Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Ahab’s Moby Dick Sleep Murmurs

“On this level, Ahab’s hammock swings within; his head this way. A touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again.—Oh Mary! Mary!—boy! boy! boy!—But if I wake thee not to death, old man, who can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck’s body this day week may sink, with all the crew! Great God, where art Thou? Shall I? shall I?—The wind has gone down and shifted, sir; the fore and main topsails are reefed and set; she heads her course.” “Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last!” Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old man’s tormented sleep, as if Starbuck’s voice had caused the long dumb dream to speak.

Starbuck Relents, Summons Stubb

The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard’s arm against the panel; Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel; but turning from the door, he placed the death-tube in its rack, and left the place. “He’s too sound asleep, Mr. Stubb; go thou down, and wake him, and tell him. I must see to the deck here. Thou know’st what to say.”

第一百二十四章 The Needle.

The morning following the storm finds the sea still churning with mighty billows as Ahab stands apart, tracking the sun’s rays with eerie precision until he suddenly demands to know the ship’s heading, only to discover that the compasses have been reversed by lightning, pointing east while the Pequod sails west. Recalling that the magnetic needle never recovers its original virtue once struck by such a force, Ahab defies Fate by fashioning a new compass from a sail-maker’s needle, magnetizing it through a ritual of hammering and suspending it over the binnacle, where it settles true—proving to his terrified crew that he remains “lord of the level loadstone.”