- description
- # Introduction
## Overview
This "Introduction" is a textual segment from Chapter 73 of Herman Melville's *Moby Dick*. It spans lines 12738 to 12799 of the source file `moby_dick.txt`.
## Context
This introduction is part of the larger section titled "[CHAPTER 73. Stubb and Flask kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk Over Him.](arke:01KG8AM8GH9R2BZR4XEFQQ3P31)". The text was extracted from the file "[moby_dick.txt](arke:01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6)" and is part of the "[Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW)" collection. This segment immediately precedes the scene titled "[Conversation between Stubb and Flask](arke:01KG8ANJ17QMEGBKCM112F8NHW)".
## Contents
The introduction sets the scene for the chapter, describing the unusual decision to hunt a Right Whale despite the ship's primary focus on Sperm Whales. It details the sighting of Right Whales, the detachment of Stubb's and Flask's boats, and the initial stages of the hunt. The narrative highlights the dramatic pursuit, the whale's powerful evasive maneuvers, and the near-disaster as the whale's line scrapes beneath the ship. The text concludes with the whale, exhausted, completing a circuit around the ship while towing the two boats, and the subsequent battle with lances. The chapter's events are compared to the Israelites drinking from the smitten rock as sharks gather to feed on the spilled blood. The introduction ends as the whale is finally killed.
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- Introduction
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- text
- CHAPTER 73. Stubb and Flask kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk
over Him.
It must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm Whale’s
prodigious head hanging to the Pequod’s side. But we must let it
continue hanging there a while till we can get a chance to attend to
it. For the present other matters press, and the best we can do now for
the head, is to pray heaven the tackles may hold.
Now, during the past night and forenoon, the Pequod had gradually
drifted into a sea, which, by its occasional patches of yellow brit,
gave unusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales, a species of the
Leviathan that but few supposed to be at this particular time lurking
anywhere near. And though all hands commonly disdained the capture of
those inferior creatures; and though the Pequod was not commissioned to
cruise for them at all, and though she had passed numbers of them near
the Crozetts without lowering a boat; yet now that a Sperm Whale had
been brought alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the
announcement was made that a Right Whale should be captured that day,
if opportunity offered.
Nor was this long wanting. Tall spouts were seen to leeward; and two
boats, Stubb’s and Flask’s, were detached in pursuit. Pulling further
and further away, they at last became almost invisible to the men at
the mast-head. But suddenly in the distance, they saw a great heap of
tumultuous white water, and soon after news came from aloft that one or
both the boats must be fast. An interval passed and the boats were in
plain sight, in the act of being dragged right towards the ship by the
towing whale. So close did the monster come to the hull, that at first
it seemed as if he meant it malice; but suddenly going down in a
maelstrom, within three rods of the planks, he wholly disappeared from
view, as if diving under the keel. “Cut, cut!” was the cry from the
ship to the boats, which, for one instant, seemed on the point of being
brought with a deadly dash against the vessel’s side. But having plenty
of line yet in the tubs, and the whale not sounding very rapidly, they
paid out abundance of rope, and at the same time pulled with all their
might so as to get ahead of the ship. For a few minutes the struggle
was intensely critical; for while they still slacked out the tightened
line in one direction, and still plied their oars in another, the
contending strain threatened to take them under. But it was only a few
feet advance they sought to gain. And they stuck to it till they did
gain it; when instantly, a swift tremor was felt running like lightning
along the keel, as the strained line, scraping beneath the ship,
suddenly rose to view under her bows, snapping and quivering; and so
flinging off its drippings, that the drops fell like bits of broken
glass on the water, while the whale beyond also rose to sight, and once
more the boats were free to fly. But the fagged whale abated his speed,
and blindly altering his course, went round the stern of the ship
towing the two boats after him, so that they performed a complete
circuit.
Meantime, they hauled more and more upon their lines, till close
flanking him on both sides, Stubb answered Flask with lance for lance;
and thus round and round the Pequod the battle went, while the
multitudes of sharks that had before swum round the Sperm Whale’s body,
rushed to the fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking at every
new gash, as the eager Israelites did at the new bursting fountains
that poured from the smitten rock.
At last his spout grew thick, and with a frightful roll and vomit, he
turned upon his back a corpse.
- title
- Introduction