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🎤002 Moby Full Text Ch 2+notes

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CHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag.

I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag,1 tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific.2 Quitting the good city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night in December.3 Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet4 for Nantucket5 had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that place would offer,6 till the following Monday. As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has of late been gradually monopolising the business of whaling, and though in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original—the Tyre of this Carthage;7—the place where the first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to give chase to the [Leviathan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop8 put forth, partly laden with imported cobblestones—so goes the story9—to throw at the whales, in order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit?10

Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became a matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels11 I had sounded12 my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver,—So, wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself,13 as I stood in the middle of a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards the north with the darkness towards the south—wherever in your wisdom you may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don’t be too particular.

With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of “The Crossed Harpoons”—but it looked too expensive and jolly there. Further on, from the bright red windows of the “Sword-Fish Inn,” there came such fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and ice from before the house, for everywhere else the congealed frost lay ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic14 pavement,—rather weary for me, when I struck my foot against the flinty projections, because from hard, remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most miserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one moment to watch the broad glare in the street, and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses within. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don’t you hear? get away from before the door; your patched boots are stopping the way. So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets that took me waterward, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not the cheeriest inns.

Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand, and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. At this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of the town proved all but deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood invitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the uses of the public; so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble over an ash-box15 in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah?16 But “The Crossed Harpoons,” and “The Sword-Fish?”—this, then must needs be the sign17 of “The Trap.”18 However, I picked myself up and hearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior door.

It seemed the great Black Parliament19 sitting in Tophet.20 A hundred black faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the preacher’s text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping and wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of ‘The Trap!’

Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw a swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly representing a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words underneath—“The Spouter Inn:—Peter Coffin.”

Coffin?—Spouter?—Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated little wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here from the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee.21

It was a queer sort of place—a gable-ended old house, one side palsied22 as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon23 kept up a worse howling than ever it did about poor Paul’s tossed craft.24 Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty pleasant zephyr25 to any one in-doors, with his feet on the hob quietly toasting for bed. “In judging of that tempestuous wind called Euroclydon,” says an old writer—of whose works I possess the only copy extant26—“it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or whether thou observest it from that sashless window, where the frost is on both sides, and of which the wight27 Death is the only glazier.28” True enough, thought I, as this passage occurred to my mind—old black-letter,29 thou reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is the house. What a pity they didn’t stop up the chinks30 and the crannies31 though, and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it’s too late to make any improvements now. The universe is finished; the copestone32 is on, and the chips33 were carted off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags, and put a corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives,34 in his red silken wrapper35—(he had a redder one36 afterwards) pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty night; how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them talk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give me the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals.37

But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra38 than here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in order to keep out this frost?

Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be moored to one of the Moluccas.39 Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a temperance40 society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans.

But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there is plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted feet, and see what sort of a place this “Spouter” may be.

==Have notes to add? Email me heather@craftlit.com or call 1-206-350-1642 or use speakpipe.com/craftlit.==

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Footnotes

Footnotes

  1. This is pre-Civil War, thus the carpet bag doesn’t carry the negative vibe of the “Carpetbagger.” ↩

  2. I found this amazing graphic from Nick Palffy: http://www.powermobydick.com/Moby144.html it’s the voyage of the Pequod - by chapter number! ↩

  3. Already Saturday night means it’s already too late—Sunday is church. ↩

  4. usually a small boat traveling regularly between ports that people could hop on for free or very little money ↩

  5. an island off the coast of Massachusetts. Nantucket and New Bedford were the two big whaling ports in the early 19th century. ↩

  6. would be on offer (available) ↩

  7. Carthage, (site of modern-day Tunisia) was an ancient affluent trading hub destroyed by the Romans in the Third Punic War (146 BCE). It was originally founded by colonists from Tyre, (site of modern-day Lebanon) one of the earliest Phoenician cities and one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world. He’s saying Nantucket is Tyre—the OG Whaling port. ↩

  8. a one-masted sailboat ↩

  9. ahem ↩

  10. the pole extending from a ship’s bow (front) ↩

  11. usually a grappling hook, but here it means reaching in with his hand ↩

  12. figured the depth, usually using a weighted line or a pole (also how Mark Twain got his name, marking the depth of a sounding on the Mississippi) ↩

  13. this is a variation of a colloquial trope Melville employs throughout ↩

  14. made of asphalt or tar or bitumen ↩

  15. seems an odd place to put fireplace ashes, but okay. If they have roses, maybe they used it as fertilizer? ↩

  16. in Genesis, 19, God destroys Sodom and Gomorrah by raining fire and brimstone upon them. Interestingly, the story of Jonah and the Whale is another narrative that involves a city, Nineveh, facing divine judgement for their wickedness. ↩

  17. the place doesn’t have a hanging sign like the first two Inns ↩

  18. The ash-box traps the ash ↩

  19. Meeting of Devils - metaphorically speaking. Think of the language from The Scarlet Letter or The Crucible. ↩

    • Tophet is a term from the Hebrew Bible, historically associated with child sacrifice in the Valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem. By Melville’s time, it was a common literary shorthand for Hell or a place of damnation.
    ↩

  21. fake coffee: cheap coffee substitute made from roasted peas (usually yellow split peas) ground and brewed to mimic coffee, sometimes with chicory added. ↩

  22. paralyzed ↩

  23. the wind from the Adriatic Gulf that shipwrecked the Apostle Paul on the coast of Malta ↩

  24. The Apostle Paul, Acts 27 ↩

  25. gentle breeze; personification of the west wind ↩

  26. a joke—basically: “don’t try to find the sub-reference. I made it up”—Herman Melville (often) ↩

  27. spirit, ghost, supernatural being ↩

  28. window glass fitter ↩

  29. He’s implying that the “text” he’s quoting from is old enough to have been written in Old Blackletter, a gothic script used in Europe from about the 12th to 16th Centuries CE. ↩

  30. space or crack big enough to admit light and not much else ↩

  31. small narrow spaces ↩

  32. final stone placed on the top of a wall; crowning achievement ↩

  33. stone mason’s left over chips ↩

  34. The rich man in the parable of Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) NOT the Lazarus Jesus raises from the dead (John 11:1-44) ↩

  35. very fancy robe ↩

  36. redder because he’s in hell ↩

  37. he’s taking a dig at the rich and grandee love of all things Exotic, their big homes with big greenhouses etc.; he’s just fine marveling at the stars and the beauty of the night, thank you very much. ↩

  38. Analog for “a warm place”; literally a large Indonesian island ↩

  39. the Maluku Islands, an island group in Indonesia (Spice Islands) ↩

  40. abstaining from alcohol ↩

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