Moby Dick

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.



CHAPTER 37

Sunset


The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out.


I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks,
where'er I sail.  The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track;
let them; but first I pass.

Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush
like wine.  The gold brow plumbs the blue.  The diver sun--
slow dived from noon--goes down; my soul mounts up! she
wearies with her endless hill.  Is, then, the crown too heavy
that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy.  Yet is it bright
with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings;
but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds.
'Tis iron--that I know--not gold.  'Tis split, too--that I feel;
the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against
the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs
no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!

Dry heat upon my brow?  Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly
spurred me, so the sunset soothed.  No more.  This lovely light,
it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can
ne'er enjoy.  Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low,
enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly!
damned in the midst of Paradise!  Good night--good night!
(waving his hand, he moves from the window.)

'Twas not so hard a task.  I thought to find one stubborn, at the least;
but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels,
and they revolve.  Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder,
they all stand before me; and I their match.  Oh, hard! that to
fire others, the match itself must needs be wasting!  What I've dared,
I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do!  They think me mad--
Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened!
That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself!
The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and--Aye!  I lost
this leg.  I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer.
Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one.  That's more than ye,
ye great gods, ever were.  I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players,
ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes!  I will not
say as schoolboys do to bullies--Take some one of your own size;
don't pommel me!  No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again;
but ye have run and hidden.  Come forth from behind your cotton bags!
I have no long gun to reach ye.  Come, Ahab's compliments to ye;
come and see if ye can swerve me.  Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me,
else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there.  Swerve me?
The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my
soul is grooved to run.  Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled
hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush!
Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!



CHAPTER 38