Kabanata Kabanata 118 · The Quadrant.

The season for the Line at length drew near; and every day when Ahab,

coming from his cabin, cast his eyes aloft, the vigilant helmsman would

ostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager mariners quickly run to

the braces, and would stand there with all their eyes centrally fixed

on the nailed doubloon; impatient for the order to point the ship’s

prow for the equator. In good time the order came. It was hard upon

high noon; and Ahab, seated in the bows of his high-hoisted boat, was

about taking his wonted daily observation of the sun to determine his

latitude.

Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of

effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing

focus of the glassy ocean’s immeasurable burning-glass. The sky looks

lacquered; clouds there are none; the horizon floats; and this

nakedness of unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable splendors of

God’s throne. Well that Ahab’s quadrant was furnished with coloured

glasses, through which to take sight of that solar fire. So, swinging

his seated form to the roll of the ship, and with his

astrological-looking instrument placed to his eye, he remained in that

posture for some moments to catch the precise instant when the sun

should gain its precise meridian. Meantime while his whole attention

was absorbed, the Parsee was kneeling beneath him on the ship’s deck,

and with face thrown up like Ahab’s, was eyeing the same sun with him;

only the lids of his eyes half hooded their orbs, and his wild face was

subdued to an earthly passionlessness. At length the desired

observation was taken; and with his pencil upon his ivory leg, Ahab

soon calculated what his latitude must be at that precise instant. Then

falling into a moment’s revery, he again looked up towards the sun and

murmured to himself: “Thou sea-mark! thou high and mighty Pilot! thou

tellest me truly where I _am_—but canst thou cast the least hint where

I _shall_ be? Or canst thou tell where some other thing besides me is

this moment living? Where is Moby Dick? This instant thou must be

eyeing him. These eyes of mine look into the very eye that is even now

beholding him; aye, and into the eye that is even now equally beholding

the objects on the unknown, thither side of thee, thou sun!”

Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other, its

numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and muttered:

“Foolish toy! babies’ plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores,

and Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but

what after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where

thou thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that

holds thee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of

water or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy

impotence thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy;

and cursed be all the things that cast man’s eyes aloft to that heaven,

whose live vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now

scorched with thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth’s horizon

are the glances of man’s eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as

if God had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou

quadrant!” dashing it to the deck, “no longer will I guide my earthly

way by thee; the level ship’s compass, and the level dead-reckoning, by

log and by line; _these_ shall conduct me, and show me my place on the

sea. Aye,” lighting from the boat to the deck, “thus I trample on thee,

thou paltry thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and

destroy thee!”

As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with his live and

dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and a

fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself—these passed over the

mute, motionless Parsee’s face. Unobserved he rose and glided away;

while, awestruck by the aspect of their commander, the seamen clustered

together on the forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing the deck,

shouted out—“To the braces! Up helm!—square in!”

In an instant the yards swung round; and as the ship half-wheeled upon

her heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts erectly poised upon her

long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three Horatii pirouetting on one

sufficient steed.

Standing between the knight-heads, Starbuck watched the Pequod’s

tumultuous way, and Ahab’s also, as he went lurching along the deck.

“I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full

of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down,

down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life of

thine, what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!”

“Aye,” cried Stubb, “but sea-coal ashes—mind ye that, Mr.

Starbuck—sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well; I heard Ahab

mutter, ‘Here some one thrusts these cards into these old hands of

mine; swears that I must play them, and no others.’ And damn me, Ahab,

but thou actest right; live in the game, and die in it!”