Quartz 4

🎤023 Moby Full Text Ch39

3 min read

BJ Starts 07:14:35

VIDEO TIP:Tatted lace bonnet and family life on a ship in the late 1800s

Harold Bloom video: https://youtu.be/xFt59_E_g5s?si=6Tl7uZRlaiyreiOz.

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Contents

CHAPTER 39. First Night-Watch. FOOTNOTES

CHAPTER 39. First Night-Watch.

Fore-Top.

(Stubb solus, and mending a brace.)

Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!—I’ve been thinking over it ever since, and that ha, ha’s the final consequence. Why so? Because a laugh’s the wisest, easiest answer to all that’s queer; and come what will, one comfort’s always left—that unfailing comfort is, it’s all predestinated1. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck; but to my poor eye Starbuck then looked something as I the other evening felt. Be sure the old Mogul2 has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew it; had had the gift, might readily have prophesied it—for when I clapped my eye upon his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb, wise Stubb—that’s my title—well, Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here’s a carcase.3 I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra, skirra! What’s my juicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes out?—Giving a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as a frigate’s pennant, and so am I—fa, la! lirra, skirra! Oh—

  We’ll drink to-night with hearts as light,
     To love, as gay and fleeting
  As bubbles that swim, on the beaker’s brim,
     And break on the lips while meeting.

A brave stave4 that—who calls? Mr. Starbuck? Aye, aye, sir—(Aside) he’s my superior, he has his too, if I’m not mistaken.—Aye, aye, sir, just through with this job—coming.

FOOTNOTES

The ski slope “mogul” comes from the Bavarian/Austrian German word Mugel, meaning “mound” or “hillock”. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] 

Mogul (powerful person) [6] 

  • Origin: Persian and Arabic mughal, meaning “Mongol”. [3, 4] 
  • Connection: This term was adopted by Europeans to refer to the emperors of the powerful and wealthy Mughal Empire in India. [3, 4, 7] 
  • Modern meaning: The modern use of “mogul” to describe a powerful business magnate or tycoon is derived from the immense wealth and power of these historical emperors. [3, 7, 8]

Footnotes

  1. Quakers did not believe in Predestination ↩

  2. The word “mogul” has two main etymologies: one referring to a powerful person, and the other to the bumps on a ski slope. The “powerful person” meaning comes from Mughal, the Persian and Arabic word for Mongol, named after the wealthy Mughal Empire in India that was founded by descendants of Mongol leaders like Genghis Khan.  ↩

  3. carcase? Could have been a misprint of “hard case”? ↩

  4. Sparkling and Bright original text (and the temperance version) incidentally written by a friend of Melville’s who had a very sad life, Charles Fenno Hoffman —originally written in 1830, published anonymously—poetry from the New York American. m., James B. Taylor. T. Birch [183-?].—nice of Stubb to call it a “brave stave”. ↩

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