view release on metacpan or  search on metacpan

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

of Greenland, in former times, of a Dutch village called

Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used

by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great work on Smells,

a text-book on that subject.  As its name imports (smeer, fat;

berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford

a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out,

without being taken home to Holland for that purpose.

It was a collection of furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds;

and when the works were in full operation certainly gave forth

no very pleasant savor.  But all this is quite different

from a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a voyage of four

years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil,

does not, perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boiling out;

and in the state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless.

The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently treated,

whales as a species are by no means creatures of ill odor;

nor can whalemen be recognised, as the people of the middle

ages affected to detect a Jew in the company, by the nose.

Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant,

when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high health;

taking abundance of exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true,

seldom in the open air.  I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's

flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented

lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor.  What then shall I liken

the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude?

Must it not be to that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks,

and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town

to do honor to Alexander the Great?







CHAPTER 93



The Castaway





It was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that a most

significant event befell the most insignificant of the Pequod's crew;

an event most lamentable; and which ended in providing the sometimes

madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying

prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own.



Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats.

Some few hands are reserved called shipkeepers, whose province it

is to work the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale.

As a general thing, these 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 ship-keeper. It was so in the Pequod

with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by abbreviation.

Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before; ye must remember his tambourine

on that dramatic midnight, so gloomy-jolly.



In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony

and a white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar color,

driven in one eccentric span.  But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature

dull and torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted,

was at bottom very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness

peculiar to his tribe; a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays

and festivities with finer, freer relish than any other race.

For blacks, the year's calendar should show naught but three hundred

and sixty-five Fourth of Julys and New Year's Days.  Nor smile so,

while I write that this little black was brilliant, for even blackness has

its brilliancy; behold yon lustrous ebony, panelled in king's cabinets.

But Pip loved life, and all life's peaceable securities; so that

the panic-striking business in which he had somehow unaccountably

become entrapped, had most sadly blurred his brightness; though, as ere

long will be seen, what was thus temporarily subdued in him,

in the end was destined to be luridly illumined by strange wild fires,

that fictitiously showed him off to ten times the natural lustre

with which in his native Tolland County in Connecticut, he had once

enlivened many a fiddler's frolic on the green; and at melodious

even-tide, with his gay ha-ha! had turned the round horizon into

one star-belled tambourine.  So, though in the clear air of day,

suspended against a blue-veined neck, the pure-watered diamond drop will

healthful glow; yet, when the cunning jeweller would show you the diamond

in its most impressive lustre, he lays it against a gloomy ground,

and then lights it up, not by the sun, but by some unnatural gases.

Then come out those fiery effulgences, infernally superb; then the

evil-blazing diamond, once the divinest symbol of the crystal skies,

looks like some crown-jewel stolen from the King of Hell.  But let

us to the story.



It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb's after-oarsman

chanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to become quite maimed;

and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place.



The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much nervousness;

but happily, for that time, escaped close contact with the whale;

and therefore came off not altogether discreditably; though Stubb

observing him, took care, afterwards, to exhort him to cherish his

courageousness to the utmost, for he might often find it needful.



Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale;

and as the fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap,

which happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip's seat.

The involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap,

paddle in hand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack

whale line coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him,

so as to become entangled in it, when at last plumping into the water.

That instant the stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line

swiftly straightened; and presto! poor Pip came all foaming up

to the chocks of the boat, remorselessly dragged there by the line,

which had taken several turns around his chest and neck.



Tashtego stood in the bows.  He was full of the fire of the hunt.

He hated Pip for a poltroon.  Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath,

he suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb,

exclaimed interrogatively, "Cut?"  Meantime Pip's blue, choked face

plainly looked, Do, for God's sake!  All passed in a flash.

In less than half a minute, this entire thing happened.



"Damn him, cut!" roared Stubb; and so the whale was lost

and Pip was saved.



So soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was assailed

by yells and execrations from the crew.  Tranquilly permitting

these irregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in a plain,

business-like, but still half humorous manner, cursed Pip officially;

and that done, unofficially gave him much wholesome advice.

The substance was, Never jump from a boat, Pip, except--but all

t/files/moby11.txt  view on Meta::CPAN

you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame;

a tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching

over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all

marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering

the equinoctial point at Libra.



Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others,

was now pausing.



"There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops

and towers, and all other grand and lofty things; look here,--

three peaks as proud as Lucifer.  The firm tower, that is Ahab;

the volcano, that is Ahab; the courageous, the undaunted,

and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab;

and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe,

which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn

but mirrors back his own mysterious self.  Great pains,

small gains for those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot

solve itself.  Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face;

but see! aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox!

and but six months before he wheeled out of a former equinox

at Aries!  From storm to storm!  So be it, then.  Born in throes,

't is fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs!

So be it, then!  Here's stout stuff for woe to work on.

So be it, then."



"No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's

claws must have left their mouldings there since yesterday,"

murmured Starbuck to himself, leaning against the bulwarks.

"The old man seems to read Belshazzar's awful writing.

I have never marked the coin inspectingly.  He goes below; let me read.

A dark valley between three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks,

that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint earthly symbol.

So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over all our gloom,

the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope.

If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil;

but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer.

Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we would

fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain!

This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me.

I will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely."



"There now's the old Mogul," soliloquized Stubb by the try-works,

"he's been twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the same,

and both with faces which I should say might be somewhere

within nine fathoms long.  And all from looking at a piece

of gold, which did I have it now on Negro Hill or in

Corlaer's Hook, I'd not look at it very long ere spending it.

Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion, I regard this as queer.

I have seen doubloons before now in my voyagings; your doubloons

of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili,

your doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan;

with plenty of gold moidores and pistoles, and joes,

and half joes, and quarter joes.  What then should there be

in this doubloon of the Equator that is so killing wonderful?

By Golconda! let me read it once.  Halloa! here's signs and

wonders truly!  That, now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome

calls the zodiac, and what my almanack below calls ditto.

I'll get the almanack; and as I have heard devils can be raised

with Daboll's arithmetic, I'll try my hand at raising a meaning

out of these queer curvicues here with the Massachusetts calendar.

Here's the book.  Let's see now.  Signs and wonders;

and the sun, he's always among 'em.  Hem, hem, hem; here they are--

here they go--all alive:  Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the Bull

and Jimimi! here's Gemini himself, or the Twins.  Well; the sun

he wheels among 'em.  Aye, here on the coin he's just crossing

the threshold between two of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring.

Book! you lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places.

You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come

in to supply the thoughts.  That's my small experience,

so far as the Massachusetts calendar, and Bowditch's navigator,

and Daboll's arithmetic go.  Signs and wonders, eh?  Pity if there

is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders!

There's a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist--hark!  By Jove, I have it!

Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one

round chapter; and now I'll read it off, straight out of the book.

Come, Almanack!  To begin:  there's Aries, or the Ram--

lecherous dog, he begets us; then, Taurus, or the Bull--

he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins--

that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue,

when lo! comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here,

going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path--

he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his paw;

we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our first love;

we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra,

or the Scales--happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we

are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio,

or the Scorpion, stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound,

when whang comes the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer,

is amusing himself.  As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside!

here's the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt,

he comes rushing, and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius,

or the Waterbearer, pours out his whole deluge and drowns us;

and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we sleep.

There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through

it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty.

Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and so,

alow here, does jolly Stubb.  Oh, jolly's the word for aye!

Adieu, Doubloon!  But stop; here comes little King-Post;

dodge round the try-works, now, and let's hear what he'll have

to say.  There; he's before it; he'll out with something presently.

So, so; he's beginning."



"I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and whoever raises

a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him.  So, what's all

this staring been about?  It is worth sixteen dollars, that's true;

and at two cents the cigar, that's nine hundred and sixty cigars.

I won't smoke dirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and here's nine

hundred and sixty of them; so here goes Flask aloft to spy 'em out."



"Shall I call that Wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it has

a foolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a sort

of wiseish look to it.  But, avast; here comes our old Manxman--the old

hearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before he took to the sea.

He luffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and goes round on the other

side of the mast; why, there's a horse-shoe nailed on that side;

and now he's back again; what does that mean?  Hark! he's muttering--

voice like an old worn-out coffee-mill. Prick ears, and listen!"



"If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day,

when the sun stands in some one of these signs.  I've studied signs,

and know their marks; they were taught me two score years ago,

by the old witch in Copenhagen.  Now, in what sign will the sun then be?

The horse-shoe sign; for there it is, right opposite the gold.

And what's the horse-shoe sign?  The lion is the horse-shoe sign--

the roaring and devouring lion.  Ship, old ship! my old head shakes

to think of thee."



"There's another rendering now; but still one text.  All sorts of men

in one kind of world, you see.  Dodge again! here comes Queequeg--

all tattooing--looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself.  What says