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!