64 Stubb's Supper
CHAPTER 64
STUBB’S SUPPER.
Stubb's whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was a calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced the slow business of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteen men with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs and fingers, slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse in the sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long intervals; good evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness of the mass we moved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Hogreat canal of Hang-Ho: The Grand Canal (Yun-ho or Chah-ho) follows in part the former bed of the Huang-ho (Yellow River)., or whatever they call it, in China, four or five laborers on the foot-path will draw a bulky freighted junkjunk: Flat-bottomed sailing vessel. at the rate of a mile an hour; but this grand argosyargosy: large merchant vessel. we towed heavily forged along, as if laden with pig-leadpig-lead: small cast-lead bars often used for ballast. in bulk.
Darkness came on; but three lights up and down in the Pequod’s main-rigging dimly guided our way; till drawing nearer we saw Ahab dropping one of several more lanterns over the bulwarks. Vacantly eyeing the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual orders for securing it for the night, and then handing his lantern to a seaman, went his way into the cabin, and did not come forward again until morning.
Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab had evinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that the creature was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or despair, seemed working in him; as if the sight of that dead body reminded him that Moby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a thousand other whales were brought to his ship, all that would not one jot advance his grand, monomaniac object. Very soon you would have thought from the sound on the Pequod’s decks, that all hands were preparing to cast anchor in the deep; for heavy chains are being dragged along the deck, and thrust rattling out of the port-holes. But by those clanking links, the vast corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by the head to the stern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies with its black hull close to the vessel’s, and seen through the darkness of the night, which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two—ship and whale, seemed yoked together like colossal bullocksbullocks: steers., whereof one reclines while the other remains standing.*
If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with
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* [Melville's Note] A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most reliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside, is by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater density that part is relatively heavier than any other (excepting the side-fins), its flexibility even in death, causes it to sink low beneath the surface; so that with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to put the chain round it. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a small, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end, and a weight in its middle, while the other end is secured to the ship. By adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side of the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily made to follow suit; and being slipped along the body, is at last locked fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of junction with its broad flukes or lobes.
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conquest, betrayed an unusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was he in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned to him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping cause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely manifest. Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond of the whale as a flavorish thing to his palate.
“A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut me one from his smallsmall: “the narrow part of the tail of the whale, in front of the flukes” (Smyth, The Sailor's Word-Book).!”
Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a general thing, and according to the great military maxim, make the enemy defray the current expenses of the war (at least before realizing the proceeds of the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketers who have a genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale designated by Stubb; comprising the tapering extremity of the body.
About midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by two lanterns of sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper at the capstan-headcapstan-head: the top of the upright, cylindrical capstan that serves as a winch to move heavy objects., as if that capstan were a sideboard. Nor was Stubb the only banqueter on whale’s flesh that night. Mingling their mumblingsmumblings: Chewing of food with difficulty, as if without teeth. Sharks do not chew their food, but bolt down large pieces gouged out with their many teeth. The word is close to literal with reference to sharks, and no doubt chosen for its alliteration with “mingling” and “mastication.” In an early draft of his late poem “The Maldive Shark,” Melville speaks of the shark as “Pale mumbler of horrible meat,” which he later revised to “Pale ravener.” with his own mastications, thousands on thousands of sharks, swarming round the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatnessthe dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness: Here, fatness, frequently used in the Bible, is both wealth and corpulence, as in “the fatness of the earth” (Genesis 27.39) and “the fatness of his flesh shall wax lean” (Isaiah 17.4). This usage, along with the mention of “leviathan” adds an unexpected biblical tone to the sharkish feasting.. The few sleepers below in their bunks were often startled by the sharp slapping of their tails against the hull, within a few inches of the sleepers’ hearts. Peering over the side you could just see them (as before you heard them) wallowing in the sullen, black waters, and turning over on their backs as they scooped out huge globular pieces of the whale of the bigness of a human head. This particular feat of the shark seems all but miraculous. How, at such an apparently unassailable surface, they contrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains a part of the universal problem of all things. The mark they thus leave on the whale, may best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter in countersinking for a screw.
Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship’s decks, like hungry dogs round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down every killed man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiant butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other’s live meat with carving-knives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks, also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away under the table at the dead meat; and though, were you to turn the whole affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same thing, that is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties; and though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave ships crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy in case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slavea dead slave to be decently buried: From a variety of causes, an estimated 10 to 15 percent of African slaves died on these infamous “Middle Passage” voyages in the early nineteenth century. Dead slaves, and some of the living, were tossed over the side in a burial anything but “decent.” Soon after embarking on his first whaling voyage, Melville's ship Acushnet moored in Rio de Janeiro's bay not far from The Crescent, a hospital ship that treated emaciated and dying Africans "recaptured" from slave ships, seized by British naval vessels patroling the South Atlantic. See Bryant, Herman Melville: A Half Known Life, vol. 2, ch. 69. to be decently buried; and though one or two other like instances might be set down, touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do most socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there no conceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countless numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm whale, moored by night to a whale-ship at sea. If you have never seen that sight, then suspend your decision about the propriety of devil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devilREVISION NARRATIVE: the propriety of devil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil. // Ishmael’s grim-comic two-paragraph meditation on the host of sharks feasting in horrific unison on a dead sperm whale—in contrast to the more randomly disposed victims of the “diabolism of a sea-fight” or slavery—elaborates on the “devilish brilliance” of sharks as representatives of the “universal cannibalism of the sea” in Ch. 58 (“Brit”) and anticipates further discussion on meat-eating in general, developed in Chs. 65 and 66 (“The Whale as a Dish” and “The Shark Massacre”). The meditation’s concluding line insinuates that the “hilarity” of the sharks’ feasting is evidence of the sharkish, cannibalistic nature of our humanity and a demonism in the world that would justify “devil-worship.” Later, Melville develops Ahab’s obsession into a similar sympathy for the devil when Ahab baptizes a newly-forged harpoon barb “in nomine diaboli” (in the name of the devil). Elevating Ahab’s obsessional behavior to the demonic is sourced not only in Milton’s Satan and Shelley’s Prometheus but also in more contemporary reading; see note on “Ego non baptizo” in Ch. 113 (“The Forge”).
The British edition removed “of devil-worship” and “the,” leaving “the propriety and expediency of conciliating the devil,” thus eliminating any condoning of “devil-worship” or breaking of the third commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” An editor is the likely reviser here; however, the retention of the still blasphemous “conciliating the devil” seems out of keeping with other British expurgations. Equally likely, then, is that Melville moderated the line, not simply to eliminate the repetition of “devil” but because “worship” suggests an idolization of, rather than sympathy for, universal demonism. To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin..
But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the banquet that was going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the smacking of his own epicurean lips.
“Cook, cook!—where’s that old Fleece?” he cried at length, widening his legs still further, as if to form a more secure base for his supper; and, at the same time darting his fork into the dish, as if stabbing with his lance; “cook, you cook!—sail this way, cook!”
The old black, not in any very high glee at having been pre-viously roused from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour, came shambling along from his galley, for, like many old blacks, there was something the matter with his knee-pansknee-pans: kneecaps., which he did not keep well scoured like his other pans; this old Fleece, as they called him, came shuffling and limping along, assisting his step with his tongs, which, after a clumsy fashion, were made of straightened iron hoops; this old Ebony floundered along, and in obedience to the word of command, came to a dead stop on the opposite side of Stubb’s sideboard; when, with both hands folded before him, and resting on his two-legged cane, he bowed his arched back still further over, at the same time sideways inclining his head, so as to bring his best ear into play.
“Cook,” said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather reddish morsel to his mouth, “don’t you think this steak is rather overdone? You’ve been beating this steak too much, cook; it’s too tender. Don’t I always say that to be good, a whale-steak must be tough? There are those sharks now over the side, don’t you see they prefer it tough and rare? What a shindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to ’em; tell ’em they are welcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they must keep quiet. Blast meREVISION NARRATIVE: Blast me // According to Partridge, "Blast" means “curse” or “damn.” Melville’s British editor changed Stubb’s vulgarism to the far more acceptable “Hang me,” an expression of anger and vexation that essentially means, “I’ll be hanged.” (See also “Blast him!” in Ch. 73.) To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin., if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, and deliver my message. Here, take this lantern,” snatching one from his sideboard; “now then, go and preach to ’em!”
Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across the deck to the bulwarks; and then, with one hand dropping his light low over the sea, so as to get a good view of his congregation, with the other hand he solemnly flourished his tongs, and leaning far over the side in a mumbling voice began addressing the sharks, while Stubb, softly crawling behind, overheard all that was said.
“Fellow-critters: I’se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat dam noise dare. You hear? Stop dat dam smackin’ ob de lip! Massa Stubb say dat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchingshatchings: hatch covers; hence, the limit., but by Gor! you must stop dat dam racket!”
“Cook,” here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a sudden slap on the shoulder,—“Cook! why, damn your eyes,REVISION NARRATIVE: why, damn your eyes, // The British edition expurgated the blasphemous “damn your eyes,” to give "why you mustn't swear" thus destroying the joke of having Stubb swear in telling Fleece not to swear while preaching. Radney’s use of the same expression in Ch. 54 was not cut. To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. you mustn’t swear that way when you’re preaching. That’s no way to convert sinners, Cook!”
“Who dat? Den preach to him yourself,” sullenly turning to go.
“No, Cook; go on, go on.”
“Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:”—
“Right!” exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, “coax ’em to it; try that,” and Fleece continued.
“Do REVISION NARRATIVE: African American Diction 1 //
By 1850, minstrel shows, in which white entertainers in burnt-cork makeup performed slave stereotypes in blackface, were highly popular, reflecting white audiences' peculiar blend of guilt, affection, and disdain for Black slaves. Melville’s attempts to render African-American dialect with Fleece echo that tradition, and three revisions (either by Melville or his editors) to Fleece’s sermon to the sharks reveal complexities in such racializations.
To begin with, the spelling of Black dialect was a problem. The expression “Do you is all sharks”—with “Do” pronounced dough to mean “Though”—was confusing enough, and either Melville or his British editor changed "Do" to “Dough” to prevent confusion with the verb to do. The NN edition also adopts “Dough,” but since this word is also confusing, Longman and MEL retain “Do.” For two other revision narratives on dialect in this chapter, see "helping yourselbs" and "dood right." To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to you, fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness—’top dat dam slappin’ ob de tail! How you tink to hear, ’spose you keep up such a dam slappin’ and bitin’ dare?”
“Cook,” cried Stubb, collaring him, “I wont have that swearing. Talk to ’em gentlemanly.”
Once more the sermon proceeded.
“Your woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don’t blame ye so much for; dat is natur,
and can’t be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you,
why den you be angel; for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark well goberned. Now, look here, bred’ren, just try wonst to be cibil,
a helping yourselbsREVISION NARRATIVE:
African American Dialect 2 // Given the need to alter conventional spelling to render dialect speech, a typo—that is an unintended but still pronounceable misspelling—can be taken as dialect. For instance, the American edition reading, “helping yoursebls (meaning “helping yourselves”) might be a typo for "helping yourselbs," or conceivably, an intended parody of dialect speech inversions. Even so, NN, Longman, and MEL assume "yoursebls" is a printing error and correct it to "yourselbs." For two other revision narratives on dialect in this chapter, see "Do you is" and "dood right." from dat whale. Don’t be tearin’ de blubber out your neighbour’s mout, I say. Is not one shark doodREVISION NARRATIVE: African American Diction 3 // Modern editors have emended Fleece's sermon on the basis of what might be a misreading. Arguing that “dood” in “Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat whale” is a typo for “good,” the NN editors altered “dood” to “good” to give the meaning of Does not one shark have as good a right as the other to that whale? But “dood” may be a dialect form of to do, with the meaning of Does not one shark do right by that whale as the other?—a possible ironic echoing of the golden rule. Longman and MEL do not emend this text. For two other revision narratives on dialect in this chapter, see "Do you is" and "helping yourselbs." right as toder to dat whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whale belong to some one else. I know some o’ you has berry brig mout, brigger dan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies; so dat de brigness ob de mout is not to swallar wid, but to bite off de blubber for de small fry ob sharks, dat can’t get into de scrougescrouge: crowd; crush. to help demselves.”
“Well done, old Fleece!” cried Stubb, "that’s Christianity; REVISION NARRATIVE: Irreverent Stubb 1 // In addressing the sharks who ravenously devour the whale, Fleece does not blame his “fellow-critters” for their “woraciousness” because “dat is natur.” But he also argues that the sharks can “gobern the shark in you” and become “angel,” observing, somewhat sacrilegiously, that angels are simply “well-goberned” sharks. Fleece then sermonizes the sharks urging them to follow the golden rule and share with the “small fry” the meat they take from the whale. Stubb is amused by this charitable turn in Fleece’s argument and irreverently identifies it: “that’s Christianity.” But Melville’s British editor was not amused and revised the phrase to “that’s the right sort,” thus removing the implication that animals are capable of Christian charity. To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. go on.”
“No use goin’ on; de dam willains will keep a scrougin’ and slappin’ each oder, Massa Stubb; dey don’t hear one word; no use a-preachin’ to such dam g’uttons as you call ’em, till dare bellies is full, and dare bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get em full, dey wont hear you den; for den dey sink in de sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and can’t hear not’ing at all, no more, for eber and eber.”
“Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion; so give the benedictionREVISION NARRATIVE:
Irreverent Stubb 2 // In the American edition Stubb asks Fleece to end his sermon and “give the benediction.” In the British version, the phrasing is “give them a blessing.” An editor might have made the revision so as not to impute a priestly function to Fleece. However, Melville may have changed the wording so that Stubb's speech would seem more in keeping with his vocabulary. , Fleece, and I’ll away to my supper.”
Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised his shrill voice, and cried—
“Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can; fill your dam’ bellies ’till dey bust—and den die.”
“Now, cook,” said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan; “Stand just where you stood before, there, over against me, and pay particular attention.”
“All dention,” said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs in the desired position.
“Well,” said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; “I shall now go back to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old are you, cook?”
“What dat do wid de ’teak,” said the old black, testily.
“Silence! How old are you, cook?”
“’Bout ninety, dey say,” he gloomily muttered.
“And have you lived in this world hard upon one hundred years, cook, and don’t know yet how to cook a whale-steak?” rapidly bolting another mouthful at the last word, so that that morsel seemed a continuation of the question. “Where were you born, cook?”
“’Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin’ ober de RoanokeRoanoke: river in Virginia and North Carolina..”
“Born in a ferry-boat! That’s queer, too. But I want to know what country you were born in, cook?”
“Didn’t I say de Roanoke country?” he cried, sharply.
“No, you didn’t, cook; but I’ll tell you what I’m coming to, cook. You must go home and be born over again; you don’t know how to cook a whale-steak yet.”
“Bress my soul, if I cook noder one,” he growled, angrily, turning round to depart.
“Come back, cook;—here, hand me those tongs;—now take that bit of steak there, and tell me if you think that steak cooked as it should be? Take it, I say”—holding the tongs towards him—“take it, and taste it.”
Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old negro muttered, “Best cooked ’teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy.”
“Cook,” said Stubb, squaring himself once more; “do you belong to the church?”
“Passed one once in Cape-DownCape-Down: Like Rio, and Freetown in today's Sierra Leone, Cape Town, South Africa, was a venue for one of Britain's "mixed commissions" that adjudicated the British seizure of slave ships and the return of "recaptive" Africans to Africa (see Bryant, Herman Melville: A Half Known Life, vol. 2, ch. 69). One possible implication of Fleece’s familiarity with a church in Cape-Town is that he had been a kidnapped African returned to South Africa, which would contradict his earlier claim of having been born a native African American slave in the "Roanoke country" of Virginia.,” said the old man sullenly.
“And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town, where you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as his beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here, and tell me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh?” said Stubb. “Where do you expect to go to, cook?”
“Go to bed berry soon,” he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke.
“Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook. It’s an awful question. Now what’s your answer?”
“When dis old brack man dies,” said the negro slowly, changing his whole air and demeanor, “he hisself won’t go nowhere; but some bressed angel will come and fetch him.”
“Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah?REVISION NARRATIVE: How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah? //
In 2 Kings, the prophet Elijah is taken to heaven in a chariot of fire: “behold, there appeared a chariot of fire, and horses of fire, . . .
and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven” (2.11). Reducing this memorable and stirring biblical image to a modern “coach and four”
was irreverent enough to induce an editor to cut the reference altogether, for the British wording is merely “Fetch him—and fetch him where?”
To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. And fetch him where?”
“Up dere,” said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head, and keeping it there very solemnly.
“So, then, you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook, when you are dead? But don’t you know the higher you climb, the colder it gets? Main-top eh?REVISION NARRATIVE: But don’t you know the higher you climb, the colder it gets? Main-top eh? // The main-top is a platform surrounding the main-mast where the lower and top sections of the mast meet. (See also "lubber's hole" below.) Both highlighted sentences were deleted in the British edition, probably by an editor for religious reasons. To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin."
“Didn’t say dat t’all,” said Fleece, again in the sulks.
“You said up there, didn’t you? and now look yourself, and see where your tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by crawling through the lubber’s hole, cook; but, no, no, cook, you don’t get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It’s a ticklish business, but must be done, or else it’s no go. But none of us are in heaven yet.REVISION NARRATIVE: But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by crawling through the lubber’s hole, cook; but, no, no, cook, you don’t get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It’s a ticklish business, but must be done, or else it’s no go. But none of us are in heaven yet. // This lengthy passage was removed in the British edition, perhaps because of Stubb's irreverent "lubber’s hole" comparison. Sailors can reach the "top" or “Main-top” (a platform that surrounds the mast and supports rigging) by climbing the shrouds and perilously scrambling onto the platform. They can also take the scorned, easy way by squeezing through the "lubber’s hole" at the center of the platform. Stubb’s salty message is nothing more than a seaman’s version of the truism that you cannot get to heaven the easy way, but his seemingly careless attitude toward this “ticklish business” of salvation may have been read as disrespectful; hence the expurgation. To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t’other a’top of your heart, when I’m giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there?—that’s your gizzardgizzard: gut.! Aloft! aloft!—that’s it—now you have it. Hold it there now, and pay attention.”
“All ’dention,” said the old black, with both hands placed as desired, vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at one and the same time.
“Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad, that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that, don’t you? Well, for the future, when you cook another whale-steak for my private table here, the capstan, I’ll tell you what to do so as not to spoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in one hand, and show a live coal to it with the other; that done, dish it; d’ye hear? And now to-morrow, cook, when we are cutting in the fish, be sure you stand by to get the tips of his fins; have them put in pickle. As for the ends of the flukes, have them sousedsoused: pickled in brine., cook. There, now ye may goREVISION NARRATIVE: now ye may go // Stubb uses “ye” only three times in this episode, in “do ye hear” and its contracted form “d’ye hear,” and otherwise seems to make a point of using the more formal “you” in giving his orders to Fleece. Probably Melville, not an editor, revised “ye” in this final sentence to “you” to maintain the formal usage. To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin.."
But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled.
“Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch. D’ye hear? away you sail, then.—Halloa! stop! make a bow before you go.—Avast heavingAvast heaving: stop pushing (as on a capstan bar); here, facetiously, “Stop.” again! Whale-balls for breakfast—don’t forget.”
“Wish, by gor! whale eat him, ’stead of him eat whale. I’m bressed if he ain’t more of sharkREVISION NARRATIVE: more of shark // The British edition changes “more of shark” to “more a shark.” The alteration is significant as it modulates Fleece’s characterization of Stubb: the second mate is metaphorized as a shark, not as one who possesses a certain essence of shark. The cause of the change is uncertain and may be accidental. Melville may have originally intended “more of a shark,” and one revision scenario is that this original wording was mis-transcribed in the American edition as “more of shark,” then corrected to “more of a shark” in the pages Melville sent to England, but then misread by a British printer as “more a shark.” Equally possible is that Melville originally wrote “more of shark” and changed his mind, revising it for the British edition to “more a shark.” To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. dan Massa Shark hisself,” muttered the old man, limping away; with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock.