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Epilogue



       "AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE"

                                            Job.



The drama's done.  Why then here does any one step forth?--

Because one did survive the wreck.





It so chanced, that after the Parsee's disappearance, I was

he whom the Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab's bowsman,

when that bowsman assumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on

the last day the three men were tossed from out of the rocking boat,

was dropped astern.  So, floating on the margin of the ensuing scene,

and in full sight of it, when the halfspent suction of the sunk ship

reached me, I was then, but slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex.

When I reached it, it had subsided to a creamy pool.

Round and round, then, and ever contracting towards the button-like

black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling circle,

like another Ixion I did revolve.  Till, gaining that vital centre,

the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by reason of its

cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great force,

the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over,

and floated by my side.  Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost

one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main.

The unharming sharks, they glided by as if with padlocks on

their mouths; the savage sea-hawks sailed with sheathed beaks.

On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last.

It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search

after her missing children, only found another orphan.











  ETYMOLOGY



  (Supplied by a Late Consumptive Usher to a Grammar School)



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 mortality.



  "While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by

what name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue leaving out,

through ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh the

signification of the word, you deliver that which is not true."

    --HACKLUYT



  "WHALE. ... Sw. and Dan. hval. This animal is named from roundness

or rolling; for in Dan. hvalt is arched or vaulted."

    --WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY



  "WHALE. ... It is more immediately from the Dut. and Ger.

Wallen; A.S. Walw-ian, to roll, to wallow."

    --RICHARDSON'S DICTIONARY



          KETOS,               Greek.

          CETUS,               Latin.

          WHOEL,               Anglo-Saxon.

          HVALT,               Danish.

          WAL,                 Dutch.

          HWAL,                Swedish.

          WHALE,               Icelandic.

          WHALE,               English.

          BALEINE,             French.

          BALLENA,             Spanish.

          PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE,     Fegee.

          PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE,     Erromangoan.





  EXTRACTS

  (Supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian)



It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm

of a poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long

Vaticans and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random

allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever,

sacred or profane.  therefore you must not, in every case at least,

take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic,

in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology.  Far from it.

As touching the ancient authors generally, as well as the poets

here appearing, these extracts are solely valuable or entertaining,

as affording a glancing bird's eye view of what has been

promiscuously said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan,

by many nations and generations, including our own.



So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am.

Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world

will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong;

but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too;

and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them bluntly, with full

eyes and empty glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness--

Give it up, Sub-Subs! For by how much more pains ye take to please

the world, by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless!

Would that I could clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye!

But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the royal-mast with

your hearts; for your friends who have gone before are clearing

out the seven-storied heavens, and making refugees of long

pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming.

Here ye strike but splintered hearts together--there, ye shall

strike unsplinterable glasses!



  "And God created great whales."

  --GENESIS.



  "Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him;

  One would think the deep to be hoary."

  --JOB.



  "Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah."

  --JONAH.



  "There go the ships; there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made

to play therein."

  --PSALMS.



  "In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword,

shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that

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  "Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise a

great many Whales and other monsters of the sea, appeared. Among the

former, one was of a most monstrous size. ... This came towards us,

open-mouthed, raising the waves on all sides, and beating the sea

before him into a foam."

  --TOOKE'S LUCIAN. "THE TRUE HISTORY."



  "He visited this country also with a view of catching

horse-whales, which had bones of very great value for their teeth,

of which he brought some to the king. ... The best whales were

catched in his own country, of which some were forty-eight, some fifty

yards long. He said that he was one of six who had killed sixty in two

days."

  --OTHER OR OCTHER'S VERBAL NARRATIVE TAKEN DOWN FROM

HIS MOUTH BY KING ALFRED, A.D. 890.



  "And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that

enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster's (whale's) mouth, are

immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it

in great security, and there sleeps."

  --MONTAIGNE. - APOLOGY FOR RAIMOND SEBOND.



  "Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if is not Leviathan

described by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job."

  --RABELAIS.



  "This whale's liver was two cartloads."

  --STOWE'S ANNALS.



  "The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling

pan."

  --LORD BACON'S VERSION OF THE PSALMS.



  "Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received

nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an

incredible quantity of oil will be extracted out of one whale."

  --IBID. "HISTORY OF LIFE AND DEATH."



  "The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an inward

bruise."

  --KING HENRY.



  "Very like a whale."

  --HAMLET.



    "Which to secure, no skill of leach's art

    Mote him availle, but to returne againe

    To his wound's worker, that with lowly dart,

    Dinting his breast, had bred his restless paine,

    Like as the wounded whale to shore flies thro' the maine."

  --THE FAERIE QUEEN.



  "Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a

peaceful calm trouble the ocean til it boil."

  --SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. PREFACE TO GONDIBERT.



  "What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned

Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, Nescio quid

sit."

  --SIR T. BROWNE. OF SPERMA CETI AND THE SPERMA CETI WHALE. VIDE HIS V. E.



    "Like Spencer's Talus with his modern flail

    He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail.

      ...

    Their fixed jav'lins in his side he wears,

    And on his back a grove of pikes appears."

  --WALLER'S BATTLE OF THE SUMMER ISLANDS.



  "By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth or

State--(in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man."

  --OPENING SENTENCE OF HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN.



  "Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a

sprat in the mouth of a whale."

  --PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.



            "That sea beast

    Leviathan, which God of all his works

    Created hugest that swim the ocean stream."

  --PARADISE LOST.



            "There Leviathan,

    Hugest of living creatures, in the deep

    Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims,

    And seems a moving land; and at his gills

    Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea."

  --IBID.



  "The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of

oil swimming in them."

  --FULLLER'S PROFANE AND HOLY STATE.



    "So close behind some promontory lie

      The huge Leviathan to attend their prey,

    And give no chance, but swallow in the fry,

      Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way."

  --DRYDEN'S ANNUS MIRABILIS.



  "While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they cut

off his head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will

come; but it will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet water."

  --THOMAS EDGE'S TEN VOYAGES TO SPITZBERGEN, IN PURCHAS.



  "In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in

wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which

nature has placed on their shoulders."

  --SIR T. HERBERT'S VOYAGES INTO ASIA AND AFRICA.  HARRIS COLL.



  "Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced

to proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their

ship upon them."

  --SCHOUTEN'S SIXTH CIRCUMNAVIGATION.



  "We set sail from the Elbe, wind N. E. in the ship called The

Jonas-in-the-Whale. ...

  Some say the whale can't open his mouth, but that is a fable. ...

  They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they can see a

whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains. ...

  I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel

of herrings in his belly. ...

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then towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves

behind the whale, in order to avoid being seen by us."

  --COOK'S VOYAGES.



  "The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in

so great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid

to mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood,

and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to

terrify and prevent their too near approach."

  --UNO VON TROIL'S LETTERS ON BANKS'S AND SOLANDER'S

VOYAGE TO ICELAND IN 1772.



  "The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce

animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen."

  --THOMAS JEFFERSON'S WHALE MEMORIAL TO THE FRENCH MINISTER IN 1778.



  "And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it?"

  --EDMUND BURKE'S REFERENCE IN PARLIAMENT TO THE NANTUCKET WHALE-FISHERY.



  "Spain--a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe."

  --EDMUND BURKE. (SOMEWHERE.)



  "A tenth branch of the king's ordinary revenue, said to be

grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the

seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are

whale and sturgeon. And these, when either thrown ashore or caught

near the coast, are the property of the king."

  --BLACKSTONE.



    "Soon to the sport of death the crews repair:

    Rodmond unerring o'er his head suspends

    The barbed steel, and every turn attends."

  --FALCONER'S SHIPWRECK.



    "Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires,

      And rockets blew self driven,

    To hang their momentary fire

      Around the vault of heaven.



    "So fire with water to compare,

      The ocean serves on high,

    Up-spouted by a whale in air,

      To express unwieldy joy."

  --COWPER, ON THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO LONDON.



  "Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a

stroke, with immense velocity."

  --JOHN HUNTER'S ACCOUNT OF THE DISSECTION OF A WHALE.  (A SMALL SIZED ONE.)



  "The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of

the water-works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage

through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood

gushing from the whale's heart."

  --PALEY'S THEOLOGY.



  "The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet."

  --BARON CUVIER.



  "In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but did not take

any till the first of May, the sea being then covered with them."

  --COLNETT'S VOYAGE FOR THE PURPOSE OF EXTENDING THE SPERMACETI

WHALE FISHERY.



    "In the free element beneath me swam,

    Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle,

    Fishes of every color, form, and kind;

    Which language cannot paint, and mariner

    Had never seen; from dread Leviathan

    To insect millions peopling every wave:

    Gather'd in shoals immense, like floating islands,

    Led by mysterious instincts through that waste

    And trackless region, though on every side

    Assaulted by voracious enemies,

    Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm'd in front or jaw,

    With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs."

  --MONTGOMERY'S WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD.



    "Io! Paean! Io! sing.

    To the finny people's king.

    Not a mightier whale than this

    In the vast Atlantic is;

    Not a fatter fish than he,

    Flounders round the Polar Sea."

  --CHARLES LAMB'S TRIUMPH OF THE WHALE.



  "In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observing the

whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed:

there--pointing to the sea--is a green pasture where our children's

grand-children will go for bread."

  --OBED MACY'S HISTORY OF NANTUCKET.



  "I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway in the

form of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale's jaw bones."

  --HAWTHORNE'S TWICE TOLD TALES.



  "She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been

killed by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty years ago."

  --IBID.



  "No, Sir, 'tis a Right Whale," answered Tom; "I saw his sprout; he

threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to

look at. He's a raal oil-butt, that fellow!"

  --COOPER'S PILOT.



  "The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette that

whales had been introduced on the stage there."

  --ECKERMANN'S CONVERSATIONS WITH GOETHE.



  "My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter?" I answered, "we have been

stove by a whale."

  --"NARRATIVE OF THE SHIPWRECK OF THE WHALE SHIP ESSEX OF

NANTUCKET, WHICH WAS ATTACKED AND FINALLY DESTROYED BY

A LARGE SPERM WHALE IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN." BY OWEN

CHACE OF NANTUCKET, FIRST MATE OF SAID VESSEL. NEW

YORK, 1821.



    "A mariner sat in the shrouds one night,

      The wind was piping free;

    Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale,

    And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale,

      As it floundered in the sea."