Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

by Herman Melville

  CHAPTER 58

  Brit

  Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadowsof brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right Whalelargely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undulated round us,so that we seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripeand golden wheat.

  On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure fromthe attack of a Sperm-Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws sluggishlyswam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing fibres of thatwondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner separatedfrom the water that escaped at the lips.

  As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advancetheir scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads;even so these monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound;and leaving behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.*

  *That part of the sea known among whalemen as the "Brazil Banks"does not bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do,because of there being shallows and soundings there, but becauseof this remarkable meadow-like appearance, caused by the vastdrifts of brit continually floating in those latitudes,where the Right Whale is often chased.

  But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which atall reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especiallywhen they paused and were stationary for a while, their vast blackforms looked more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else.And as in the great hunting countries of India, the strangerat a distance will sometimes pass on the plains recumbentelephants without knowing them to be such, taking them for bare,blackened elevations of the soil; even so, often, with him, who forthe first time beholds this species of the leviathans of the sea.And even when recognized at last, their immense magnitude rendersit very hard really to believe that such bulky masses of overgrowthcan possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort of lifethat lives in a dog or a horse.

  Indeed. in other respects, you can hardly regard any creaturesof the deep with the same feelings that you do those of the shore.For though some old naturalists have maintained that all creaturesof the land are of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broadgeneral view of the thing, this may very well be; yet comingto specialties, where, for example, does the ocean furnish any fishthat in disposition answers to the sagacious kindness of the dog?The accursed shark alone can in any generic respect be said to bearcomparative analogy to him.

  But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the seashave ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and repelling;though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita,so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discoverhis one superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the mostterrific of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminatelybefallen tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone uponthe waters; though but a moment's consideration will teach that,however baby man may brag of his science and skill, and however much,in a flattering future, that science and skill may augment;yet for ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insultand murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigatehe can make; nevertheless, by the continual repetition of thesevery impressions, man has lost that sense of the full awfulnessof the sea which aboriginally belongs to it.

  The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguesevengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a widow.That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the wrecked shipsof last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided;two thirds of the fair world it yet covers.

  Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle uponone is not a miracle upon the other? Preternatural terrorsrested upon the Hebrews, when under the feet of Korah and hiscompany the live ground opened and swallowed them up for ever;yet not a modern sun ever sets, but in precisely the same mannerthe live sea swallows up ships and crews.

  But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an aliento it, but it is also a fiend to its own off-spring;worse than the Persian host who murdered his own guests;sparing not the creatures which itself hath spawned.Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays herown cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales againstthe rocks, and leaves them there side by side with the splitwrecks of ships. No mercy, no power but its own controls it.Panting and snorting like a mad battle steed that has lostits rider, the masterless ocean overruns the globe.

  Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreadedcreatures glide under water, unapparent for the most part,and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure.Consider also the devilish brilliance and beauty of many ofits most remorseless tribes, as the dainty embellished shapeof many species of sharks. Consider once more, the universalcannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other,carrying on eternal war since the world began.

  Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and mostdocile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land;and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself?For as this appalling ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soulof man there lies one insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy,but encompassed by all the horrors of the half known life.God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst never return!

  CHAPTER 59

  Squid

  Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod stillheld on her way north-eastward towards the island of Java;a gentle air impelling her keel, so that in the surroundingserenity her three tall tapering masts mildly wavedto that languid breeze, as three mild palms on a plain.And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely,alluring jet would be seen.

  But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almostpreternatural spread over the sea, however unattended with anystagnant calm; when the long burnished sun-glade on the watersseemed a golden finger laid across them, enjoining some secrecy;when the slippered waves whispered together as they softly ran on;in this profound hush of the visible sphere a strange spectrewas seen by Daggoo from the main-mast-head.

  In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higherand higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamedbefore our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills.Thus glistening for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank.Then once more arose, and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale;and yet is this Moby Dick? thought Daggoo. Again the phantomwent down, but on re-appearing once more, with a stiletto-likecry that startled every man from his nod, the negro yelledout--"There! there again! there she breaches! right ahead!The White Whale, the White Whale!"

  Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in swarming-timethe bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in the sultry sun,Ahab stood on the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behindin readiness to wave his orders to the helmsman, cast his eagerglance in the direction indicated aloft by the outstretchedmotionless arm of Daggoo.

  Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitaryjet had gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now preparedto connect the ideas of mildness and repose with the first sightof the particular whale he pursued; however this was, or whetherhis eagerness betrayed him; whichever way it might have been,no sooner did he distinctly perceive the white mass, than witha quick intensity he instantly gave orders for lowering.

  The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab's in advance,and all swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down,and while, with oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance,lo! in the same spot where it sank, once more it slowly rose.Almost forgetting for the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick,we now gazed at the most wondrous phenomenon which the secretseas have hitherto revealed to mankind. A vast pulpy mass,furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing cream-color, layfloating on the water, innumerable long arms radiating fromits centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas,as if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach.No perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable tokeno
f either sensation or instinct; but undulated there on the billows,an unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.

  As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again,Starbuck still gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk,with a wild voice exclaimed--"Almost rather had I seen Moby Dickand fought him, than to have seen thee, thou white ghost!"

  "What was it, Sir?" said Flask.

  "The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld,and returned to their ports to tell of it."

  But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel;the rest as silently following.

  Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have connectedwith the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse of itbeing so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest itwith portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that though one and allof them declare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean,yet very few of them have any but the most vague ideas concerningits true nature and form; notwithstanding, they believe it to furnishto the sperm whale his only food. For though other species of whales findtheir food above water, and may be seen by man in the act of feeding,the spermaceti whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones belowthe surface; and only by inference is it that any one can tellof what, precisely, that food consists. At times, when closely pursued,he will disgorge what are supposed to be the detached arms of the squid;some of them thus exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length.They fancy that the monster to which these arms belonged ordinarilyclings by them to the bed of the ocean; and that the sperm whale,unlike other species, is supplied with teeth in order to attackand tear it.

  There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken ofBishop Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid. The mannerin which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and sinking,with some other particulars he narrates, in all this the two correspond.But much abatement is necessary with respect to the incredible bulkhe assigns it.

  By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the mysteriouscreature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of cuttle-fish,to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would seem to belong,but only as the Anak of the tribe.