Chapters

Extracts EXTRACTS. (Supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian.) It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm of a poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long VaticansVaticans: great libraries, such as the Vatican's in Vatican City and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever, sacred or profane. Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel cetology. Far from it. As touching the ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these extracts are solely valuable or entertaining, as affording a glancing bird’s eye view of what has been promiscuouslypromiscuously: diversely; unsystematically. said, thought, fancied, and sung of LeviathanLeviathan: biblical sea creature, not necessarily a whale., by many nations and generations, including our own. So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am. Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong; but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too; and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them bluntly, with full eyes and empty glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness—Give it up, Sub-Subs! For by how much the more pains ye take to please the world, by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless! Would that I could clear out Hampton Court and the TuileriesHampton Court and the Tuileries: royal residences in London and Paris. for ye! But gulp down your tears and hie aloft to the royal-mastroyal-mast: highest part of the mast. with your hearts; for your friends who have gone before are clearing out the seven-storied heavensseven-storied heavens: in Jewish and Islamic traditions, Heaven has seven levels., and making refugees of long-pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your comingGabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming: three principal archangels. Here, "against" means preparing for.. Here ye strike but splintered hearts together—there, ye shall strike unsplinterable glasses! E X T R A C T SExtracts: Melville assembled this collection of quotations from works he consulted while writing Moby-Dick. The British edition places both “Etymology” and “Extracts” as an appendix at the end of The Whale; it also omits the epilogue (in which Ishmael tells of his survival). One explanation for the placement of these two sections as an appendix is that Melville sent these pages to England some time after sending the the bulk of the novel's text, and after the British printer had already set the opening pages. Scholars also speculate that the epilogue may have been inadvertently dropped when “Etymology” and “Extracts” were appended (see NN Moby-Dick, 677–80). According to NN editor G. Thomas Tanselle, Melville fashioned “Extracts” by borrowing directly from sources, but also indirectly by quoting source quotations as they appeared in other books, in particular Beale’s Natural History of the Sperm Whale, J. Ross Browne’s Etchings of a Whaling Cruise, John Harris’s Compleat Collection of Voyages and Travels, and Charles Richardson’s New Dictionary of the English Language (NN Moby-Dick, 813–30). In addition, some of Melville’s extracts vary from their original sources, either due to errors in transcription or because Melville revised them intentionally. The individual notes listed below by source author or title draw upon Tanselle’s work and discuss Melville’s likely revision of his sources.. “And God created great whales.”                                                                       GenesisGenesis: First book of the Hebrew Bible, recounting the creation, the temptation of Adam and Eve, Cain's murder of Abel, and the flood. See Genesis 1:21.. “LeviathanREVISION NARRATIVE: Leviathan maketh // Comparing his power to Leviathan, the Lord concludes, “He maketh a path to shine after him” (Job 41:32). Melville revises "He" to "Leviathan." maketh a path to shine after him; One would think the deep to be hoary.”                                                                       JobJob: In this book of the Hebrew Bible, Satan claims that Job, without his wealth, would reject God, and God afflicts Job to test his faith.. “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.”                                                                       JonahJonah: In the book of Jonah (1:17) in the Hebrew Bible, the prophet Jonah takes to the sea to avoid delivering God's awful message of destruction to the Ninevites. God has a "great fish" swallow Jonah and later vomit him back onto land. See also Ch. 9, "The Sermon.". “There go the ships; there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to play therein.”                                                                       PsalmsPsalms: A collection of 150 songs of praise in the Hebrew Bible. See Psalm 104:26.. “In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword, shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.”                                                                       IsaiahIsaiah: Prophetic book in the Hebrew Bible; the extract is from Isaiah 27:1.. “And what thing soever besides cometh within the chaos of this monster’s mouth, be it beast, boat, or stone, down it goes all incontinently that foul great swallow of his, and perisheth in the bottomless gulf of his paunch.”                                                                       Holland’s Plutarch’s MoralsHolland’s Plutarch’s Morals: Philemon Holland (1532-1637) was the prolific British translator of Greek and Latin classics. The Greek biographer, historian, and essayist Plutarch (49-119 CE) wrote a compendium of reflections on Greek and Roman life and manners titled Moralia (ca. 100 CE). Holland published his English translation of Plutarch’s Morals in 1603.. “The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes that are: among which the Whales and Whirlpooles called Balæne, take up as much in length as four acres or arpens of land.”                                                                       Holland’s PlinyHolland’s Pliny: For Holland, see above. Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE) published his Naturalis Historia in 77 CE. Holland’s English translation, titled The Historie of the World, but known as The Natural History of Pliny, appeared in 1601. See http://penelope.uchicago.edu/holland/index.html.. “Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise a great many Whales and other monsters of the seaREVISION NARRATIVE: monsters of the sea // Tooke's original wording, “monsters of the deep,” is changed in the American version, and probably by Melville, to “monsters of the sea.", appeared. Among the former, one was of a most monstrous sizeREVISION NARRATIVE: a most monstrous size // Tooke's original “enormous size” appears here as “monstrous size.” The change may be the result of a printer's "eye-skip"; that is, he confused the original "enormous" with "monsters" in the line directly above and came up with "monstrous." Or, Melville may have made the change, which underscores monstrosity in the extract.. * * This came towards us, open-mouthed, raising the waves on all sides, and beating the sea before him into a foam.”                                                                                      Tooke’s Lucian. Tooke’s Lucian: Cleric, historian, and writer William Tooke (1744-1820) translated the works of Greek satirist Lucian in his two-volume Lucian of Samosata in 1820. Lucian (125-ca. 180 CE) composed highly-popular prose fantasies and mock dialogues lampooning society and philosophers.                                                                                           "The True History.”The True History: Tooke calls Lucian's fantastical two-part series of tall tales "the prototype of all the Voyages Imaginaires," such as Gulliver's Travels and Munchausen's tales (2.79n). The extract is taken from an episode in which the narrator is swallowed by a 300-mile long whale whose belly holds a forested and populated island. “He visited this country also with a view of catching horse-whales, which had bones of very great value for their teeth, of which he brought some to the king. * * * The best whales were catched in his own country, of which some were forty-eight, some fifty yards long. He said that he was one of six who had killed sixty in two days.”                                                        Other or Octher’s verbal narrative taken down                                                                  from his mouth by King Alfred. A. D. 890.Other or Octher: This Norwegian chieftain (more commonly known as Ohthere or Ottar) presented a “verbal narrative” of his travels to English King Alfred (849-899), who commissioned an Anglo-Saxon translation, which appeared in Haklyut’s compendium. However, Melville found this passage in J. Ross Browne's Etchings of a Whaling Cruise. “And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster’s (whale’s) mouth, are immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it in great security, and there sleeps.”                                                                       Montaigne.—Apology for Raimond Sebond.Montaigne.—Apology for Raimond Sebond.: Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), French philosopher and author of Essais (1580). In “Apology for Raymond Sebond”—considered his finest essay—Montaigne defends Christian skepticism. Melville made only routine modifications to clarify this passage, which he took from Hazlitt’s 1842 edition of Montaigne's writings. He added the parenthetical “(whale’s)” after “monster’s” and replaced “this little fish” with its antecedent “the sea-gudgeon.” He also added “And” at the beginning. “Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if it is not Leviathan described by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job.”                                                                       Rabelais.Rabelais: François Rabelais (ca. 1490-1553) was a French monk, scholar, and physician. The passage is from Book 4, Ch. 33 of Gargantua and Pantagruel (originally in 4 vols., 1532-1552), an erudite, satrirical, vulgar, often grotesque work ranging from philosophical novel to epic parody. “This whale’s liver was two cart-loads.”                                                                       Stowe’s Annals.Stowe’s Annals: John Stow(e) (1525-1605) wrote The Chronicles [later Annales] of England from Brute unto this Present Yeare of Christ. 1580. Melville based this extract on information in Stow’s entry for 9 July 1574.. “The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling pan.”                                                                       Lord Bacon’s Version of the Psalms.Lord Bacon’s Version of the Psalms: Philosopher and scientist Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam, 1561-1626). The extract is from lines 91-92 of Psalm 104 in his 1625 Translation of Certaine Psalmes into English Verse. Melville calls Bacon’s slim collection of six psalms a “Version of the Psalms," and, indeed, Bacon’s 60 couplets for Psalm 104 are an adaptive revision of the King James Version’s 35 lines. The lines selected from Bacon, which stress the whale’s fury, are the same reprinted from the more playful biblical version in the fourth Extract, above. “Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an incredible quantity of oil will be extracted out of one whale.”                                                                       Ibid. "History of Life and Death."Ibid. History of Life and Death: Ibid. is the standard but now rarely used Latin abbreviation in bibliography for "ibidem," which refers the reader to the previously cited source, but in this case, Melville means only the author, Bacon. The source cited here, History Naturall and Experimentall of Life and Death (1638), originally appeared as Historia Vitae et Mortis. The two sentences in the extract are drawn from items 48 and 41, respectively, in Topic 3, featuring the life expectancy of animals. “The sovereignest thing on earth isREVISION NARRATIVE: is // In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Hotspur complains to Henry of a perfumed and dandified “lord,” who has spoken to him indifferently of the dead on the battlefield, and who has advised him on how to dress a deep wound, saying “the sovereignest thing on Earth / Was parmacety for an inward bruise” (Act 1, Sc. 3, ll. 59-60). Melville’s revision of “Was” to “is” in his extract universalizes the remedy. The lord also appears, in Hotspur’s words, as “Fresh as a bridegroom,” a description echoed in Melville’s treatment of newly-washed whale men, “fresh and all aglow, as bridegrooms” in Ch. 98 (“Stowing Down and Clearing Up”). parmacetti for an inward bruise.”                                                                       King HenryKing Henry: Henry the Fourth, Part 1, by William Shakespeare (1564-1616), was written in 1596.. “Very like a whale.”                                                                       HamletHamlet: In Shakespeare's tragedy, written in 1599 or 1600, Polonius contemplates a cloud to humor the prince, in Act 3, Sc. 2, l. 382.. “Which to secure, no skill of leach’s art Mote him availle, but to returne againe To his wound’s worker, that with lowly dart, Dinting his breast, had bred his restless paine, Like as the wounded whale to shore flies thro’ the maine.”                                                                       The Fairie QueenREVISION NARRATIVE: The Fairie Queen // In Book VI of the 1590 allegorical epic,The Faerie Queene, by Edmund Spenser (1552/53-1599), Sir Calidore feels the heart pain of his love for Pastorella, which like a stinging dart cannot be cured, unless he returns to her, like a wounded whale beaching itself on the shore. In Melville’s extract, taken from Canto 10, stanza 31, three key words have been changed. Spenser’s original “Which to recure” (meaning to remedy or restore) appears as “Which to secure”; “lovely dart” (like Cupid’s love arrows) becomes “lowly dart,” and “from the maine” (or sea) becomes “thro’ the maine.” The editors of the NN Moby-Dick “correct” these changes to reflect Spenser’s original (818), as reprinted in Melville’s source, the article on "Whale" in Richardson’s New Dictionary. But since they are not indisputable errors or confusing, MEL retains them, noting here their problematic status as either misquotation or revision.. “Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a peaceful calm trouble the ocean till it boil.”                                                                       Sir William Davenant. Preface to Gondibert. “What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned Hofmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, Nescio quid sit.”                                                                       Sir T. Browne. Of Sperma Ceti and the                                                                       Sperma Ceti Whale. Vide his V. E. > “Like Spencer’s Talus with his modern flailREVISION NARRATIVE: modern flail // Waller's original wording, "iron flail,” has been changed to "modern flail.” Taking this change to be an error in transcription, the editors of the NN Moby-Dick emend their reading text to “iron flail.” However, given the care Melville gives in making sure the pronouns in the two couplets agree (see "his," below), the change may be Melville's intended adaption of his source; therefore, MEL retains “modern flail." He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail.           *          *          *          *          * Their fixed jav’lins in hisREVISION NARRATIVE: his // In quoting, from Edmund Waller's "Battle of the Summer Islands," Melville brought two widely separated couplets together, separated them with a line of asterisks, and altered “her” twice in the second couplet to “his” to make the possessive pronouns here and in the last line agree in gender with those in the first couplet. See also "modern flail," above. side he wears, And on his back a grove of pikes appears.”                                                                       Waller’s Battle of the Summer IslandsWaller’s Battle of the Summer Islands: . “By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth or State—(in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man.”                                                                       Opening sentence of Hobbes’s Leviathan. “Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a sprat in the mouth of a whale.”                                                                       Pilgrim’s ProgressREVISION NARRATIVE: Pilgrim’s Progress // As it appears in the American version, the source of this extract is not John Bunyan’s 1678 Christian allegory, Pilgrim’s Progress, but, in fact, Bunyan’s 1682 The Holy War. Melville may have corrected the attribution when he sent the additional set of Etymology and Extracts pages to England. Or a British copy-editor may have corrected the mistake for the British version. The editors of the NN Moby-Dick emend the attribution to "Holy War"; however, in keeping with its policy of not correcting Melville’s errors of fact, MEL retains Pilgrim’s Progress, calling attention to the error through this revision annotation. To compare American and British pages, click the thumbnails in the right margin. This misattribution aside, Melville borrowed his extract not from Bunyan but indirectly from Henry T. Cheever’s quotation of Bunyan in his 1850 The Whale and His Captors. In Bunyan’s Holy War, the town of Mansoul (soul of man) has been seized by Diabolus (the devil), and its too-compliant citizens have adopted a loyalty oath without hesitation, as if they were a whale swallowing a “sprat,” or tiny fish. In his description of the right whale’s method of feeding on tiny fish, Cheever paraphrases Bunyan and adds two direct quotes, though he reverses Bunyan’s original order, which is “as if it had been a sprat in the mouth of a whale, they swallowed it without any chewing.” Melville’s extract removes Cheever’s paraphrase but retains his reverse-order quotation..                     “That sea beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean stream.”                                                                       Paradise Lost.           —— “There Leviathan, Hugest of living creatures, in the deep Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims, And seems a moving land; and at his gills Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea.”                                                                       IbidREVISION NARRATIVE: Extract and Epigraph // In this second passage from Milton's Paradise Lost (Book VII, ll. 412–16), Melville revised Milton. He gives “in the deep” instead of Milton’s original "on the deep” (although this may be a typo) and “his breath spouts out a sea” instead of Milton’s “his trunk spouts out a sea.” Both changes, neither one corrected by British editors, reflect Melville’s scorn (addressed in Ch. 55) for erroneous renderings of whales, which, of course, do not have “trunks” nor sleep “on” the deep. The editors of the NN Moby-Dick return Melville's wording to Milton's original; however, MEL retains the changes as an instance of Melville revising Milton. In addition, Melville’s British editor used Melville’s modified passage as an epigraph appearing on the title page of each of the British edition’s three volumes. (The American edition has no epigraph.) To view Melville’s revised Miltonic passage as both Extract and Epigraph, click the thumbnails in the right margin.. “The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of oil swimming in them.”                                                                       Fuller’s Profane and Holy State. “So close behind some promontory lie The huge Leviathans to attend their prey, And give no chace, but swallow in the fry, Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way.”                                                                       Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis. “While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they cut off his head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will come; but it will be aground in twelve or thirteen foot water.”                                                                       Thomas Edge’s Ten Voyages to Spitzbergen, in Purchass. “In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which nature has placed on their shoulders.”                                                             Sir T. Herbert’s Voyages into Asia and Africa.                                                                                     Harris Coll. “Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced to proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their ship upon them.”                                                                       Schouten’s Sixth Circumnavigation. “We set sail from the Elbe, wind N. E. in the ship called The Jonas-in-the-Whale. * * * Some say the whale can’t open his mouth, but that is a fable. * * * They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they can see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains. * * * I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel of herrings in his belly. * * * One of our harpooneers told me that he caught once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white all over.”                                                                                  A Voyage to Greenland, A.D. 1671A Voyage to Greenland: The author of this text is Friedrich Martens (1635-1699)..                                                                                                     Harris Coll. “Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife). Anno 1652, one eighty feet in length of the whale-bone kind came in, which, (as I was informed) besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight of baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of Pitfirren.”                                                                       Sibbald’s Fife and Kinross. “Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness.”                                                             Richard Stafford’s Letter from the Bermudas.                                                                       Phil. Trans. A. D. 1668 “Whales in the sea God’s voice obey.”                                                                       N. E. Primer. “We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one; than we have to the northward of us.”                                                                       Captain Cowley’s Voyage round the Globe. A. D. 1729.    *    *    *    *    *    “and the breath of the whale is frequently attended with such an insupportable smellREVISION NARRATIVE: an insupportable smell// This extract—from the two-volume 1758 London version of the 1749 Voyage to South-America by Spanish naval officer and scientist Antonio de Ulloa (1716-1795)—is a fabricated quotation. Melville borrowed from this source only the phrase “an insupportable smell,” which Ulloa uses twice, to describe first guano (2.101) and then the green vomit (not breath) of a kind of armored catfish (not whale) called “cope” (2.331-332). Although Ulloa records several whale sightings, describing, for instance, their playful behavior (2.308) and how spouting whales at a distance appear to be breakers (2.234), Melville does not adapt these veracious observations into his concocted extract but dwells on the specious notion that the whale’s “breath” (i.e. spout) smells strong enough to induce mental disorder. For similar mystifications, see Ishmael’s discussion of the whale’s spout in “The Fountain” (Ch 85)., as to bring on a disorder of the brain.”                                                                       Ulloa's South America. “To fifty chosen sylphs of special note, We trust the important charge, the petticoat. Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail, Tho’ stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale.”                                                                       Rape of the Lock. “If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude, with those that take up their abode in the deep, we shall find they will appear contemptible in the comparison. The whale is doubtless the largest animal in creation.”                                                                       Goldsmith, Nat. His. “If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make them speak like great whales.”                                                                       Goldsmith to JohnsonREVISION NARRATIVE: Goldsmith to Johnson // Melville’s extract is not a direct quotation but an adaptive revision of a conversation between Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith and English lexicographer and essayist Samuel Johnson, as recorded by Scottish biographer James Boswell in an April 1773 entry in his Life of Samuel Johnson. Goldsmith has observed that to ”write a good fable”—such as the one about the little fishes who envy the flight of birds—one must have the characters “talk like little fishes.” The observation made Johnson laugh, either over the absurdity of fish speaking or Goldsmith’s attempt to give them voice. Thinking he was being ridiculed, Goldsmith responded: “Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales.” Goldsmith’s retort teases and admires: Johnson was a gifted writer and a large man, and both features are hinted in Goldsmith's play on "whales" and in Boswell’s “small caps” display of the word whales. Melville’s revision compresses Goldsmith’s original concern—the writing of a good fable—with the problem of giving voice to animal characters. By substituting “speak” for “talk” and adding “great” to modify his lower-case “whales,” he also de-contextualizes Goldsmith’s famous line and generalizes the anecdote into a statement on creating a narrative. See Ishmael’s “To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme” in “The Fossil Whale” (Ch. 104), which also alludes to mighty Johnson.. “In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it was found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were then towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves behind the whale, in order to avoid being seen by us.”                                                                       Cook’s Voyages. “The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in so great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid to mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stonelime-stone: Melville’s word “lime-stone,” appearing in both American and British editions, is “brim-stone” in the original Von Troil source and may be a mis-transcription on Melville’s part. The editors of the NN Moby-Dick emend “lime-stone” to “brim-stone,” but in keeping with its principle of not correcting Melville’s errors, MEL makes no change but records the difference through annotation., juniper-wood, and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to terrify and prevent their too near approach.”                                                                       Uno Von Troil’s Letters on Banks’s and                                                                       Solander’s Voyage to Iceland in 1772. “The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen.”                                                                  Thomas Jefferson’s Whale Memorial to the                                                                       French minister in 1778. “And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it?”                                                                  Edmund Burke’s reference in Parliament                                                                       to the Nantucket Whale-Fishery. “Spain—a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe.”                                                                       Edmund Burke. (somewhere.) “A tenth branch of the king’s ordinary revenue, said to be grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are whale and sturgeon. And these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the coast, are the property of the king.”                                                                       Blackstone. “Soon to the sport of death the crews repair: Rodmond unerring o’er his head suspends The barbed steel, and every turn attends.”                                                                       Falconer’s Shipwreck. “Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires, And rockets blew self driven, To hang their momentary fires Around the vault of heaven. “So fire with water to compare, The ocean serves on high, Up-spouted by a whale in air, To express unwieldy joy.”                                                                       Cowper, on the Queen’s Visit to London. “Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a stroke, with immense velocity.”                                                   John Hunter’s account of the dissection                                                             of a whale. (A small sized one.) “The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of the water-works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood gushing from the whale’s heart.”                                                                       Paley’s Theology. “The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet.”                                                                       Baron Cuvier. “In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but did not take any till the first of May, the sea being then covered with them.”                                                   Colnett’s Voyage for the Purpose of                                                        Extending the Spermacetti Whale Fishery. “In the free element beneath me swam, Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle, Fishes of every color, form, and kind; Which language cannot paint, and mariner Had never seen; from dread Leviathan To insect millions peopling every wave: Gather’d in shoals immense, like floating islands, Led by mysterious instincts through that waste And trackless region, though on every side Assaulted by voracious enemies, Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm’d in front or jaw, With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs.”                                                                       Montgomery’s World before the FloodThe World Before the Flood: the source is actually "The Pelican Island" by James Montgomery. “Io! Pæan! Io! sing, To the finny people’s king. Not a mightier whale than this In the vast Atlantic is; Not a fatter fish than he, Flounders round the Polar Sea."                                                                       Charles Lamb’s Triumph of the Whale. “In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observing the whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed; there—pointing to the sea—is a green pasture where our children’s grand-children will go for bread.”                                                                       Obed Macy’s History of Nantucket. “I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway in the form of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale’s jaw bones.”                                                                       Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales. “She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been killed by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty years ago.”                                                                       Ibid. “No, Sir, ’tis a Right Whale,” answered Tom; “I saw his spout; he threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to look at. He’s a raal oil-butt, that fellow!”                                                                       Cooper’s Pilot. “The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette that whales had been introduced on the stage there.”                                                                       Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe. “My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter?” I answered, “we have been stove by a whale.”                                                                       “Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Whale Ship Essex of Nantucket, which was attacked and finally destroyed by a large Sperm Whale in the Pacific Ocean.” By Owen Chace of Nantucket, first mate of said vessel. New York. 1821 Owen Chace: The editors of the NN Moby-Dick correct the spelling of “Chace” to “Chase,” as it appears in Chase’s book. MEL retains the American edition’s spelling since it is a variant of the name and one Melville himself used in annotating his copy of Chase’s narrative. In the title cited for this extract, Melville has dropped “Most Extraordinary and Distressing” as adjectives for “Shipwreck” and reduced the original “Spermaceti-Whale” to “Sperm Whale.” “A mariner sat in the shrouds one night, The wind was piping free; Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale, And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale, As it floundered in the sea.”                                                                       Elizabeth Oakes SmithElizabeth Oakes Smith: Melville’s quotation is from Smith's poem “The Drowned Mariner,” and it varies from the original in two places: He has “in the shrouds” rather than “on the shrouds” and “it floundered” rather than “he floundered.” The NN edition emends “in” to “on.” MEL retains both of Melville’s alterations, in particular the nautically correct usage, “in the shrouds.”. “The quantity of line withdrawn from the different boats engaged in the capture of this one whale, amounted altogether to 10,440 yards or nearly six English miles.” * * * “Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air, which, cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three or four miles.”                                                                       Scoresby. “Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over; he rears his enormous head, and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everything around him. He rushes at the boats with his head; they are propelled before him with vast swiftness, and sometimes utterly destroyed.    *    *    *    It is a matter of great astonishment that the consideration of the habits of so interesting, and, in a commercial point of view, of so important an animal (as the Sperm Whale) should have been so entirely neglected, or should have excited so little curiosity among the numerous, and many of them competent observers, that of late years must have possessed the most abundant and the most convenient opportunities of witnessing their habitudes.”                                                                       Thomas Beale’s History of the Sperm Whale, 1839.Thomas Beale: Melville made minor adaptations to his extract from Beale. He pluralized “agony,” revised “sea beast” to “Sperm Whale,” altered “jaw” to “jaws,” added “him” to give “around him,” and inserted the parenthetical phrase “(as the Sperm Whale).” The NN edition alters “jaws” back to “jaw”; MEL retains “jaws” and all other variants. “The Cachalot” (Sperm Whale) “is not only better armed than the True Whale” (Greenland or Right Whale) “in possessing a formidable weapon at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a disposition to employ these weapons offensively, and in a manner at once so artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as the most dangerous to attack of all the known species of the whale tribe.”                                                             Frederick Debell Bennett’s Whaling                                                                  Voyage Round the Globe. 1840. October 13. “There she blows,” was sung out from the mast-head. “Where away?” demanded the captain. “Three points off the lee bow, sir.” “Raise up your wheel. Steady!” “Steady, sir.” “Mast-head ahoy! Do you see that whale now?” “Ay ay, sir! A shoal of Sperm Whales! There she blows! There she breaches!” “Sing out! sing out every time!” “Ay ay, sir! There she blows! there—there—thar she blows—bowes—bo-o-o-s!” “How far off?” “Two miles and a half.” “Thunder and lightning! so near! Call all hands!”                                                                       J. Ross Browne’s Etchings                                                                       of a Whaling Cruize. 1846. “The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the horrid transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island of Nantucket.”                                                                       “Narrative of the Globe Mutiny,” by                                                                       Lay and Hussey survivors. A. D. 1828. “Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the assault for some time with a lance; but the furious monster at length rushed on the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved by leaping into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable.”                                                                       Missionary Journal of Tyerman and Bennet. “Nantucket itself,” said Mr. Webster, “is a very striking and peculiar portion of the National interest. There is a population of eight or nine thousand persons, living here in the sea, adding largely every year to the National wealth by the boldest and most persevering industry.”                                                                  Report of Daniel Webster’s Speech in the                                                                       U. S. Senate, on the application for the                                                                       Erection of a Breakwater at Nantucket.                                                                       1828. “The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in a moment.”                                                 “The Whale and his Captors, or The Whaleman’s                                                 Adventures and the Whale’s Biography, gathered                                                       on the Homeward Cruise of the Commodore                                                       Preble.” By Rev. Henry T. Cheever. “If you make the least damn bit of noise,” replied Samuel, “I will send you to hell.”                                                 Life of Samuel Comstock (the mutineer), by his                                                 brother, William Comstock. Another Ver-                                                 sion of the whale-ship Globe narrative. “The voyages of the Dutch and English to the Northern Ocean, in order, if possible, to discover a passage through it to India, though they failed of their main object, laid open the haunts of the whale.”                                                                       McCulloch’s Commercial Dictionary. “These things are reciprocal; the ball rebounds, only to bound forward again; for now in laying open the haunts of the whale, the whalemen seem to have indirectly hit upon new clews to that same mystic North-West Passage.”                                                                       From “Something” unpublished.From “Something” unpublished: Probably a bit of writing cut from Moby-Dick. The extract echoes wording (here in bold) in Ch. 41 ("Moby Dick"), in which Ishmael discusses how the "secluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas mostly frequented by the Sperm Whale fishermen" and how Moby Dick's ubiquity is explained by the legend that the sperm whale had long ago discovered a Nor' West Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific. “It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on the ocean without being struck by her mere appearance. The vessel under short sail, with look-outs at the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse around them, has a totally different air from those engaged in a regular voyage.”                                                                       Currents and Whaling. U. S. Ex. Ex. “Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere may recollect having seen large curved bones set upright in the earth, either to form arches over gateways, or entrances to alcoves, and they may perhaps have been told that these were the ribs of whales.”                                                                       Tales of a Whale Voyager to the Arctic Ocean. “It was not till the boats returned from the pursuit of these whales, that the whites saw their ship in bloody possession of the savages enrolled among the crew.”                                                                       Newspaper Account of the Taking and                                                                       Retaking of the Whale-ship Hobomack Newspaper Account: According to Wilson Heflin, this extract is certainly an “invention” (Herman Melville’s Whaling Years, 98). Nor would it be the only time Melville concocted “accounts” from newspapers for fictional or rhetorical ends (see Typee, ch. 4 and Billy Budd, ch. 29). In Typee, for instance, he had referred to a Fiji “massacre” of the crew of the “Hobomak,” and though that whale ship existed, under the spelling “Habomok,” it was never the scene of any “bloody possession.” However, the captain of the Hobomok, Silas Jones, had written an account of his experience of the 1835 islander attack aboard the Awashonks, on which he had served as third mate. The story is a “classic in the annals of whaling” (Wilson 91). Melville might have heard the account from Jones or his Hobomok crew when they gammed with Melville’s ship Acushnet in the Galápagos in 1842. That said, the Awashonks attack did not involve “savages enrolled among the crew.” This extract detail comports more closely with events on board the Fairhaven whale ship Sharon, in 1842, while Melville was at sea. In this case, the Sharon’s abusive captain Norris had beaten to death Black sailor John Babcock. Subsequent desertions reduced Norris’s crew to seventeen. "Enrolled" among them were three islanders, who seized the ship and murdered Norris (Wilson 95-98). Melville’s conflation of the Awashonks and Sharon incidents with the ship’s name Hobomok in his “newspaper account” might be a lapse of memory; however, Melville’s consistently misspelled “Hobomak” and “Hobomack,” in Typee and Moby-Dick, respectively, suggest an intentional variance. See “Hobomack,” below. Hobomack: In using the word “Hobomack” (with an “a”) to identify the whaler Hobomok (with an “o”) as the scene of maritime violence, Melville perpetuates a variant he initiated in his first book, Typee, where he refers to the “Hobomak” (with an “a”). In fact, no mutiny or massacre occurred on the Hobomok (see “Newspaper Account,” above). The name—with various versions of each spelling (see NN Moby-Dick 829)—refers to the Wampanoag spirit of death, later associated with the Christian devil. It is also the name of a warrior and intermediary much admired by the Plymouth settlers and the namesake hero in Lydia Maria Child’s 1824 interracial novel Hobomok (Penguin Typee 316n). Since Melville’s reference is to the whale ship (spelled with an “o”) and assuming Melville’s spelling (with an “a”) is an error, the editors of the NN Moby-Dick emended Melville’s “Hobomack” to “Hobomock.” MEL, however, argues that Melville’s spelling may be intentional, especially in light of the fictive nature of the extract, and, therefore, retains “Hobomack.” “It is generally well known that out of the crews of Whaling vessels (American) few ever return in the ships on board of which they departed.”                                                                       Cruise in a Whale Boat. “Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot up perpendicularly into the air. It was the whale.”                                                                       Miriam Coffin or the Whale Fisherman. “The Whale is harpooned to be sure; but bethink you, how you would manage a powerful unbroken colt, with the mere appliance of a rope tied to the root of his tail.”                                                                       A Chapter on Whaling in Ribs and Trucks. “On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales) probably male and female, slowly swimming, one after the other, within less than a stone’s throw of the shore” (TierraTierra: In the American and British editions, Melville’s parenthetical insertion of “(Terra Del Fuego)” gives the Portuguese “Terra” instead of the proper Spanish, “Tierra.” Since Melville’s 1846 edition of Darwin’s classic voyage of the Beagle spells the word properly, the word “Terra” is probably a typo, and MEL corrects to “Tierra.” Del Fuego), “over which the beech tree extended its branches.”                                                                       Darwin’s Voyage of a Naturalist. “‘Stern all!’ exclaimed the mate, as upon turning his head, he saw the distended jaws of a large Sperm Whale close to the head of the boat, threatening it with instant destruction;—‘Stern all, for your lives!”’                                                                       Wharton the Whale Killer. “So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail, While the bold harpooneer is striking the whale!”                                                                       Nantucket Song. Nantucket Song: These lines seem to be a conflation of two renderings of a song quoted twice in different versions in Browne’s Etchings. (See Stuart Frank, “Two Songs,” MSEx 63: 4-7.) “Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale In his ocean home will be A giant in might, where might is right, And King of the boundless sea.”                                                                       Whale Song.