Thee/Thou

‘Ishmael’ : 

Ahoy There! Someone aboard?

Is this The Captain 

of The Pequod?

Snooty Quaker Investor :

What Doest Thee want 

of The Captain?

‘Ishmael’ : 

We were thinking of shipping.

Snooty Quaker Investor :

Thee art Thinking 

of Shipping…

‘Ishmael’ : 

I art.... I mean, 

I Doest.

Snooty Quaker Investor :

Making Sport of Me, lad?

‘Ishmael’ : 

No. I just fell into that 

manner of Speech.

Snooty Quaker Investor :

If I weren't a Quaker and 

a Man of Peace, I'd fetch Thee 

clout on the side of Thy Head,

My Lad, just to make sure.

I see Thee art no 

New Bedford-man.

Doest know nothing at all 

about Whaling, I daresay.

‘Ishmael’ :

I've had several voyages

in the merchant service.

Snooty Quaker Investor :

Merchant service? Flukes, man.

What takes Thee whaling?

‘Ishmael’ :

Sir, I want to see What 

Whaling is like.

Snooty Quaker Investor :

Have You seen Ahab, 

The Captain of The Ship?

If You want to know 

What Whaling is, then 

You'll know by clapping 

an eye on Captain Ahab —

You'll see A Man torn apart 

from crown to heel and  

spliced-together with 

sperm whalebone in place 

of what's missing.

His looks tell more than 

any church-had sermon 

about the mortality of man.

‘Ishmael’ :

And a whale did that?

Snooty Quaker Investor :

A Whale as big as An Island.

Art Thee the Man to 

pitch a harpoon down 

a whale's throat and 

jump after it?

‘Ishmael’ :

I am, sir... if it should be positively 

indispensable to do so.

Snooty Quaker Investor :

Come along, then.

Bildad, stir yourself.

This Young Man says 

He wants to ship.

Bildad :

Hast ever been a 

pirate, hast Thee?

‘Ishmael’ :

Never.

Snooty Quaker Investor :

Didst not murder Thy 

last Captain at sea?

‘Ishmael’ :

Indeed not.

Bildad :

He'll Do.

Snooty Quaker Investor :

What Pay shall 

We give Him?

Bildad :

The 777th part.

Snooty Quaker Investor :

Would not be too much?

Bildad :

For this strapping lad? 

Not half enough.

Snooty Quaker Investor :

Captain Peleg, Thee hast a generous heart.

But thee must consider the duty thee owest

to the other owners of this ship...

widows and orphans, many of them.

If we too abundantly reward

the labors of this young man...

we'll be taking bread from their mouths.

I'm putting him down for the 

300th part of the profit.

You hear, Bildad? 

The 300th part, I say.

"Lay not up for yourself

treasures upon earth, where 

moth and rust do corrupt."

-My last pay was--

-The 777th part seems 

fair enough to me.

-The 300th.

-Don't Thank me, lad. 

I only Do Thee justice.

What holds Thee? Sign.

‘Ishmael’ :

Sir, it's Captain Ahab.

What about him?

‘Ishmael’ :

Was not Ahab of old a very wicked King?

And when he was slain, did 

the dogs not lick his blood?

Look, lad — Captain Ahab 

did not name himself.

Sign the paper now, 

and wrong him not

because he happens to 

have a wicked name.

Now, for that Son of Darkness

that is Thy Friend --

‘Ishmael’ :

Queequeg, Step forward.

What Say You, Bildad?

I suspect Thee art not a Christian.

Doest Thee attend Church on Sundays?

Doest Thee know and obey

The Ten Commandments?

God, man.

Take the pen. Make Thy mark.

Sign now for a 60th part 

of Our Profit — Put there, quick.

Ambergris

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 92. Ambergris.

Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that subject. For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day, the precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem to the learned. Though the word ambergris is but the French compound for grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For amber, though at times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far inland soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea. Besides, amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance, used for mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris is soft, waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used in perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum. The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for the same purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter’s in Rome. Some wine merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it.

Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering three or four boat loads of Brandreth’s pills, and then running out of harm’s way, as laborers do in blasting rocks.

I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris, certain hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be sailors’ trowsers buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were nothing more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner.

Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption; how that we are sown in dishonor, but raised in glory. And likewise call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh the best musk. Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of ill-savor, Cologne-water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages, is the worst.

I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal, but cannot, owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against whalemen, and which, in the estimation of some already biased minds, might be considered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said of the Frenchman’s two whales. Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous aspersion has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is throughout a slatternly, untidy business. But there is another thing to rebut. They hint that all whales always smell bad. Now how did this odious stigma originate?

I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago. Because those whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out their oil at sea as the Southern ships have always done; but cutting up the fresh blubber in small bits, thrust it through the bung holes of large casks, and carry it home in that manner; the shortness of the season in those Icy Seas, and the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed, forbidding any other course. The consequence is, that upon breaking into the hold, and unloading one of these whale cemeteries, in the Greenland dock, a savor is given forth somewhat similar to that arising from excavating an old city grave-yard, for the foundations of a Lying-in Hospital.

I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great work on Smells, a text-book on that subject. As its name imports (smeer, fat; berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford a place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out, without being taken home to Holland for that purpose. It was a collection of furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds; and when the works were in full operation certainly gave forth no very pleasant savor. But all this is quite different with a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a voyage of four years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil, does not, perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boiling out; and in the state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless. The truth is, that living or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a species are by no means creatures of ill odor; nor can whalemen be recognised, as the people of the middle ages affected to detect a Jew in the company, by the nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant, when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high health; taking abundance of exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale’s flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town to do honor to Alexander the Great?