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Moby-Dick; or, The Whale

Chapter 124: CHAPTER CXX.
By Herman Melville
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About This Book

A young seafarer signs onto a whaling vessel and provides a detailed account of shipboard life, ports of call, and the practical tasks of hunting whales. The narrative alternates between technical chapters about cetology and expansive philosophical digressions that probe obsession, fate, and the limits of human knowledge. As the voyage continues, the ship’s captain becomes increasingly fixated on pursuing a legendary white whale, steering the crew toward a fatal confrontation. The work combines adventure and natural history with sustained meditations on mortality, leadership, community, and humanity’s attempt to assert meaning against vast, indifferent forces.

CHAPTER CXX.

THE DECK TOWARDS THE END OF THE FIRST NIGHT WATCH.
Ahab standing by the helm.  Starbuck approaching him.

“We must send down the main-top-sail yard, sir. The band is working loose, and the lee lift is half-stranded. Shall I strike it, sir?”

“Strike nothing; lash it. If I had sky-sail poles, I’d sway them up now.”

“Sir?—in God’s name!—sir?”

“Well.”

“The anchors are working, sir. Shall I get them inboard?”

“Strike nothing, and stir nothing, but lash everything. The wind rises, but it has not got up to my table-lands yet. Quick, and see to it.—By masts and keels! he takes me for the hunch-backed skipper of some coasting smack. Send down my main-top-sail yard! Ho, gluepots! Loftiest trucks were made for wildest winds, and this brain-truck of mine now sails amid the cloud-scud. Shall I strike that? Oh, none but cowards send down their brain-trucks in tempest time. What a hooroosh aloft there! I would e’en take it for sublime, did I not know that the colic is a noisy malady. Oh, take medicine, take medicine!”