- description
- # Chapter 117 of *Moby Dick; Or, The Whale*
## Overview
This entity is Chapter 117 of the novel [Moby Dick; Or, The Whale](arke:01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D), a literary text chapter extracted from the full novel. It follows Chapter 118, titled "The Quadrant," and precedes Chapter 119, "The Candles." The chapter consists of 46 lines of narrative text and was digitally extracted on January 23, 2026, as part of a structured archival process.
## Context
The chapter is situated within the final stages of Herman Melville’s 1851 novel, during Captain Ahab’s obsessive pursuit of the white whale, Moby Dick. It directly continues from [Chapter 118. The Quadrant](arke:01KFNR85GWGHX3P052J1NGN5PC), in which Ahab uses navigational instruments to determine his position at sea. This context is critical: Ahab has just taken a solar observation with his quadrant, an act that prompts his furious philosophical rejection of scientific tools in the present chapter. The narrative is part of the larger [Moby Dick](arke:01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV) collection, which archives the complete structure and text of the novel.
## Contents
The chapter captures Captain Ahab’s violent outburst against the quadrant, which he hurls to the deck in a fit of rage. He denounces science and navigation as futile, mocking the instrument for only revealing the ship’s current position while being powerless to predict the future or locate Moby Dick. In a soliloquy rich with existential despair, Ahab curses the sun and humanity’s aspiration toward divine knowledge, insisting instead on “earthly” means of navigation—dead reckoning and the compass. The scene is observed silently by the Parsee, Fedallah, whose expression conveys fatalistic dread. The crew, awestruck, cluster together as Ahab restores order with a command to adjust the ship’s sails. Starbuck and Stubb reflect on Ahab’s madness: Starbuck compares Ahab’s fiery will to a dying coal, destined to become mere ash, while Stubb affirms Ahab’s resolve, declaring that one must “live in the game, and die in it.” The chapter underscores the novel’s central conflict between reason and obsession, fate and free will.
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- 2026-01-23T15:46:08.001Z
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- description_title
- Chapter 117 of *Moby Dick; Or, The Whale*
- end_line
- 19197
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- 2026-01-23T15:41:00.636Z
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- text
- “Foolish toy! babies’ plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores,
and Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but
what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where
thou thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that
holds thee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of
water or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy
impotence thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy;
and cursed be all the things that cast man’s eyes aloft to that heaven,
whose live vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now
scorched with thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth’s horizon
are the glances of man’s eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as
if God had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou
quadrant!” dashing it to the deck, “no longer will I guide my earthly
way by thee; the level ship’s compass, and the level dead-reckoning, by
log and by line; _these_ shall conduct me, and show me my place on the
sea. Aye,” lighting from the boat to the deck, “thus I trample on thee,
thou paltry thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and
destroy thee!”
As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with his live and
dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and a
fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself—these passed over the
mute, motionless Parsee’s face. Unobserved he rose and glided away;
while, awestruck by the aspect of their commander, the seamen clustered
together on the forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing the deck,
shouted out—“To the braces! Up helm!—square in!”
In an instant the yards swung round; and as the ship half-wheeled upon
her heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts erectly poised upon her
long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three Horatii pirouetting on one
sufficient steed.
Standing between the knight-heads, Starbuck watched the Pequod’s
tumultuous way, and Ahab’s also, as he went lurching along the deck.
“I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full
of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down,
down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life of
thine, what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!”
“Aye,” cried Stubb, “but sea-coal ashes—mind ye that, Mr.
Starbuck—sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well; I heard Ahab
mutter, ‘Here some one thrusts these cards into these old hands of
mine; swears that I must play them, and no others.’ And damn me, Ahab,
but thou actest right; live in the game, and die in it!”
- title
- 117