Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

Ahab’s Reflections on Nature and Faith

Ahab addresses what he calls the “dark Hindoo half of nature,” suggesting the destructive, drowning forces within creation. He declares himself an “infidel” to this queen of the sea, yet acknowledges her truthful voice in the “wide-slaughtering Typhoon” and its subsequent hush. The dying whale’s sunward gesture carries a personal lesson for Ahab, one that deepens his faith—though a “darker faith”—in the unnamed, mingling depths that buoy him with “breaths of once living things.”

Ahab’s Hymn to the Eternal Sea

The chapter concludes with Ahab’s celebration of the sea as eternal and all-sustaining. He hails the ocean as the wild fowl’s only rest, declaring himself “Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea.” Though hill and valley “mothered” him, the billows are his “foster-brothers.” This hymn represents Ahab’s reconciliation—however dark and defiant—with the elemental force that governs his fate and the fate of all who sail upon it.

第一百十七章 The Whale Watch.

After the four whales are killed on that evening, three are brought alongside the ship before nightfall, but the windward whale cannot be reached until morning, and Ahab’s boat must keep vigil beside it through the night with only a lantern casting flickering light across the dark water. While the crew sleeps, Ahab and the Parsee engage in cryptic prophecy, the Parsee warning that Ahab cannot die until he has seen two hearses upon the sea—the first made by no mortal hands, and the second with visible wood grown in America—before concluding with the ominous promise that only hemp can kill him. Ahab defiantly laughs at this, crying out that he is immortal on land and on sea, but the Parsee’s eyes light up in the gloom as he issues this final challenge. The grey dawn arrives, the crew rises from the slumbering boat, and by noon the dead whale is finally brought to the ship.