- description
- # Cock-a-doodle-doo!
## Overview
This is a segment extracted from the text file [billy_budd.txt](arke:01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY), found within the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. It is part of the novel [Billy Budd and Other Prose Pieces](arke:01KG8AJ7CG8SS24T79X9YN19QH) and is preceded by the segment titled "Daniel Orme" and followed by "The Two Temples - Introductory Material". The segment spans lines 5305-5349 of the source text.
## Context
The segment is extracted from a plain text file, [billy_budd.txt](arke:01KG89J1FFTGRE9J93Z3K29NGY), which is part of the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. The novel [Billy Budd and Other Prose Pieces](arke:01KG8AJ7CG8SS24T79X9YN19QH) contains this segment, among other frontmatter, sections, chapters, and segments.
## Contents
This segment describes the death of a wood-sawyer and his family, attended by the narrator and a rooster. The rooster crows triumphantly over the dead children, then flies to the apex of the dwelling, emits a final note, and dies. The narrator buries the family and erects a gravestone with a carving of a crowing rooster and the inscription "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?". The narrator concludes by stating that he has since been able to "crow late and early with a continual crow." The segment ends with the onomatopoeic "Cock-a-doodle-doo!"
- description_generated_at
- 2026-01-30T20:49:31.367Z
- description_model
- gemini-2.5-flash-lite
- description_title
- Cock-a-doodle-doo!
- end_line
- 5349
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:42.596Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5305
- text
- one long, musical, triumphant, and final sort of crow, with throat
heaved far back, as if he meant the blast to waft the wood-sawyer’s soul
sheer up to the seventh heaven. Then he strode, king-like, to the
woman’s bed. Another upturned and exultant crow, mated to the former.
The pallor of the children was changed to radiance. Their faces shone
celestially through grime and dirt. They seemed children of emperors and
kings, disguised. The cock sprang upon their bed, shook himself, and
crowed, and crowed again, and still and still again. He seemed bent upon
crowing the souls of the children out of their wasted bodies. He seemed
bent upon rejoining instanter this whole family in the upper air. The
children seemed to second his endeavours. Far, deep, intense longings
for release transfigured them into spirits before my eyes. I saw angels
where they lay.
They were dead.
The cock shook his plumage over them. The cock crew. It was now like a
Bravo! like a Hurrah! like a Three-times-three! hip! hip! He strode out
of the shanty. I followed. He flew upon the apex of the dwelling, spread
wide his wings, sounded one supernatural note, and dropped at my feet.
The cock was dead.
If now you visit that hilly region, you will see, nigh the railroad
track, just beneath October Mountain, on the other side of the
swamp--there you will see a gravestone, not with skull and cross-bones,
but with a lusty cock in act of crowing, chiselled on it, with the words
beneath:--
‘O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?’
The wood-sawyer and his family, with the Signor Beneventano, lie in that
spot; and I buried them, and planted the stone, which was a stone made
to order; and never since then have I felt the doleful dumps, but under
all circumstances crow late and early with a continual crow.
Cock-a-doodle-doo!--oo!--oo!--oo!--oo!
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- title
- Cock-a-doodle-doo!