12 Biographical
CHAPTER 12
BIOGRAPHICAL.
Queequeg was a native of KokovokoKokovoko: Queequeg’s Pacific Island home is Melville’s invention., an island far away to the West and South. It is not down in any map; true places never are.
When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in a grass cloutclout: loincloth. , followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green sapling; even then, in Queequeg’s ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two. His father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable warriors. There was excellent blood in his veins—royal stuff; though sadly vitiatedvitiated: debased., I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished in his untutored youth.
A Sag HarborSag Harbor: major whaling port on southeastern Long Island, NY. ship visited his father’s bay, and Queequeg sought a passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement of seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his father’s influence could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, he paddled off to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass through when she quitted the island. On one side was a coral reef; on the other a low tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the water. Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and when the ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her side; with one backward dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe; climbed up the chainschains: combination of rigid chains and narrow wood platforms, fastened to the sides of a ship to strengthen the rigging supporting the masts.; and throwing himself at full length upon the deck, grappled a ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces.
In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended a cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, and Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his wild desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and told him he might make himself at home. But this fine young savage—this sea Prince of WalesPrince of Wales: Title of the male heir to the British throne; hence an acknowledgment of Queequeg’s royal rights, as well as a pun., never saw the captain’s cabin. They put him down among the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar PeterCzar Peter: As a youth, Russia’s Peter the Great (1672-1725)learned shipbuilding in Dutch and English navy yards. content to toil in the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained no seeming ignominy, if thereby he might happily gain the power of enlighteningREVISION NARRATIVE: he might happily gain the power of enlightening // The word “happily” is altered to “haply” (meaning “by chance”) in the British edition. The editors of the NN Moby-Dick emend the text to “haply,” assuming it to be a correction. However, “happily” may have been originally intended, especially in light of the comparison of Queequeg to Czar Peter the Great. As a young man, Peter purposefully toiled incognito in a Dutch shipyard in order to learn techniques for the betterment of the Russian shipbuilding industry; he would have gained this enlightenment “happily,” and by design, not “haply.” Similarly, Queequeg’s intention, stated a few lines later, is to “learn among the Christians” so that he may make his people “happier.” However ill-advised, “haply” could be a revision. Even so, in keeping with our principle of not mixing versions, MEL retains “happily” and registers the change through revision annotation. To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. his untutored countrymen. For at bottom—so he told me—he was actuated by a profound desire to learn among the Christians, the arts whereby to make his people still happier than they were; and more than that, still better than they were. But, alas! the practices of whalemen soon convinced him that even Christians could be both miserable and wicked; infinitely more so, than all his father’s heathens. Arrived at last in old Sag Harbor; and seeing what the sailors did there; and then going on to Nantucket, and seeing how they spent their wages in that place also, poor Queequeg gave it up for lost. Thought he, it’s a wicked world in all meridiansmeridians: longitudes.; I’ll die a pagan.
And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these Christians, wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish. Hence the queer ways about him, though now some time from home.
By hints, I asked him whether he did not propose going back, and having a coronation; since he might now consider his father dead and gone, he being very old and feeble at the last accounts. He answered no, not yet; and added that he was fearful Christianity, or rather Christians, had unfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thirty pagan Kings before him. But by and by, he said, he would return,—as soon as he felt himself baptized again. For the nonceFor the nonce: For now., however, he proposed to sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans. They had made a harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now.
I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation. Upon this, I told him that whaling was my own designdesign: objective., and informed him of my intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most promising port for an adventurous whaleman to embark from. He at once resolved to accompany me to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the same watch, the same boat, the same messmess: group of shipmates who eat their meals together. with me, in short to share my every haphap: chance happening.; with both my hands in his, boldly dip into the PotluckPotluck: whatever turns up. of both worlds. To all this I joyously assented; for besides the affection I now felt for Queequeg, he was an experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not fail to be of great usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant of the mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea, as known to merchant seamen.
His story being ended with his pipe’s last dying puff, Queequeg embraced me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the light, we rolled over from each other, this way and that, and very soon were sleeping.