pg. 413, chapter 135


Vocabulary - Moby Dick

Blithe, pg. 356
Gay, joyful. Same as bliss; glad. From the Latin: latus. From the English: glad. Original word from Irish: lith, happiness.

Cabalistic, pg. 232
A Jewish doctor who professes the study of the cabala, or the mysteries of the Jewish traditions
CABALA – tradition, or a mysterious kind of science among Jewish Rabbins pretended to have been delivered to the ancient Jews by revelation and transmitted by oral tradition; serving for the interpretation of difficult passages of scriptures. This science consists chiefly in understanding the combination of certain letters, words and numbers, which are alleged to be significant. Every letter, word, number and accent of the law is supposed to contain a mystery and the cabalists pretend even to foretell future events by the study of this science.


Evanescence, pg. 405
To vanish; a vanishing; a gradual departure from sight or possession either by removal to a distance or by dissipation as vapor; the state of being liable to vanish and escape possession.

Game, pg. 353
To jest; opposed to earnest. Scheme pursued; measures planned


Laudanum, pg. 232 –
Opium dissolved in spirit or wine; tincture of opium

Peremptory, pg. 88
Taken away, killed. Express; positive; absolute; decisive authoritative; in a manner to precluded debate or expostulation The orders of the commander are preemptory. Positive in opinion or judgment. The genuine effect of sound learning is to make men less peremptory in their determinations. Final determinate. Peremptory challenge in law, a challenge of right of challenging jurors without showing cause.

Pertinacious, pg. 404
Holding or adhering to any opinion, purpose or design; obstinate; perversely resolute or persistent; resolute; firm; constant; steady

Poltroon, pg. 403
An idle fellow, a coward; a lazy fellow, to sleep; to be idle

Pugnacious, pg. 86
A fight; from pugnus, the fist. Disposed to fight; inclined to fighting; quarrelsome; fighting

Quadrant, pg. 366
An instrument for taking the altitudes of the sun or stars, or great use in astronomy and navigation. Quadrants are variously made, but they all consist of the quarter of a circle whose limb is divide into ninety degrees;

Singular, pg. 232
Single; not complex or compound. The idea which represent one determinate things I called a singular idea, whether simple, complex or compound. In grammar expressing one person or thing. Particular; existing by itself; unexampled; as a singular phenomenon. Your case is hard, but not singular. Remarkable,; eminent; unusual; rare; as a man of singular, gravity or singular attainments. Not common; odd, implying something censurable or not approved. Being alone that of which there is but one.

Tilbury, pg. 262 (couldn’t find)