Moby Dick

of old is vaguely represented of a griffin-like shape,
and though the battle is depicted on land and the saint
on horseback, yet considering the great ignorance of those times,
when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists;
and considering that as in Perseus' case, St. George's
whale might have crawled up out of the sea on the beach;
and considering that the animal ridden by St. George might have
been only a large seal, or sea-horse; bearing all this in mind,
it will not appear altogether incompatible with the sacred
legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene, to hold this
so-called dragon no other than the great Leviathan himself.
In fact, placed before the strict and piercing truth,
this whole story will fare like that fish, flesh, and fowl
idol of the Philistines, Dagon by name; who being planted
before the ark of Israel, his horse's head and both the palms
of his hands fell off from him, and only the stump or fishy
part of him remained.  Thus, then, one of our own noble stamp,
even a whaleman, is the tutelary guardian of England;
and by good rights, we harpooneers of Nantucket should be
enrolled in the most noble order of St. George.  And therefore,
let not the knights of that honorable company (none of whom,
I venture to say, have ever had to do with a whale like their
great patron), let them never eye a Nantucketer with disdain,
since even in our woollen frocks and tarred trowsers we are much
better entitled to St. George's decoration than they.

Whether to admit Hercules among us or not, concerning this I long
remained dubious:  for though according to the Greek mythologies,
that antique Crockett and Kit Carson--that brawny doer
of rejoicing good deeds, was swallowed down and thrown up
by a whale; still, whether that strictly makes a whaleman
of him, that might be mooted.  It nowhere appears that he ever
actually harpooned his fish, unless, indeed, from the inside.
Nevertheless, he may be deemed a sort of involuntary whaleman;
at any rate the whale caught him, if he did not the whale.
I claim him for one of our clan.

But, by the best contradictory authorities, this Grecian story
of Hercules and the whale is considered to be derived from the still
more ancient Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale; and vice versa;
certainly they are very similar.  If I claim the demigod then,
why not the prophet?

Nor do heroes, saints, demigods, and prophets alone comprise
the whole roll of our order.  Our grand master is still to be named;
for like royal kings of old times, we find the head-waters
of our fraternity in nothing short of the great gods themselves.
That wondrous oriental story is now to be rehearsed from the Shaster,
which gives us the dread Vishnoo, one of the three persons
in the godhead of the Hindoos; gives us this divine Vishnoo
himself for our Lord;--Vishnoo, who, by the first of his ten
earthly incarnations, has for ever set apart and sanctified the whale.
When Brahma, or the God of Gods, saith the Shaster, resolved to
recreate the world after one of its periodical dissolutions,
he gave birth to Vishnoo, to preside over the work; but the Vedas,
or mystical books, whose perusal would seem to have been indispensable
to Vishnoo before beginning the creation, and which therefore
must have contained something in the shape of practical hints
to young architects, these Vedas were lying at the bottom of
the waters; so Vishnoo became incarnate in a whale, and sounding
down in him to the uttermost depths, rescued the sacred volumes.
Was not this Vishnoo a whaleman, then? even as a man who rides
a horse is called a horseman?

Perseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnoo! there's
a member-roll for you!  What club but the whaleman's can head
off like that?



CHAPTER 83

Jonah Historically Regarded


Reference was made to the historical story of Jonah and the whale
in the preceding chapter.  Now some Nantucketers rather distrust this
historical story of Jonah and the whale.  But then there were some
sceptical Greeks and Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans
of their times, equally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale,
and Arion and the dolphin; and yet their doubting those traditions
did not make those traditions one whit the less facts, for all that.

One old Sag-Harbor whaleman's chief reason for questioning the Hebrew
story was this:--He had one of those quaint old-fashioned Bibles,
embellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of which represented
Jonah's whale with two spouts in his head--a peculiarity only true
with respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale,
and the varieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen
have this saying, "A penny roll would choke him"; his swallow is so
very small.  But, to this, Bishop Jebb's anticipative answer is ready.
It is not necessary, hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in
the whale's belly, but as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth.
And this seems reasonable enough in the good Bishop.  For truly,
the Right Whale's mouth would accommodate a couple of whist-tables,
and comfortably seat all the players.  Possibly, too, Jonah might
have ensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on second thoughts,
the Right Whale is toothless.

Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name)