120 The Deck
CHAPTER 120
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, sirsend down the main-top-sail yard . . . band . . . is half-stranded . . . strike it: Starbuck advises lowering (striking) the main-top-sail yard, a heavy spar, which is in danger of falling (and doing much damage) because the unraveling lee-lift (the rope leading from the mast to an iron band around the yardarm, supporting its weight) may let go. Making things worse, the band itself may break loose.?”
“Strike nothing; lash it. If I had sky-sail polessky-sail poles: the highest parts of masts, supporting the light, fair-weather skysails and their yards., 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-landstable-lands: high plateaus. yet. Quick, and see to it.—By masts and keels! he takes me for the hunchbacked skipper of some coasting smackcoasting smack: small fishing boat that stays close to shore.. Send down my main-top-sail yard! Ho, gluepotsgluepots: slang for parson, addressed to Starbuck.! 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 hoorooshhooroosh: wild uproar. 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!take medicine!”: Recalling King Lear 3.4.33, “take physic, pomp.””