71 The Pequod meets the Jeroboam. Her Story
CHAPTER 71
THE JEROBOAM'S STORY.
Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but the breeze came faster than the ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock.
By and by, through the glassglass: telescope. the stranger’s boats and manned mast-heads proved her a whale-ship. But as she was so far to windward, and shooting by, apparently making a passage to some other groundground: cruising ground, an area of the sea where whale sightings are likely. , the Pequod could not hope to reach her. So the signal was set to see what response would be made.
Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the ships of the American Whale Fleet have each a private signalprivate signal: unique flag or pennant. ; all which signals being collected in a book with the names of the respective vessels attached, every captain is provided with it. Thereby, the whale commanders are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at considerable distances, and with no small facility.
The Pequod’s signal was at last responded to by the stranger’s setting her own; which proved the ship to be the JeroboamJeroboam: Idol-worshiping king of Israel whom God punished for impiousness by withering his hand. His disastrous reign is narrated in 1 Kings 11–22, and his impiety is frequently alluded to elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). He is in some ways analogous to the biblical Ahab, against whom Elijah prophesied (1 Kings). The prophet Ahijah correctly foresaw Jeroboam’s ultimate defeat, making him analogous to the other true prophets in Moby-Dick, such as Jonah (Ch. 9), Elijah (19, 21), Tistig (16), and Fedallah (117), and contrasted with the false prophets “Gabriel” (71) and Ahab (37). of Nantucket. Squaring her yards, she bore down, ranged abeam under the Pequod’s leesquaring her yards . . . ranged abeam under the Pequod's lee: turning the yards and their sails to right angles with its hull, the Jeroboam sails downwind until it is parallel to and downwind of the Pequod., and lowered a boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as the side-ladder was being rigged by Starbuck’s order to accommodate the visiting captain, the stranger in question waved his hand from his boat’s stern in token of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary. It turned out that the Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her captain, was fearful of infecting the Pequod’s company. For, though himself and boat’s crew remained untainted, and though his ship was half a rifle-shot off, and an incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing between; yet conscientiously adhering to the timid quarantine of the land, he peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with the Pequod.
But this did by no means prevent all communication. Preserving an interval of some few yards between itself and the ship, the Jeroboam’s boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep parallel to the Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this time it blew very fresh), with her main-top-sail abackaback: turned so the wind strikes its front in order to slow the vessel's movement.; though, indeed, at times by the sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed some way ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings again. Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now and then, a conversation was sustained between the two parties; but at intervals not without still another interruption of a very different sort.
Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam’s boat, was a man of a singular appearance, even in that wild whaling life where individual notabilities make up all totalities. He was a small, short, youngish man, sprinkled all over his face with freckles, and wearing redundant yellow hair. A long-skirted, cabalistically-cutcabalistically-cut: oddly styled, suggesting secret meanings. coat of a faded walnut tinge enveloped him; the overlapping sleeves of which were rolled up on his wrists. A deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes.
So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had exclaimed—“That’s he! that’s he!—the long-togged scaramouchscaramouch: Rascal (from the self-important cowardly clown in Italian commedia dell’arte). the Town-Ho’s company told us of!” Stubb here alluded to a strange story told of the Jeroboam, and a certain man among her crew, some time previous when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho. According to this account and what was subsequently learned, it seemed that the scaramouch in question had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost everybody in the Jeroboam. His story was this:
He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna ShakersNeskyeuna Shakers: Originally an eighteenth-century Quaker offshoot in England, the celibate, communitarian Shakers (so-called because of their movements while dancing in religious ceremonies) settled at Niskayuna, New York, north of Albany, and were led by Mother Ann Lee, regarded as the incarnation of Christ. Melville owned a history of the sect’s practices titled A Summary View of the Millenial Church, or United Society of Believers, Commonly Called Shakers, and he had visited Shaker villages near his home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts., where he had been a great prophet; in their cracked, secret meetings having several times descended from heaven by the way of a trap-door, announcing the speedy opening of the seventh vialseventh vial: The last of the “vials of wrath” poured out by the seven angels in the prophetic book of Revelation (16.17), and generally taken to mean an approaching calamity. Gabriel’s language would have been familiar to Melville’s readers, who had lived through the revivalist ferment of the early nineteenth century, marked by a growing belief in the imminent Apocalypse, the return of the Christ, and the judgment of the wicked before the start of the great Millennium. Particularly influential was the preacher William Miller, whose warnings of the approaching end of this world drew many adherents; his prediction (the third, after two previous failures) that the Second Coming of the Christ would be on October 22, 1844, led thousands to abandon their work and homes. Despite these repeated failures of prophecy, many still believed in Adventism, whose preachers held sway over their followers as Gabriel does over the credulous sailors of the Jeroboam., which he carried in his vest-pocket; but, which, instead of containing gunpowdergunpowder: In theatrical performances gunpowder was used for pyrotechnic effect—as might be expected from the dramatically self-aggrandizing Gabriel., was supposed to be charged with laudanumlaudanum: a popular, addictive tincture of opium in alcohol, used in nineteenth-century patent medicines for many complaints. Gabriel might be an addict.. A strange, apostolic whim having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, with that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady, common sense exterior, and offered himself as a green-hand candidate for the Jeroboam’s whaling voyage. They engaged him; but straightway upon the ship’s getting out of sight of land, his insanity broke out in a freshet. He announced himself as the archangel Gabrielarchangel Gabriel: The mad sailor has chosen for himself an identity of power, one of the archangels in Christian, Jewish, and Islamic belief. Biblically, Gabriel is God’s messenger for matters of great importance, announcing, among other events, the coming of John the Baptist, the miraculous birth of Jesus, and as “Gabriel” does here, the end of the world., and commanded the captain to jump overboard. He published his manifesto, whereby he set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and vicar-general of all Oceanicavicar-general of all Oceanica: Specifically, a vicar-general is a representative of a bishop; it is also a title for the pope, Christ’s agent on earth. Here, Gabriel claims to be God’s officer over all the Pacific islands, usually called Oceania.. The unflinching earnestness with which he declared these things;—the dark, daring play of his sleepless, excited imagination, and all the preternatural terrors of real delirium, united to invest this Gabriel in the minds of the majority of the ignorant crew, with an atmosphere of sacredness. Moreover, they were afraid of him. As such a man, however, was not of much practical use in the ship, especially as he refused to work except when he pleased, the incredulous captain would fain have been rid of him; but apprised that that individual’s intention was to land him in the first convenient port, the archangelREVISION NARRATIVE: archangel // The British reading revises “archangel” to “maniac.” Although Ahab is referred to as “monomaniac” several times throughout the book, Melville never uses the root word "maniac" by itself in the American edition, and he is not likely to have made this revision. In “The Jeroboam’s Story,” Gabriel calls himself an “archangel,” and Ishmael repeatedly adopts the epithet in referring to Gabriel, thus lending an ironic narratorial sanction to the madman’s presumption of divine prophecy. Finding this presumption blasphemous, Melville's British editor probably made the change to “maniac.” (See two other related revisions involving “archangel” below; see also similar deletions of "archangel" in Chs. 1, 42, and 135.) To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. forthwith opened all his seals and vialsseals and vials: In addition to the opened vials, above, Revelation 6 tells of the Lamb’s opening seven seals, revealing the coming wrath of God.—devoting the ship and all hands to unconditional perdition, in case this intention was carried out. So strongly did he work upon his disciples among the crew, that at last in a body they went to the captain and told him if Gabriel was sent from the ship, not a man of them would remain. He was therefore forced to relinquish his plan. Nor would they permit Gabriel to be any way maltreated, say or do what he would; so that it came to pass that Gabriel had the complete freedom of the ship. The consequence of all this was, that the archangelREVISION NARRATIVE: the archangel // Melville’s editor no doubt changed “the archangel” to “he” in the British text. (See other revisions involving “archangel” above and below.) To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. cared little or nothing for the captain and mates; and since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand than ever; declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole command; nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleasure. The sailors, mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before him; in obedience to his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal homage, as to a god. Such things may seem incredible; but, however wondrous, they are true. Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking in respect to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as his measureless power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others. But it is time to return to the Pequod.
“I fear not thy epidemic, man,” said Ahab from the bulwarks, to Captain Mayhew, who stood in the boat’s stern; “come on board.”
But now Gabriel started to his feet.
“Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious! Beware of the horrible plague!”
“Gabriel, Gabriel!” cried Captain Mayhew; “thou must either—” But that instant a headlong wave shot the boat far ahead, and its seethings drowned all speech.
“Hast thou seen the White Whale?” demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted back.
“Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk! Beware of the horrible tail!”
“I tell thee again, Gabriel, that—” But again the boat tore ahead as if dragged by fiends. Nothing was said for some moments, while a succession of riotous waves rolled by, which by one of those occasional caprices of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it. Meantime, the hoisted sperm whale’s head jogged about very violently, and Gabriel was seen eyeing it with rather more apprehensiveness than his archangel natureREVISION NARRATIVE: his archangel nature // Melville’s British editor revised the phrase to “his self-styled archangel nature” to emphasize Gabriel’s delusion. (See two other revisions involving “archangel” above.) To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. seemed to warrant.
When this interlude was over, Captain Mayhew began a dark story concerning Moby Dick; not, however, without frequent interruptions from Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned, and the crazy sea that seemed leagued with him.
It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when upon speaking a whale-ship, her people were reliably apprised of the existence of Moby Dick, and the havoc he had made. Greedily sucking in this intelligence, Gabriel solemnly warned the captain against attacking the White Whale, in case the monster should be seen; in his gibbering insanity, pronouncing the White Whale to be no less a being than the Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers receiving the Biblethe Shakers receiving the Bible: That is, the Shakers accepted the authority of the Bible. Christians have long debated whether to take the Bible literally, and which interpretation or translation to trust. Shakers believed that Jesus was one manifestation of the Christ, and their founder, Mother Ann, another. Here, Gabriel seems to take Moby Dick as a similar incarnation. See Neskyeuna Shakers, above.. But when, some year or two afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the mast-heads, Macey, the chief mate, burned with ardor to encounter him; and the captain himself being not unwilling to let him have the opportunity, despite all the archangel’s denunciations and forewarnings, Macey succeeded in persuading five men to man his boat. With them he pushed off; and, after much weary pulling, and many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last succeeded in getting one iron fast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to the main-royal mast-headmain-royal mast-head: the highest point on the whaleship., was tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and hurling forth prophecies of speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants of his divinity. Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing up in his boat’s bow, and with all the reckless energy of his tribe was venting his wild exclamations upon the whale, and essaying to get a fair chance for his poised lance, lo! a broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its quick, fanning motion, temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies of the oarsmen. Next instant, the luckless mate, so full of furious life, was smitten bodily into the air, and making a long arc in his descent, fell into the sea at the distance of about fifty yards. Not a chip of the boat was harmed, nor a hair of any oarsman’s head; but the mate for ever sank.
It is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in the Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as any. Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated; oftener the boat’s bow is knocked off, or the thigh-board, in which the headsman stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body. But strangest of all is the circumstance, that in more instances than one, when the body has been recovered, not a single mark of violence is discernible; the man being stark deadthe man being stark dead: In their edition of Moby-Dick, Mansfield and Vincent (763) compare this story’s events and language to an incident in Frederick Debell Bennett's Narrative of a Whaling Voyage round the Globe..
The whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly descried from the ship. Raising a piercing shriek—“The vial! the vial!” Gabriel called off the terror-stricken crew from the further hunting of the whale. This terrible eventREVISION NARRATIVE: This terrible event // Probably Melville, rather than a British editor, removed “terrible” from this phrase to eliminate the redundancy it creates with “terror-stricken crew” in the previous sentence. To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. clothed the archangel with added influence; because his credulous disciples believed that he had specifically fore-announced it, instead of only making a general prophecy, which any one might have done, and so have chanced to hit one of many marks in the wide margin allowed. He became a nameless terror to the ship.
Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put such questions to him, that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring whether he intended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer. To which Ahab answered—“Aye.” Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started to his feet, glaring upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with downward pointed finger—“Think, think of the blasphemer—dead, and down there!—beware of the blasphemer’s end!”
Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew, “Captain, I have just bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for one of thy officers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag.”
Every whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for various ships, whose delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed, depends upon the mere chance of encountering them in the four oceans. Thus, most letters never reach their mark; and many are only received after attaining an age of two or three years or more.
Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely tumbled, damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in consequence of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a letter, Death himself might well have been the post-boy.
“Can’st not read it?” cried Ahab. “Give it me, man. Aye, aye, it’s but a dim scrawl;—what’s this?” As he was studying it out, Starbuck took a long cutting-spade pole, and with his knife slightly split the end, to insert the letter there, and in that way, hand it to the boat, without its coming any closer to the ship.
Meantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered, “Mr. Har—yes, Mr. Harry—(a woman’s pinnypinny: from “pinafore,” here meaning “feminine.” hand,—the man’s wife, I’ll wager)—Aye—Mr. Harry Macey, Ship Jeroboam;—why it’s Macey, and he’s dead!”
“Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife,” sighed Mayhew; “but let me have it.”
“Nay, keep it thyself,” cried Gabriel to Ahab; “thou art soon going that way.”
“Curses throttle thee!” yelled Ahab. “Captain Mayhew, stand by now to receive it;” and taking the fatal missive from Starbuck’s hands, he caught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it over towards the boat. But as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted from rowing; the boat drifted a little towards the ship’s stern; so that, as if by magic, the letter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel’s eager hand. He clutched it in an instant, seized the boat-knifeboat-knife: or line-knife, kept at the bow of a whaleboat for cutting the whale line in an emergency., and impaling the letter on it, sent it thus loaded back into the ship. It fell at Ahab’s feet. Then Gabriel shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their oars, and in that manner the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the Pequod.
As, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket of the whale, many strange things were hinted in reference to this wild affair.