Moby Dick; Or, The Whale. Herman Melville

wind was piping free;

       Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale,

       And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale,

       As it floundered in the sea.”

      —Elizabeth Oakes Smith.

      “The quantity of line withdrawn from the boats engaged in the capture of this one whale, amounted altogether to 10,440 yards or nearly six English miles. …

      “Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air, which, cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three or four miles.”—Scoresby.

      “Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over; he rears his enormous head, and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everything around him; he rushes at the boats with his head; they are propelled before him with vast swiftness, and sometimes utterly destroyed. … It is a matter of great astonishment that the consideration of the habits of so interesting, and, in a commercial point of view, so important an animal (as the Sperm Whale) should have been so entirely neglected, or should have excited so little curiosity among the numerous, and many of them competent observers, that of late years, must have possessed the most abundant and the most convenient opportunities of witnessing their habitudes.”—Thomas Beale’s History of the Sperm Whale, 1839.

      “The Cachalot” (Sperm Whale) “is not only better armed than the True Whale” (Greenland or Right Whale) “in possessing a formidable weapon at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a disposition to employ these weapons offensively and in manner at once so artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as the most dangerous to attack of all the known species of the whale tribe.”—Frederick Debell Bennett’s Whaling Voyage Round the Globe, 1840.

      October 13. “There she blows,” was sung out from the mast-head.

       “Where away?” demanded the captain.

       “Three points off the lee bow, sir.”

       “Raise up your wheel. Steady!” “Steady, sir.”

       “Mast-head ahoy! Do you see that whale now?”

       “Ay ay, sir! A shoal of Sperm Whales! There she blows! There she

       breaches!”

       “Sing out! sing out every time!”

       “Ay Ay, sir! There she blows! there—there—thar she blows—bowes—bo-o-os!” “How far off?” “Two miles and a half.” “Thunder and lightning! so near! Call all hands.” —J. Ross Browne’s Etchings of a Whaling Cruize. 1846.

      “The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the horrid transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island of Nantucket.”—“Narrative of the Globe Mutiny,” by Lay and Hussey survivors. A.D. 1828.

      Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the assault for some time with a lance; but the furious monster at length rushed on the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved by leaping into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable.”—Missionary Journal of Tyerman and Bennett.

      “Nantucket itself,” said Mr. Webster, “is a very striking and peculiar portion of the National interest. There is a population of eight or nine thousand persons living here in the sea, adding largely every year to the National wealth by the boldest and most persevering industry.”—Report of Daniel Webster’s Speech in the U. S. Senate, on the application for the Erection of a Breakwater at Nantucket. 1828.

      “The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in a moment.”—“The Whale and his Captors, or The Whaleman’s Adventures and the Whale’s Biography, gathered on the Homeward Cruise of the Commodore Preble.” By Rev. Henry T. Cheever.

      “If you make the least damn bit of noise,” replied Samuel, “I will send you to hell.”—Life of Samuel Comstock (the mutineer), by his brother, William Comstock. Another Version of the whale-ship Globe narrative.

      “The voyages of the Dutch and English to the Northern Ocean, in order, if possible, to discover a passage through it to India, though they failed of their main object, laid-open the haunts of the whale.”—McCulloch’s Commercial Dictionary.

      “These things are reciprocal; the ball rebounds, only to bound forward again; for now in laying open the haunts of the whale, the whalemen seem to have indirectly hit upon new clews to that same mystic North-West Passage.”—From “Something” unpublished.

      “It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on the ocean without being struck by her near appearance. The vessel under short sail, with look-outs at the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse around them, has a totally different air from those engaged in regular voyage.”—Currents and Whaling. U.S. Ex. Ex.

      “Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere may recollect having seen large curved bones set upright in the earth, either to form arches over gateways, or entrances to alcoves, and they may perhaps have been told that these were the ribs of whales.”—Tales of a Whale Voyager to the Arctic Ocean.

      “It was not till the boats returned from the pursuit of these whales, that the whites saw their ship in bloody possession of the savages enrolled among the crew.”—Newspaper Account of the Taking and Retaking of the Whale-Ship Hobomack.

      “It is generally well known that out of the crews of Whaling vessels (American) few ever return in the ships on board of which they departed.”—Cruise in a Whale Boat.

      “Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot up perpendicularly into the air. It was the whale.”—Miriam Coffin or the Whale Fisherman.

      “The Whale is harpooned to be sure; but bethink you, how you would manage a powerful unbroken colt, with the mere appliance of a rope tied to the root of his tail.”—A Chapter on Whaling in Ribs and Trucks.

      “On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales) probably male and female, slowly swimming, one after the other, within less than a stone’s throw of the shore” (Terra Del Fuego), “over which the beech tree extended its branches.”—Darwin’s Voyage of a Naturalist.

      “ ‘Stern all!’ exclaimed the mate, as upon turning his head, he saw the distended jaws of a large Sperm Whale close to the head of the boat, threatening it with instant destruction;—‘Stern all, for your lives!’ ”—Wharton the Whale Killer.

      “So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail, While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale!”—Nantucket Song.

      “Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale

       In his ocean home will be

       A giant in might, where might is right,

       And King of the boundless sea.”

      —Whale Song.

CHAPTER 1. Loomings.

       Table of Contents

      Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats