App-PigLatin

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Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you

wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies--what is the one charm wanting?--

Water there is not a drop of water there!  Were Niagara but a

cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it?

Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls

of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed,

or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach?  Why is

almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him,

at some time or other crazy to go to sea?  Why upon your first voyage

as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration,

when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land?

Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy?  Why did the Greeks

give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove?  Surely all this

is not without meaning.  And still deeper the meaning of that story

of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting,

mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned.

But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans.

It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key

to it all.



Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin

to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs,

I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger.

For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but

a rag unless you have something in it.  Besides, passengers get sea-sick--

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, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain,

or a Cook.  I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices

to those who like them.  For my part, I abominate all honorable

respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever.

It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking

care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not.  And as for

going as cook,--though I confess there is considerable glory in that,

a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board--yet, somehow, I never

fancied broiling fowls;--though once broiled, judiciously buttered,

and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more

respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will.

It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled

ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures

in their huge bakehouses the pyramids.



No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast,

plumb down into the fore-castle, aloft there to the royal

mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me

jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow.

And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough.

It touches one's sense of honor, particularly if you come

of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers,

or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes.  And more than all, if just

previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been

lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys

stand in awe of you.  The transition is a keen one, I assure you,

from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction

of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it.

But even this wears off in time.



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?  Do you think

the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly

and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance?

Who ain't a slave?  Tell me that.  Well, then, however the old

sea-captains may order me about--however they may thump and punch

me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right;

that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way--

either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is;

and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub

each other's shoulder-blades, and be content.



Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make

a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never

pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of.

On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay.  And there is

all the difference in the world between paying and being paid.

The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction

that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us.  But being paid,--

what will compare with it?  The 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!



Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the

wholesome exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck.

For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds

from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim),

so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his

atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle.

He thinks he breathes it first; but not so.  In much the same

way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things,

at the same time that the leaders little suspect it.

But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt

the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my

head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police

officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me,

and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way--

he can better answer than any one else.  And, doubtless,

my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand

programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago.

It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more

extensive performances.  I take it that this part of the bill

must have run something like this:





  "Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.

                 "WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL."

                 "BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN."





Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers,

the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage,

when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies,

and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces--

though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall

all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and

motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises,

induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me

into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased

freewill and discriminating judgment.

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the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines,

has but two props to stand on.



Is it not a saying in every one's mouth, Possession is half of the law:

that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession?

But often possession is the whole of the law.  What are the sinews

and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish,

whereof possession is the whole of the law?  What to the rapacious

landlord is the widow's last mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder

undetected villain's marble mansion with a doorplate for a waif;

what is that but a Fast-Fish? What is the ruinous discount

which Mordecai, the broker, gets from the poor Woebegone,

the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone's family from starvation;

what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the Archbishop

of Savesoul's income of 100,000 pounds seized from the scant bread

and cheese of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers

(all sure of heaven without any of Savesoul's help) what is that globular

100,000 but a Fast-Fish. What are the Duke of Dunder's hereditary towns

and hamlets but Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull,

is poor Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic lancer,

Brother Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all these,

is not Possession the whole of the law?



But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable,

the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so.

That is internationally and universally applicable.



What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus

struck the Spanish standard by way of wailing it for his royal

master and mistress?  What was Poland to the Czar?  What Greece

to the Turk?  What India to England?  What at last will Mexico

be to the United States?  All Loose-Fish.



What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but

Loose-Fish? What all men's minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What

is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What

to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers

but Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And

what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?







CHAPTER 90



Heads or Tails





  "De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam."

                                      BRACTON, L. 3, C. 3.





Latin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along with

the context, means, that of all whales captured by anybody on the coast

of that land, the King, as Honorary Grand Harpooneer, must have

the head, and the Queen be respectfully presented with the tail.

A division which, in the whale, is much like halving an apple; there is

no intermediate remainder.  Now as this law, under a modified form,

is to this day in force in England; and as it offers in various respects

a strange anomaly touching the general law of Fast--and Loose-Fish,

it is here treated of in a separate chapter, on the same courteous

principle that prompts the English railways to be at the expense of a

separate car, specially reserved for the accommodation of royalty.

In the first place, in curious proof of the fact that the above-mentioned

law is still in force, I proceed to lay before you a circumstance-that

happened within the last two years.



It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich,

or some one of the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded

in killing and beaching a fine whale which they had originally

descried afar off from the shore.  Now the Cinque Ports are

partially or somehow under the jurisdiction of a sort of policeman

or beadle, called a Lord Warden.  Holding the office directly

from the crown, I believe, all the royal emoluments incident

to the Cinque Port territories become by assignment his.

By some writers this office is called a sinecure.  But not so.

Because the Lord Warden is busily employed at times in fobbing

his perquisites; which are his chiefly by virtue of that same

fobbing of them.



Now when these poor sun-burnt mariners, bare-footed, and with their

trowsers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wearily hauled

their fat fish high and dry, promising themselves a good 150 pounds

from the precious oil and bone; and in fantasy sipping rare tea

with their wives, and good ale with their cronies, upon the strength

of their respective shares; up steps a very learned and most Christian

and charitable gentleman, with a copy of Blackstone under his arm;

and laying it upon the whale's head, he says--"Hands off! this fish,

my masters, is a Fast-Fish. I seize it as the Lord Warden's." Upon this

the poor mariners in their respectful consternation--so truly English--

knowing not what to say, fall to vigorously scratching their heads

all round; meanwhile ruefully glancing from the whale to the stranger.

But that did in nowise mend the matter, or at all soften the hard heart

of the learned gentleman with the copy of Blackstone.  At length one

of them, after long scratching about for his ideas, made bold to speak,



"Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden?"



"The Duke."



"But the duke had nothing to do with taking this fish?"



"It is his."



"We have been at great trouble, and peril, and some expense,

and is all that to go to the Duke's benefit; we getting nothing

at all for our pains but our blisters?"



"It is his."



"Is the Duke so very poor as to be forced to this desperate mode

of getting a livelihood?"



"It is his."



"I thought to relieve my old bed-ridden mother by part of my share

of this whale."



"It is his."



"Won't the Duke be content with a quarter or a half?"

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and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom of a well.

And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor pagan;

where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings,

he caught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever;

and at last, after some days' suffering, laid him in his hammock,

close to the very sill of the door of death.  How he wasted

and wasted away in those few long-lingering days, till there

seemed but little left of him but his frame and tattooing.

But as all else in him thinned, and his cheek-bones grew sharper,

his eyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller and fuller;

they became of a strange softness of lustre; and mildly but

deeply looked out at you there from his sickness, a wondrous

testimony to that immortal health in him which could not die,

or be weakened.  And like circles on the water, which, as they

grow fainter, expand; so his eyes seemed rounding and rounding,

like the rings of Eternity.  An awe that cannot be named would

steal over you as you sat by the side of this waning savage,

and saw as strange things in his face, as any beheld who were

bystanders when Zoroaster died.  For whatever is truly wondrous

and fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books.

And the drawing near of Death, which alike levels all,

alike impresses all with a last revelation, which only an author

from the dead could adequately tell.  So that--let us say it again--

no dying Chaldee or Greek had higher and holier thoughts

than those, whose mysterious shades you saw creeping over the face

of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his swaying hammock,

and the rolling sea seemed gently rocking him to his final rest,

and the ocean's invisible flood-tide lifted him higher and higher

towards his destined heaven.



Not a man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg himself,

what he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious

favor he asked.  He called one to him in the grey morning watch,

when the day was just breaking, and taking his hand,

said that while in Nantucket he had chanced to see certain little

canoes of dark wood, like the rich war-wood of his native isle;

and upon inquiry, he had learned that all whalemen who died

in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark canoes, and that the fancy

of being so laid had much pleased him; for it was not unlike

the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead warrior,

stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated

away to the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe

that the stars are isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons,

their own mild, uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens;

and so form the white breakers of the milky way.  He added,

that he shuddered at the thought of being buried in his hammock,

according to the usual sea-custom, tossed like something vile

to the death-devouring sharks.  No:  he desired a canoe like those

of Nantucket, all the more congenial to him, being a whaleman,

that like a whale-boat these coffin-canoes were without a keel;

though that involved but uncertain steering, and much lee-way

adown the dim ages.



Now, when this strange circumstance was made known aft,

the carpenter was at once commanded to do Queequeg's bidding,

whatever it might include.  There was some heathenish,

coffin-colored old lumber aboard, which, upon a long previous voyage,

had been cut from the aboriginal groves of the Lackaday islands,

and from these dark planks the coffin was recommended to be made.

No sooner was the carpenter apprised of the order, than taking

his rule, he forthwith with all the indifferent promptitude

of his character, proceeded into the forecastle and took

Queequeg's measure with great accuracy, regularly chalking

Queequeg's person as he shifted the rule.



"Ah! poor fellow! he'll have to die now," ejaculated the

Long Island sailor.



Going to his vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience sake

and general reference, now transferringly measured on it

the exact length the coffin was to be, and then made the transfer

permanent by cutting two notches at its extremities.

This done, he marshalled the planks and his tools, and to work.



When the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and fitted,

he lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it,

inquiring whether they were ready for it yet in that direction.



Overhearing the indignant but half-humorous cries with which

the people on deck began to drive the coffin away, Queequeg,

to every one's consternation, commanded that the thing should

be instantly brought to him, nor was there any denying him;

seeing that, of all mortals, some dying men are the most tyrannical;

and certainly, since they will shortly trouble us so little

for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be indulged.



Leaning over in his hammock, Queequeg long regarded the coffin

with an attentive eye.  He then called for his harpoon,

had the wooden stock drawn from it, and then had the iron part

placed in the coffin along with one of the paddles of his boat.

All by his own request, also, biscuits were then ranged round

the sides within; a flask of fresh water was placed at the head,

and a small bag of woody earth scraped up in the hold at the foot;

and a piece of sail-cloth being rolled up for a pillow,

Queequeg now entreated to be lifted into his final bed,

that he might make trial of its comforts, if any it had.

He lay without moving a few minutes, then told one to go

to his bag and bring out his little god, Yojo.  Then crossing

his arms on his breast with Yojo between, he called for

the coffin lid (hatch he called it) to be placed over him.

The head part turned over with a leather hinge, and there lay

Queequeg in his coffin with little but his composed countenance

in view.  "Rarmai" (it will do; it is easy), he murmured at last,

and signed to be replaced in his hammock.



But ere this was done, Pip, who had been slily hovering near by all

the while, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with soft sobbings,

took him by the hand; in the other, holding his tambourine.



"Poor rover! will ye never have done with all this weary roving?

Where go ye now?  But if the currents carry ye to those sweet Antilles

where the beaches are only beat with water-lilies, will ye do one

little errand for me?  Seek out one Pip, who's now been missing long:

I think he's in those far Antilles.  If ye find him, then comfort him;

for he must be very sad; for look! he's left his tambourine behind;--

I found it.  Rig-a-dig, dig, dig!  Now, Queequeg, die; and I'll beat

ye your dying march."



"I have heard," murmured Starbuck, gazing down the scuttle, "that in

violent fevers, men, all ignorance, have talked in ancient tongues;

and that when the mystery is probed, it turns out always