Quartz 4

đŸŽ€013 Moby Full Text Chs29-30

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5:12:50

CHAPTER 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb.1

Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod now went rolling through the bright Quito2 spring, which, at sea, almost perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of the Tropic.3 The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet,4 heaped up—flaked up, with rose-water snow. The starred and stately nights seemed haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns! For sleeping man, ’twas hard to choose between such winsome days and such seducing nights. But all the witcheries of that unwaning weather did not merely lend new spells and potencies to the outward world. Inward they turned upon the soul, especially when the still mild hours of eve came on; then, memory shot her crystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights.5 And all these subtle agencies, more and more they wrought on Ahab’s texture.6

Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.7 Among sea-commanders, the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths to visit the night-cloaked deck. It was so with Ahab; only that now, of late, he seemed so much to live in the open air, that truly speaking, his visits were more to the cabin, than from the cabin to the planks. “It feels like going down into one’s tomb,”—he would mutter to himself—“for an old captain like me to be descending this narrow scuttle,8 to go to my grave-dug berth.”

So, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of the night were set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers of the band below;9 and when if a rope was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the sailors flung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some cautiousness dropt it to its place for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way. Some considering10 touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these, he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his wearied mates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory11 heel, such would have been the reverberating crack and din of that bony step, that their dreams would have been on the crunching teeth of sharks. But once, the mood was on him too deep for common regardings; and as with heavy, lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from [taffrail](đŸŽ€012 Moby Full Text Chs26-28) to mainmast,12 Stubb, the old second mate, came up from below, with a certain unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if Captain Ahab was pleased to walk the planks, then, no one BJ HAS AN ERROR - “no noise” instead of “no one” could say nay; but there might be some way of muffling the noise; hinting something indistinctly and hesitatingly about a globe of tow,13 and the insertion into it, of the ivory heel. Ah! Stubb, thou didst not know Ahab then.

“Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb,” said Ahab, “that thou wouldst wad me that fashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot. Below to thy nightly grave; where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at last.—Down, dog, and kennel!”14

Starting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the so suddenly scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said excitedly, “I am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but less than half like it, sir.”14

“Avast!15 gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving away, as if to avoid some passionate temptation.

“No, sir; not yet,” said Stubb, emboldened, “I will not tamely be called a dog, sir.”

“Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone, or I’ll clear the world of thee!”16

As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing terrors in his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated.

“I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it,” muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-scuttle. “It’s very queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don’t well know whether to go back and strike him, or—what’s that?—down here on my knees and pray for him? Yes, that was the thought coming up in me; but it would be the first time I ever did pray. It’s queer; very queer;17 and he’s queer too; aye, take him fore and aft, he’s about the queerest old man Stubb ever sailed with. How he flashed at me!—his eyes like powder-pans!18 is he mad? Anyway there’s something on his mind, as sure as there must be something on a deck when it cracks. He aint in his bed now, either, more than three hours out of the twenty-four; and he don’t sleep then. Didn’t that Dough-Boy,19 the steward, tell me that of a morning he always finds the old man’s hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets down at the foot, and the coverlid20 almost tied into knots, and the pillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on it?21 A hot old man! I guess he’s got what some folks ashore call a conscience; it’s a kind of Tic-Dolly-row22 they say—worse nor a toothache. Well, well; I don’t know what it is BJ ERROR “what he is” instead of “what it is”, but the Lord keep me from catching it. He’s full of riddles; I wonder what he goes into the after hold23 for, every night, as “Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; what’s that for, I should like to know? Who’s made appointments with him in the hold? Ain’t that queer, now? But there’s no telling, it’s the old game—Here goes for a snooze. Damn me, it’s worth a fellow’s while to be born into the world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think of it, that’s about the first thing babies do, and that’s a sort of queer, too. Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of ’em. But that’s against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth—So here goes again. But how’s that? didn’t he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten times a donkey, and piled a lot of jackasses on top of that! He might as well have kicked me, and done with it. Maybe he did kick me, and I didn’t observe it, I was so taken all aback with his brow, somehow. It flashed like a bleached bone. What the devil’s the matter with me? I don’t stand right on my legs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong side out. By the Lord, I must have been dreaming, though—How? how? how?—but the only way’s to stash it;24 so here goes to hammock again; and in the morning, I’ll see how this plaguey juggling thinks over by daylight.” Contents

CHAPTER 30. The Pipe.

When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a sailor of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool,25 and also his pipe. Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp26 and planting the stool on the weather side27 of the deck, he sat and smoked.

In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings were fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale. How could one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan28 of the plank, and a king of the sea, and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab.29

Some moments passed, during which the thick vapor came from his mouth in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his face.30 “How now,” he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, “this smoking no longer soothes.31 Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring—aye, and ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the strongest and fullest of trouble.32 What business have I with this pipe? This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapors among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I’ll smoke no more—”

He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks.33

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Footnotes

Footnotes

  1. This is supposed to be a stage direction - Ahab enters then Stubb goes to him. This will connect to [Ch. 33](Moby - Cross-chapter References) when we get there. It’s Melville adding to the Drama that is Ahab - Drama and stature as a tragic hero - like in a Greek Tragedy. Hubris and all. Or like Shakespeare, who is alluded to several times in this chapter. Stubb gets a big Hamlet-like monologue here that says as much about himself as about Ahab. ↩

  2. In Equador, the weather there is
 well, the same weather as it always is. Apparently it was called “the City of Eternal Spring”
which isn’t the first thing I think of when “August” comes to mind, but
 ÂŻ(ツ)/ÂŻ ↩

  3. The tropics fall between the Tropic of Cancer, at 23°26’13”N, the northernmost point at which the sun passes directly overhead and the Tropic of Capricorn, 23°26’13”S (ditto for the southernmost point). ↩

  4. A cooling drink of syrup, rosewater, herbs and shaved ice—recipe! ↩

  5. Wow! That is beautiful! ↩

  6. Is this Ahab having visions and portents
or just weird vibes.? ↩

  7. Okay, wow
 I sleep less as I near 60 but dang, that’s a harshly poetic way to explain it. ↩

  8. Narrow scuttle - he’s casting aspersions on the staircase he would use to go down to his room - a scuttle is (as we came across before in Episode 10, footnote 12 a drain on the ship. ↩

  9. Sentinelled - Guarded the sleep of the people below deck. ↩

  10. Sometimes “considering” is “considerating” - same meaning. ↩

  11. Forgot to bring this up - if you’ve read Heart of Darkness this won’t be news, but if not: pay attention to the usage of the color ”white” as we go. ↩

  12. Taffrail referred to in Chapter 28, mainmast referred to in Ch 28, too, but only as a footnote describing where the Quarterdeck was located - behind the mainmast. ↩

  13. Same idea as putting felt on the bottom of chair legs - a “globe of tow” would be a little ball of unspun flax (light brown, like “tow-headed”) that he could stick his peg leg into. He’s punning that the ball of twine to stuff his leg into would be like stuffing wadding into a cannon. [11]: King Lear 1.4.115: “Truth’s a dog must to kennel.” ↩

  14. WOW - okay - we now know that this is absolutely the first voyage Ahab has shipped out with this crew (or at least we know about Ishamel, Queequg, and Stubb
 likely true for the rest of the crew). That seems VERY odd to me. ↩ ↩2

  15. Avast - stop, cease (early 17th C, from Dutch hou’vast or houd vast = hold fast) ↩

  16. Holy crap - really think about that insult. ↩

  17. Queer used often by Melville in this book - and it does a lot of work. Here it’s more “ ‘tis a puzzlement”. ↩

  18. Powder-pan (flash in the pan) - literally the little pan (flashpan) that gunpowder was poured into in matchlock guns and the like, used to fire the gun. ↩

  19. “Dough-Boy: a boiled dumpling, The steward is said to have a “pale loaf-of-bread face” [(Ch. 34)](Moby cross-Chapter references) ↩

  20. Coverlit alt. for coverlet / bedspread / counterpane ↩

  21. Like a warming pan, a heated brick could also be used to warm the bedsheets, so it’s not a weird reference. It is, however, not a good sign if your pillow feels like it’s been supporting a baked brick after a night’s sleep. WHAT IS TORMENTING AHAB
hmmmmm - POST CHAPTER CONVO - Two ways to think about this story EITHER AS MODERN PERSON WHO KNOWS THERE’S SOME TRAGEDY AND TORTURED AHAB BEING DRIVEN BY RAGE AND VENGEANCE TO GET THE WHALE (BUT THE WHY WE AREN’T NECESSARILY CLEAR ON) OR AS A TALE THE END OF WHICH WE DO NOT KNOW IN ADVANCE , IN WHICH CASE THIS IS A MASTER-CLASS IN HOW TO BUILD FORSHADOWED TENSION. EITHER WAY - LISTEN LIKE IT’S BRECHTIAN, OR LIKE YOU’RE A NEW READER IN 1850–IT’S A WIN EITHER WAY ↩

  22. Tic-Dolly-row = tic douloureux a painful facial tic. ↩

  23. The After-Hold - the cargo storage area in the aft (back) of the ship. ↩

  24. Compartmentalizing goes WAY back, apparently. Also, this sounds like the advice I was given when the kids were babies. ;) ↩

  25. tripod of whale bones - woof ↩

  26. Binnacle lamp - a lighted compass housing near the tiller (pretty useful thing to have, and probelay very bright as it was most likely powered by whale oil) Waterproof and holding other navigational instruments. ↩

  27. Weather side - side of the ship upon which the wind is blowing. ↩

  28. A Khan - an absolute monarch in Central Asia and surrounds - like Genghis Khan or Kubla Khan, Genghis’ dad CHECK THAT ↩

  29. Here’s why Heather likes this book - Melville actually makes it clear what his symbols are! LOL ↩

  30. Um
 he’s on the Weather side of the ship - the wind is blowing onto him so he’s blowing his own smoke back into his face
why he doesn’t simply turn around is beyond me. I guess that’s some serious depression there! ↩

  31. Hi Depression! ↩

  32. For Ishmael’s depression, the solution was “take to the sea” - clearly that’s not working for Ahab. ↩

  33. These two chapters are fascinating because HOW WAS ISHMAEL THERE?! Answer: he wasn’t. However, remember, this is being written by OLD Ishmael. This is an old man doing his best to rememeber his young self and at the same time PROCESS what the hell happend to him (impose Order onto the voyage’s Chaos). This is a survivor narrative and we have to remember that. ALSO - Dude, Ahab just tossed the LAST PLEASURE HE HAD IN LIFE. ALL that’s left of the man is rage and vengeance. Gotta be a lotta fun at parties! ↩

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