CHAPTER 40
Midnight, Forecastle
HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS
(Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging, leaning,
and lying in various attitudes, all singing in chorus.)
Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies!
Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain!
Our captain's commanded.-
1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR
Oh, boys, don't be sentimental. it's bad for the digestion! Take a
tonic, follow me! (Sings, and all follow)
Our captain stood upon the deck,
A spy-glass in his hand,
A viewing of those gallant whales
That blew at every strand.
Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys,
And by your braces stand,
And we'll have one of those fine whales,
Hand, boys, over hand!
So, be cheery, my lads! may your hearts never fail!
While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale!
MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK
Eight bells there, forward!
2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR
Avast the chorus! Eight bells there! d'ye hear, bell-boy? Strike the
bell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let me call the watch.
I've the sort of mouth for that- the hogshead mouth. So, so,
(thrusts his head down the scuttle,) Star-bo-l-e-e-n-s, a-h-o-y! Eight
bells there below! Tumble up!
DUTCH SAILOR
Grand snoozing to-night, maty; fat night for that. I mark this in
our old Mogul's wine; it's quite as deadening to some as filliping
to others. We sing; they sleep- aye, lie down there, like
ground-tier butts. At 'em again! There, take this copper-pump, and
hail 'em through it. Tell 'em to avast dreaming of their lassies. Tell
'em it's the resurrection; they must kiss their last, and come to
judgment. That's the way- that's it; thy throat ain't spoiled with
eating Amsterdam butter.
FRENCH SAILOR
Hist, boys! let's have a jig or two before we ride to anchor in
Blanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand by all
legs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine!
PIP (Sulky and sleepy)
Don't know where it is.
FRENCH SAILOR
Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I say;
merry's the word; hurrah! Damn me, won't you dance? Form, now,
Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle? Throw yourselves!
Legs! legs!
ICELAND SAILOR
I don't like your floor, maty; it's too springy to my taste. I'm
used to ice-floors. I'm sorry to throw cold water on the subject;
but excuse me.
MALTESE SAILOR
Me too; where's your girls? Who but a fool would take his left
hand by his right, and say to himself, how d'ye do? Partners! I must
have partners!
SICILIAN SAILOR
Aye; girls and a green!- then I'll hop with ye; yea, turn
grasshopper!
LONG-ISLAND SAILOR
Well, well, ye sulkies, there's plenty more of us. Hoe corn when you
may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here comes the music; now
for it!
AZORE SAILOR (Ascending, and pitching the tambourine up the scuttle.)
Here you are, Pip; and there's the windlass-bits; up you mount! Now,
boys!
(The half of them dance to the tambourine; some go below; some sleep
or lie among the coils of rigging. Oaths a-plenty.)
AZORE SAILOR (Dancing)
Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig it, stig it, quig it,
bell-boy! Make fire-flies; break the jinglers!
PIP
Jinglers, you say?- there goes another, dropped off; I pound it so.
CHINA SAILOR
Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away; make a pagoda of thyself.
FRENCH SAILOR
Merry-mad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through it! Split
jibs! tear yourself!
TASHTEGO (Quietly smoking)
That's a white man; he calls that fun: humph! I save my sweat.
OLD MANX SAILOR
I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what they are
dancing over. I'll dance over your grave, I will- that's the bitterest
threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds round corners. O
Christ! to think of the green navies and the green-skulled crews!
Well, well; belike the whole world's a ball, as you scholars have
it; and so 'tis right to make one ballroom of it. Dance on, lads,
you're young; I was once.
3D NANTUCKET SAILOR
Spell oh!- whew! this is worse than pulling after whales in a
calm- give a whiff, Tash.
(They cease dancing, and gather in clusters. Meantime the sky
darkens- the wind rises.)
LASCAR SAILOR
By Brahma! boys, it'll be douse sail soon. The sky-born, high-tide
Ganges turned to wind! Thou showest thy black brow, Seeva!
MALTESE SAILOR (Reclining and shaking his cap)
It's the waves- the snow's caps turn to jig it now. They'll shake
their tassels soon. Now would all the waves were women, then I'd go
drown, and chassee with them evermore! There's naught so sweet on
earth- heaven may not match it!- as those swift glances of warm,
wild bosoms in the dance, when the over-arboring arms hide such
ripe, bursting grapes.
SICILIAN SAILOR (Reclining)
Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad- fleet interlacings of the limbs-
lithe swayings- coyings- flutterings! lip! heart! hip! all graze:
unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye, else come satiety.
Eh, Pagan? (Nudging.)
TAHITAN SAILOR (Reclining on a mat)
Hail, holy nakedness of our dancing girls!- the Heeva-Heeva! Ah! low
veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I still rest me on thy mat, but the soft
soil has slid! I saw thee woven in the wood, my mat! green the first
day I brought ye thence; now worn and wilted quite. Ah me!- not thou
nor I can bear the change! How then, if so be transplanted to yon sky?
Hear I the roaring streams from Pirohitee's peak of spears, when
they leap down the crags and drown the villages?- The blast, the
blast! Up, spine, and meet it! (Leaps to his feet.)
PORTUGUESE SAILOR
How the sea rolls swashing 'gainst the side! Stand by for reefing,
hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell they'll go
lunging presently.
DANISH SAILOR
Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou holdest! Well
done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He's no more afraid
than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic with
storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes!
4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR
He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old Ahab tell him he must
always kill a squall, something as they burst a waterspout with a
pistol- fire your ship right into it!
ENGLISH SAILOR
Blood! but that old man's a grand old cove! We are the lads to
hunt him up his whale!
ALL
Aye! aye!
OLD MANX SAILOR
How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort of tree to
live when shifted to any other soil, and here there's none but the
crew's cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady. This is the sort of
weather when brave hearts snap ashore, and keeled hulls split at
sea. Our captain has his birthmark; look yonder, boys, there's another
in the sky lurid- like, ye see, all else pitch black.
DAGGOO
What of that? Who's afraid of black's afraid of me! I'm quarried out
of it!
SPANISH SAILOR
(Aside.) He wants to bully, ah!- the old grudge makes me touchy
(Advancing.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable dark side
of mankind- devilish dark at that. No offence.
DAGGOO (Grimly)
None.
ST. JAGO'S SAILOR
That Spaniard's mad or drunk. But that can't be, or else in his
one case our old Mogul's fire-waters are somewhat long in working.
5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR
What's that I saw- lightning? Yes.
SPANISH SAILOR
No; Daggoo showing his teeth.
DAGGOO (Springing)
Swallow thine, mannikin! White skin, white liver!
SPANISH SAILOR (Meeting him)
Knife thee heartily! big frame, small spirit!
ALL
A row! a row! a row!
TASHTEGO (With a whiff)
A row a'low, and a row aloft- Gods and men- both brawlers! Humph!
BELFAST SAILOR
A row! arrah a row! The Virgin be blessed, a row! Plunge in with ye!
ENGLISH SAILOR
Fair play! Snatch the Spaniard's knife! A ring, a ring!
OLD MANX SAILOR
Ready formed. There! the ringed horizon. In that ring Cain struck
Abel. Sweet work, right work! No? Why then, God, mad'st thou the ring?
MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK
Hands by the halyards! in top-gallant sails! Stand by to reef
topsails!
ALL
The squall! the squall! jump, my jollies! (They scatter.)
PIP (Shrinking under the windlass)
Jollies? Lord help such jollies! Crish, crash! there goes the
jib-stay! Blang-whang! God! Duck lower, Pip, here comes the royal
yard! It's worse than being in the whirled woods, the last day of
the year! Who'd go climbing after chestnuts now? But there they go,
all cursing, and here I don't. Fine prospects to 'em; they're on the
road to heaven. Hold on hard! Jimmini, what a squall! But those
chaps there are worse yet- they are your white squalls, they. White
squalls? white whale, shirr! shirr! Here have I heard all their chat
just now, and the white whale- shirr! shirr!- but spoken of once!
and only this evening- it makes me ingle all over like my
tambourine- that anaconda of an old man swore 'em in to hunt him!
Oh! thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have
mercy on this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men
that have no bowels to feel fear!