Moby-Dick or, The Whale - PDF
Moby-Dick

Herman Melville

Chapter 36

CHAPTER 36

The Quarter-Deck
(Enter Ahab: Then, all)
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 garden.

Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced his old
rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all over dented,
like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk. Did you fixedly
gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also, you would see still
stranger foot-prints—the foot-prints of his one unsleeping, ever-pacing
thought.

But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even as his
nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so full of his thought
was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made, now at the main-mast
and now at the binnacle, you could almost see that thought turn in him as he
turned, and pace in him as he paced; so completely possessing him, indeed,
that it all but seemed the inward mould of every outer movement.

“D’ye mark him, Flask?” whispered Stubb; “the chick that’s in him pecks
the shell. ‘Twill soon be out.”

The hours wore on;—Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon, pacing
the deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his aspect.

It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the bulwarks,
and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and with one hand
grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody aft.

“Sir!” said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given on
ship-board except in some extraordinary case.

“Send everybody aft,” repeated Ahab. “Mast-heads, there! come down!”
When the entire ship’s company were assembled, and with curious and

not wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked not unlike
the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab, after rapidly
glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes among the crew,
started from his standpoint; and as though not a soul were nigh him
resumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent head and half-slouched
hat he continued to pace, unmindful of the wondering whispering among
the men; till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have
summoned them there for the purpose of witnessing a pedestrian feat. But
this did not last long. Vehemently pausing, he cried:—

“What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?”
“Sing out for him!” was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed

voices.
“Good!” cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the

hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically
thrown them.

“And what do ye next, men?”
“Lower away, and after him!”
“And what tune is it ye pull to, men?”
“A dead whale or a stove boat!”
More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the

countenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began to
gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was that they
themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions.

But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving in his
pivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and tightly, almost
convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:—

“All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a
white whale. Look ye! d’ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?”—holding up a
broad bright coin to the sun—”it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D’ye see it?
Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul.”

While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was
slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if to

heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly
humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and
inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his
vitality in him.

Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-
mast with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the
other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: “Whosoever of ye raises me
a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever
of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his
starboard fluke—look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale,
he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!”

“Huzza! huzza!” cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they
hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast.

“It’s a white whale, I say,” resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul:
“a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water; if
ye see but a bubble, sing out.”

All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even
more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention of the
wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was separately
touched by some specific recollection.

“Captain Ahab,” said Tashtego, “that white whale must be the same that
some call Moby Dick.”

“Moby Dick?” shouted Ahab. “Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?”
“Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?” said the Gay-

Header deliberately.
“And has he a curious spout, too,” said Daggoo, “very bushy, even for a

parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?”
“And he have one, two, tree—oh! good many iron in him hide, too,

Captain,” cried Queequeg disjointedly, “all twiske-tee be-twisk, like him—
him-” faltering hard for a word, and screwing his hand round and round as
though uncorking a bottle—”like him—him-”

“Corkscrew!” cried Ahab, “aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all twisted
and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like a whole
shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket wool after the great
annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a split jib in a

squall. Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have seen— Moby Dick
—Moby Dick!”

“Captain Ahab,” said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus far
been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last seemed struck
with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder. “Captain Ahab, I
have heard of Moby Dick—but it was not Moby Dick that took off thy
leg?”

“Who told thee that?” cried Ahab; then pausing, “Aye, Starbuck; aye, my
hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick that
brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye,” he shouted with a
terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose; “Aye, aye! it
was that accursed white whale that razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber
of me for ever and a day!” Then tossing both arms, with measureless
imprecations he shouted out: “Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good
Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round
perdition’s flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped
for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides
of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. What say ye, men, will
ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do look brave.”

“Aye, aye!” shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer to the
excited old man: “A sharp eye for the White Whale; a sharp lance for Moby
Dick!”

“God bless ye,” he seemed to half sob and half shout.
“God bless ye, men. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog.
But what’s this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not
chase the white whale! art not game for Moby Dick?”

“I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too,
Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow;
but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander’s vengeance.
How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it,
Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market.”

“Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou requirest a
little lower layer. If money’s to be the measurer, man, and the accountants
have computed their great counting-house the globe, by girdling it with
guineas, one to every three parts of an inch; then, let me tell thee, that my
vengeance will fetch a great premium here!”

“He smites his chest,” whispered Stubb, “what’s that for? methinks it
rings most vast, but hollow.”

“Vengeance on a dumb brute!” cried Starbuck, “that simply smote thee
from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, Captain
Ahab, seems blasphemous.”

“Hark ye yet again—the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are
but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the
undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth
the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will
strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except
by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved
near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough. He
tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable
malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the
white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate
upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted
me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a
sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my
master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no confines.
Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends’ glarings is a doltish stare!
So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow.
But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There
are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense
thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn—living,
breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan leopards—the unrecking
and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, and give no reasons for the
torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the crew! Are they not one and all with
Ahab, in this matter of the whale? See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder
Chilian! he snorts to think of it. Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy
one tost sapling cannot, Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. ‘Tis but to help
strike a fin; no wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one
poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang
back, when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone. Ah!
constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak!—
Aye, aye! thy silence, then, that voices thee. (Aside) Something shot from
my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine;
cannot oppose me now, without rebellion.”

“God keep me!—keep us all!” murmured Starbuck, lowly.
But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate, Ahab did

not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the low laugh from the hold; nor
yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in the cordage; nor yet the hollow
flap of the sails against the masts, as for a moment their hearts sank in. For
again Starbuck’s downcast eyes lighted up with the stubbornness of life; the
subterranean laugh died away; the winds blew on; the sails filled out; the
ship heaved and rolled as before. Ah, ye admonitions and warnings! why
stay ye not when ye come? But rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye
shadows! Yet not so much predictions from without, as verifications of the
fore-going things within. For with little external to constrain us, the
innermost necessities in our being, these still drive us on.

“The measure! the measure!” cried Ahab.
Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he

ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before him near
the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his three mates stood
at his side with their lances, and the rest of the ship’s company formed a
circle round the group; he stood for an instant searchingly eyeing every man
of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, as the bloodshot eyes of the prairie
wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail
of the bison; but, alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian.

“Drink and pass!” he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon to the
nearest seaman. “The crew alone now drink. Round with it, round! Short
draughts—long swallows, men; ’tis hot as Satan’s hoof. So, so; it goes round
excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks out at the serpent-snapping eye. Well
done; almost drained. That way it went, this way it comes. Hand it me—
here’s a hollow! Men, ye seem the years; so brimming life is gulped and
gone. Steward, refill!

“Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan; and
ye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye harpooneers, stand there with
your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I may in some sort revive
a noble custom of my fisherman fathers before me. O men, you will yet see
that—Ha! boy, come back? bad pennies come not sooner. Hand it me. Why,
now, this pewter had run brimming again, wert not thou St. Vitus’ imp—
away, thou ague!

“Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let me
touch the axis.” So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the three level,
radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so doing, suddenly and
nervously twitched them; meanwhile glancing intently from Starbuck to
Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some nameless, interior
volition, he would fain have shocked into them the same fiery emotion
accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own magnetic life. The three
mates quailed before his strong, sustained, and mystic aspect. Stubb and
Flask looked sideways from him; the honest eye of Starbuck fell downright.

“In vain!” cried Ahab; “but, maybe, ’tis well. For did ye three but once
take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing, that had perhaps
expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have dropped ye dead.
Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, ye mates, I do appoint ye
three cupbearers to my three pagan kinsmen there— yon three most
honorable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers. Disdain the
task? What, when the great Pope washes the feet of beggars, using his tiara
for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! your own condescension, that shall bend
ye to it. I do not order ye; ye will it. Cut your seizings and draw the poles,
ye harpooneers!”

Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the
detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held, barbs up,
before him.

“Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over! know ye
not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye cup-bearers,
advance. The irons! take them; hold them while I fill!” Forthwith, slowly
going from one officer to the other, he brimmed the harpoon sockets with
the fiery waters from the pewter.

“Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices!
Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league. Ha!
Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit upon it.
Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful
whaleboat’s bow— Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt
Moby Dick to his death!” The long, barbed steel goblets were lifted; and to
cries and maledictions against the white whale, the spirits were
simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss. Starbuck paled, and turned, and
shivered. Once more, and finally, the replenished pewter went the rounds

among the frantic crew; when, waving his free hand to them, they all
dispersed; and Ahab retired within his cabin.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101