Whaling as Mortal Life Cycle Metaphor
The narrator reflects on the weariness of extracting life’s small but valuable sperm from the world’s vast bulk, then cleansing oneself from defilements to live in clean tabernacles of the soul—only to have the ghost spouted up again, sailing away to fight some other world and repeat life’s old routine. This is man-killing, yet this is life.
Closing Metempsychosis and Pythagorean Anecdote
The narrator exclaims about metempsychosis and Pythagoras, who died good, wise, and mild in bright Greece two thousand years ago. Humorously, the narrator claims to have sailed with Pythagoras along the Peruvian coast and, foolish as he is, taught the ancient philosopher—as a green simple boy—how to splice a rope.
第九十九章 The Doubloon.
The chapter centers on a doubloon— purest gold from Ecuador—nailed to the Pequod’s mainmast. The coin bears images of three Andean peaks, a tower, a flame, a crowing cock, and a zodiacal arch with the sun entering Libra. The crew reveres this doubloon as the White Whale’s talisman, wondering who will claim it when the whale is slain. Captain Ahab pauses before the coin as morning light catches it, and the chapter unfolds through multiple crew members’ interpretations of its imagery.
Ahab at the Doubloon
Captain Ahab resumes his habit of pacing the quarter-deck, pausing at the binnacle and mainmast. While he previously fixed his javelin-like glance on the compass needle, he now lingers before the nailed doubloon. His mood is intense yet touched with wild longing. On this morning, he appears newly drawn to the strange figures stamped upon the gold, as if for the first time attempting to interpret their monomaniac significance. He recognizes that some meaning lurks in all things, else existence would be worthless.
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