Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Five great motions belong to the tail. In progression, the whale never wriggles—a mark of inferiority—but coils his tail scroll-wise and springs backward, producing that singular darting, leaping motion. In battle against man, he uses his tail contemptuously, striking by recoil. The blow in air is irresistible; through water, merely damaging, though whalers treat cracked ribs as child’s play. In sweeping, the tail seems to concentrate the sense of touch; in maidenly gentleness it moves across the surface, detecting even a sailor’s whisker—a tenderness recalling elephants presenting flowers. In lobtailing, solitary seas find the whale kitten-like at play, flirting his flukes high and smiting the surface with thunderous concussion like a great gun. In peaking flukes—perhaps the grandest sight in nature—the whale tosses his tail erect before diving. Ishmael once witnessed a herd at sunrise, all peaked in concert, appearing as a grand embodiment of adoration.

The elephant, that mightiest land creature, is but a terrier to the leviathan; his trunk a lily stalk to the tail’s crushing power. Yet the more Ishmael considers this mighty tail, the more he deplores his inability to express it. Some gestures would grace a human hand yet remain wholly inexplicable—hunters have called them akin to Freemason signs, the whale conversing with the world. Dissect how he may, Ishmael knows the whale not and never will. The creature seems to echo Exodus: “Thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen.” Yet Ishmael cannot completely make out even the back parts, and the whale has no face.

The long peninsula of Malacca stretches southeastward from Asia, forming a chain of islands—Sumatra, Java, Bally, Timor—that creates a vast natural rampart dividing the Indian Ocean from the oriental archipelagoes. This rampart is pierced by sally-ports, chief among them the Straits of Sunda. Unlike the fortified entrances to the Mediterranean, these straits demand no tribute of lowered sails—yet the Oriental seas exact their own toll. From shaded coves, Malay pirates have sallied forth since time out of mind, demanding tribute at spear-point.

With fair wind, the Pequod drew nigh. Ahab purposed to pass through into the Javan Sea, then cruise northward over waters frequented by the Sperm Whale, sweeping inshore by the Philippines to reach Japan for the great whaling season. Thus the circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost all known Sperm Whale grounds before descending upon the Line in the Pacific, where Ahab counted upon giving battle to Moby Dick.

As the ship gained upon Java Head, lookouts were repeatedly hailed. The green cliffs loomed, cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet not a single jet was descried. The ship had well nigh entered the straits when the cry rang from aloft, and a spectacle of singular magnificence saluted them.

Broad on both bows, forming a great semicircle embracing half the horizon, a continuous chain of whale-jets sparkled in the noon-day air. The thick curled bushes of white mist showed like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis. This vast fleet seemed hurrying forward through the straits, contracting their crescent wings, swimming on in one solid center—like marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile, eager to place that perilous passage in their rear.

The Pequod crowded sail after them, harpooners cheering from their suspended boats. If the wind held, the vast host would deploy into the Oriental seas to witness many captures. And who could tell whether Moby Dick himself might not be swimming in that congregated caravan? So with stun-sail piled on stun-sail they sailed—when Tashtego’s voice directed attention to something in their wake.

Corresponding to the crescent in their van, another appeared in their rear. Ahab revolved in his pivot-hole, crying aloft to wet the sails: Malays, after them! The rascally Asiatics now pursued in hot chase. Ahab paced the deck; in his forward turn beholding the monsters he chased, in the after one the bloodthirsty pirates chasing him. Through that gate lay the route to his vengeance, and through that same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly end.

But the reckless crew troubled little with such thoughts. Steadily dropping the pirates astern, the Pequod shot by Cockatoo Point and emerged upon broad waters. The harpooners grieved more that the whales had been gaining than rejoiced that the ship had gained upon the Malays. Still driving on, the whales seemed abating their speed; the wind died, and word passed to spring to the boats.

The herd rallied into close ranks, their spouts like flashing lines of stacked bayonets, moving with redoubled velocity. After several hours’ pulling, the crew was almost disposed to renounce the chase when a general commotion gave token that the whales were now gallied—paralyzed with panic. The compact columns broke up in measureless rout; like mad elephants, they swam hither and thither in vast irregular circles. Some floated paralyzed like water-logged ships.

The boats separated, each making for some lone whale on the outskirts. Queequeg’s harpoon was flung; the stricken fish steered straight for the heart of the herd. As the swift monster drags you deeper into the frantic shoal, you bid adieu to circumspect life and exist only in delirious throb. Queequeg steered manfully, sheering off monsters, while Starbuck stood in the bows pricking whales from their path, and oarsmen shouted at great dromedaries that rose threatening to swamp them.

Druggs were darted—wooden squares that fettered whales with sidelong resistance. But the third caught under a seat and tore it away, letting in the sea. They stuffed shirts to stop the leaks. As they advanced, their whale’s way diminished; the disorders waned. The harpoon drew out, and they glided between two whales into the innermost heart of the shoal—as if from some mountain torrent they had slid into a serene valley lake.

Here the storms in the roaring glens between outermost whales were heard but not felt. The sea presented that smooth satin-like surface called a sleek. They were in that enchanted calm which lurks at the heart of every commotion. Successive pods swam round and round like multiplied spans of horses in a ring. No chance of escape was afforded; they must watch for a breach in the living wall that hemmed them in. Small tame cows and calves visited the boat, snuffling round the gunwales like household dogs. Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched their backs with his lance.

Beneath, another world met their eyes. Suspended in watery vaults floated nursing mothers. The lake was exceedingly transparent. One infant, hardly a day old, measured fourteen feet, its fins still retaining the crumpled appearance of a baby’s ears. Queequeg cried out: two whale, one big, one little! Starbuck saw long coils of the umbilical cord by which the young cub seemed still tethered to its dam. Some of the subtlest secrets of the seas seemed divulged in this enchanted pond.