Deceptive Beauty of Dangerous Sea Life
Many of the sea’s most remorseless creatures possess devilish brilliance and beauty. The dainty, embellished forms of various shark species exemplify how harm is often concealed within stunning exterior beauty.
Universal Cannibalism in the Sea
All sea creatures prey upon each other in an eternal war that has continued since the world began. This universal cannibalism defines the ocean’s ecosystem, with no creature safe from predation.
Analogy of the Sea and Land to the Human Soul
Like the ocean surrounding the gentle land, the human soul contains a peaceful, joyful interior island. Yet this inner sanctuary remains surrounded by the horrors of half-known life, much as peaceful shores face the threatening sea. The chapter cautions against leaving this inner peace for the dangers beyond.
Origin of the Brazil Banks Name
The region known as the Brazil Banks derives its name not from shallows or soundings like the Banks of Newfoundland, but from the remarkable meadow-like appearance created by vast drifts of brit floating in those waters—the same fields where Right Whales are commonly hunted.
KAPITEL 59. Squid.
This chapter recounts a remarkable encounter between the Pequod and a mysterious sea creature—a giant squid—during the vessel’s northeastward voyage toward Java.
Pequod Sailing Northeast Toward Java
The Pequod sails slowly through meadows of brit, holding her course northeastward toward the island of Java. A gentle air propels her keel, and in the surrounding serenity, her three tall tapering masts gently wave in the languid breeze, resembling three mild palms on a plain. At wide intervals in the silvery night, the solitary, alluring jet of the whale is still visible.
Daggoo Spots Mysterious White Spectre at Sea
On one transparent blue morning, when an almost preternatural stillness spreads over the sea—unaccompanied by any stagnant calm—when the long burnished sun-glade on the waters resembles a golden finger laid across them, enjoining some secrecy, and when the slippered waves whisper together as they softly run on, a strange spectre appears. From the main-mast-head, Daggoo perceives in the distance a great white mass lazily rising higher and higher, disentangling itself from the azure, until it gleams before the prow like a snow-slide newly slid from the hills.
Crew Initially Mistakes Spectre for Moby Dick
The white mass glistens momentarily before slowly subsiding and sinking, then arising once more to silently gleam. Daggoo wonders whether this phantom might be Moby Dick. Upon reappearing with a stiletto-like cry that startles every man from his nod, Daggoo yells out, “There! there again! there she breaches! right ahead! The White Whale, the White Whale!” The seamen rush to the yard-arms as in swarming time when bees rush to the boughs.
Ahab Orders Boats Lowered to Pursue the Spectre
Bare-headed in the sultry sun, Ahab stands on the bowsprit with one hand pushed far behind in readiness to wave orders to the helmsman. He casts his eager glance in the direction indicated by the outstretched motionless arm of Daggoo. Whether the flitting attendance of the solitary jet has gradually worked upon Ahab, preparing him to connect ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the particular whale he pursues—or whether his eagerness betrayed him—upon distinctly perceiving the white mass, he instantly gives orders for lowering the boats with quick intensity.
Crew Discovers the Spectre Is a Giant Squid
The four boats are soon on the water, with Ahab’s in advance, all swiftly pulling toward their prey. The creature goes down, and while with suspended oars they await its reappearance, it slowly rises again in the same spot where it sank. Gazing upon the most wondrous phenomenon the secret seas have yet revealed to mankind, the crew forgets for the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick. A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing cream-colour, lies floating on the water with innumerable long arms radiating from its centre, curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas, as if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach. It has no perceptible face or front, no conceivable token of either sensation or instinct, but undulates there on the billows as an unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.
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