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- much predictions from without, as verifications of the foregoing things
within. For with little external to constrain us, the innermost
necessities in our being, these still drive us on.
“The measure! the measure!” cried Ahab.
Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he
ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before him
near the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his three
mates stood at his side with their lances, and the rest of the ship’s
company formed a circle round the group; he stood for an instant
searchingly eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild eyes met his,
as the bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their
leader, ere he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison; but,
alas! only to fall into the hidden snare of the Indian.
“Drink and pass!” he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon to the
nearest seaman. “The crew alone now drink. Round with it, round! Short
draughts—long swallows, men; ’tis hot as Satan’s hoof. So, so; it goes
round excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks out at the
serpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost drained. That way it went, this
way it comes. Hand it me—here’s a hollow! Men, ye seem the years; so
brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill!
“Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan; and
ye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye harpooneers, stand there
with your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I may in some
sort revive a noble custom of my fisherman fathers before me. O men,
you will yet see that—Ha! boy, come back? bad pennies come not sooner.
Hand it me. Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again, wer’t not
thou St. Vitus’ imp—away, thou ague!
“Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let me
touch the axis.” So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the three
level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so doing,
suddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile, glancing intently from
Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some
nameless, interior volition, he would fain have shocked into them the
same fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own
magnetic life. The three mates quailed before his strong, sustained,
and mystic aspect. Stubb and Flask looked sideways from him; the honest
eye of Starbuck fell downright.
“In vain!” cried Ahab; “but, maybe, ’tis well. For did ye three but
once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing, _that_
had perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have dropped
ye dead. Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, ye mates, I do
appoint ye three cupbearers to my three pagan kinsmen there—yon three
most honorable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers. Disdain
the task? What, when the great Pope washes the feet of beggars, using
his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! your own condescension,
_that_ shall bend ye to it. I do not order ye; ye will it. Cut your
seizings and draw the poles, ye harpooneers!”
Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the
detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held, barbs
up, before him.
“Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over! know ye
not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye cup-bearers,
advance. The irons! take them; hold them while I fill!” Forthwith,
slowly going from one officer to the other, he brimmed the harpoon
sockets with the fiery waters from the pewter.
“Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Bestow
them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league. Ha!
Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit upon
it. Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the
deathful whaleboat’s bow—Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do
not hunt Moby Dick to his death!” The long, barbed steel goblets were
lifted; and to cries and maledictions against the white whale, the
spirits were simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss. Starbuck paled,
and turned, and shivered. Once more, and finally, the replenished
pewter went the rounds among the frantic crew; when, waving his free
hand to them, they all dispersed; and Ahab retired within his cabin.
CHAPTER 37. Sunset.
_The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out_.
I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I
sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them;
but first I pass.
Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet’s rim, the warm waves blush like wine.
The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun—slow dived from noon—goes
down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then,
the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it
bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but
darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. ’Tis iron—that
I know—not gold. ’Tis split, too—that I feel; the jagged edge galls me
so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull,
mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!
Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred
me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not
me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne’er enjoy. Gifted
with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most
subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good
night—good night! (_waving his hand, he moves from the window_.)
’Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least;
but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they
revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all
stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the
match itself must needs be wasting! What I’ve dared, I’ve willed; and
what I’ve willed, I’ll do! They think me mad—Starbuck does; but I’m
demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that’s only calm to
comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered;
and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my
dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That’s
more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye
cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I
will not say as schoolboys do to bullies—Take some one of your own
size; don’t pommel _me!_ No, ye’ve knocked me down, and I am up again;
but _ye_ have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags!
I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab’s compliments to ye; come
and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye
swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed
purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run.
Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under
torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle, naught’s an
angle to the iron way!
CHAPTER 38. Dusk.
_By the Mainmast; Starbuck leaning against it_.
My soul is more than matched; she’s overmanned; and by a madman!
Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But
he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I
see his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it. Will I, nill
I, the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with a cable I have
no knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who’s over him, he cries;—aye, he
would be a democrat to all above; look, how he lords it over all below!
Oh! I plainly see my miserable office,—to obey, rebelling; and worse
yet, to hate with touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe
would shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there hope.