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.
The Germans held the initial advantage, their four boats launched with a head start toward a pod of eight whales running abreast before the wind. But the Pequod’s crews soon identified a different prize: a huge, humped old bull lagging far behind the rapid pod. The whale moved with agonizing slowness, its yellowish incrustations suggesting jaundice or some infirmity. Its spout came short and laborious, choking forth in torn shreds, while its wake showed the unnatural stump of a starboard fin. Despite—or perhaps because of—its affliction, the creature’s immense bulk made it the most valuable target. Stubb quipped about the whale’s stomach-ache, while Flask cruelly promised a sling for its wounded arm.
Derick, confident in his lead, occasionally shook his lamp-feeder at the pursuing boats in derision. Starbuck burned at the mockery: the German taunted them with the very poor-box they had filled. The mates exhorted their crews with promises of brandy and feasts, the harpooners straining at their oars. The three Pequod boats ranged almost abreast, drawing closer with every stroke. Victory seemed certain for Derick until a crab caught the blade of his midship oarsman. While the clumsy lubber struggled to free his oar and Derick thundered in rage, the Pequod’s boats surged forward on the German’s quarter.
As Derick’s harpooner rose for a desperate long dart, three tigers sprang simultaneously to their feet. Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo pointed their barbs in a diagonal row and darted their irons over the German’s head. All three Nantucket harpoons found their mark. The collision of the charging boats spilled Derick and his men into the sea, and Stubb shot past with a mocking farewell about sharks and St. Bernard’s dogs.
The whale sounded tumultuously, the three lines gouging deep grooves in the loggerheads. The boats’ gunwales dipped nearly even with the water, sterns tilting high as the men took smoking turns to hold the strain. In the eerie silence that followed, no groan or bubble rose from the depths—only the thin threads of rope descending into the blue, suspending the great Leviathan like the weight of an eight-day clock. The shadows of the three boats spread beneath the surface, vast phantoms haunting the wounded beast.
When the lines finally vibrated with life, Starbuck cried out. The whale broke water, exhausted, his blood pouring from non-valvular wounds in incessant streams. The boats surrounded him, revealing blind bulbs where his eyes had been and a strangely discolored bunch on his flank. Flask, ignoring Starbuck’s warning, struck the protuberance. An ulcerous jet shot forth, goading the whale into final fury. He thrashed among the boats, capsizing Flask’s craft and bespattering everything with gore before rolling over, turning up his white belly, and dying with a long, melancholy spout.
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