CHAPTER 99
The Doubloon
Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his quarter-deck,
taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle and mainmast; but in the
multiplicity of other things requiring narration it has not been added how
that sometimes in these walks, when most plunged in his mood, he was
wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely eyeing the
particular object before him. When he halted before the binnacle, with his
glance fastened on the pointed needle in the compass, that glance shot like a
javelin with the pointed intensity of his purpose; and when resuming his
walk he again paused before the mainmast, then, as the same riveted glance
fastened upon the riveted gold coin there, he still wore the same aspect of
nailed firmness, only dashed with a certain wild longing, if not hopefulness.
But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly
attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as though
now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in some
monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them. And some
certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth, and
the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by the cartload, as
they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in the Milky Way.
Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of
the heart of gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden sands, the
head-waters of many a Pactolus flows. And though now nailed amidst all
the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes, yet,
untouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it still preserved its Quito
glow. Nor, though placed amongst a ruthless crew and every hour passed by
ruthless hands, and through the livelong nights shrouded with thick
darkness which might cover any pilfering approach, nevertheless every
sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset last left it last. For it was set
apart and sanctified to one awe-striking end; and however wanton in their
sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as the white whale’s
talisman. Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch by night,
wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he would ever live to
spend it.
Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the sun
and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes; sun’s disks and
stars, ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich banners waving, are in luxuriant
profusion stamped; so that the precious gold seems almost to derive an
added preciousness and enhancing glories, by passing through those fancy
mints, so Spanishly poetic.
It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy
example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters,
REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a
country planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator,
and named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the
unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters 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 the Cannibal? As I
live he’s comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone; thinks the sun is in the
thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I suppose, as the old women talk
Surgeon’s Astronomy in the back country. And by Jove, he’s found
something there in the vicinity of his thigh— I guess it’s Sagittarius, or the
Archer. No: he don’t know what to make of the doubloon; he takes it for an
old button off some king’s trowsers. But, aside again! here comes that
ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail coiled out of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of
his pumps as usual. What does he say, with that look of his? Ah, only makes
a sign to the sign and bows himself; there is a sun on the coin— fire
worshipper, depend upon it. Ho! more and more. This way comes Pip—
poor boy! would he had died, or I; he’s half horrible to me. He too has been
watching all of these interpreters myself included— and look now, he
comes to read, with that unearthly idiot face. Stand away again and hear
him. Hark!”
“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.”
“Upon my soul, he’s been studying Murray’s Grammar! Improving his
mind, poor fellow! But what’s that he says now—hist!”
“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.”
“Why, he’s getting it by heart—hist! again.”
“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.”
“Well, that’s funny.”
“And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I’m a crow,
especially when I stand a’top of this pine tree here. Caw! caw! caw! caw!
caw! caw! Ain’t I a crow? And where’s the scare-crow? There he stands; two
bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and two more poked into the sleeves
of an old jacket.”
“Wonder if he means me?—complimentary—poor lad!—I could go hang
myself. Any way, for the present, I’ll quit Pip’s vicinity. I can stand the rest,
for they have plain wits; but he’s too crazy-witty for my sanity. So, so, I
leave him muttering.”
“Here’s the ship’s navel, this doubloon here, and they are all one fire to
unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what’s the consequence? Then
again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught’s nailed to the mast
it’s a sign that things grow desperate. Ha! ha! old Ahab! the White Whale;
he’ll nail ye! This is a pine tree. My father, in old Tolland county, cut down
a pine tree once, and found a silver ring grown over in it; some old darkey’s
wedding ring. How did it get there? And so they’ll say in the resurrection,
when they come to fish up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it,
with bedded oysters for the shaggy bark. Oh, the gold! the precious,
precious gold!—the green miser’ll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes
‘mong the worlds blackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey,
hey, hey, hey, hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!”
