Call me Ishmael. Years ago, finding myself poor and aimless on land, I decided to sail and view the watery world. This is my method for curing melancholy and regulating my blood. Whenever my mouth grows grim, or my soul feels like a damp, drizzly November, I know it is time to leave. The urge becomes undeniable when I pause before coffin before warehouses, trail behind funerals, or feel a manic impulse to knock hats off in the street. Going to sea is my alternative to suicide. While Cato died on his sword with a flourish, I quietly board a ship. This impulse is not unique; almost all men feel a magnetic pull toward the ocean.
After a smooth passage, Ishmael arrives in Nantucket, describing it as a barren, sandy outpost completely surrounded by the ocean, contrasting its aridity with the fertile landscapes of the mainland. He recounts the traditional legend of the island’s settlement, where an eagle stole an Indian infant, leading the parents to discover the land and find only the child’s skeleton in an ivory casket. Ishmael traces the Nantucketers’ evolution from digging in the sand for clams to launching a global navy, depicting their inevitable rise to conquer the sea. He argues that while other seamen merely traverse or plunder the surface, the Nantucketer alone resides and draws his life from the deep, treating the ocean as his private plantation. The chapter concludes with a poetic image of the Nantucketer sleeping on the waves, as at home on the water as a prairie cock on land or a gull on the billows.
Guided by Peter Coffin’s convoluted directions, Ishmael and Queequeg argue over starboard and larboard, beating about the dark streets and waking peaceable inhabitants before finally locating the Try Pots inn. The entrance is marked by two enormous black pots suspended from a cross-tree that resembles a gallows, prompting Ishmael to stare with vague misgiving—one horn for Queequeg, one for him. A Coffin for an innkeeper, tombstones in the chapel, and now a gallows: are these hints of Tophet?
They encounter Mrs. Hussey, a freckled woman in yellow hair and gown, scolding a man in a purple shirt. She postpones her wrath to ask the only question that matters: “Clam or Cod?” Ishmael, misunderstanding, tests the kitchen by ordering cod after the first savory bowl arrives, and is rewarded with a second delicious chowder.
The Try Pots lives up to its name. Chowder for breakfast, dinner, and supper, till you expect fish-bones through your clothes. The ground is paved with clam-shells, Mrs. Hussey wears a necklace of codfish vertebra, the account books are bound in shark-skin, and even the milk tastes fishy—thanks to Hosea’s brindled cow feeding on remnants.
When they retire, Mrs. Hussey demands Queequeg’s harpoon. Ever since young Stiggs returned from an unlucky voyage and was found dead in his room with his own weapon in his side, she allows no such dangerous iron in the bedrooms. Before sleeping, Ishmael orders both clam and cod chowder for breakfast, with smoked herring for variety.
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