บทที่ บทที่ 99 · The Doubloon.

Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his quarter-deck,

taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle and mainmast; but in

the multiplicity of other things requiring narration it has not been

added how that sometimes in these walks, when most plunged in his mood,

he was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely

eyeing the particular object before him. When he halted before the

binnacle, with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the

compass, that glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of

his purpose; and when resuming his walk he again paused before the

mainmast, then, as the same riveted glance fastened upon the riveted

gold coin there, he still wore the same aspect of nailed firmness, only

dashed with a certain wild longing, if not hopefulness.

But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly

attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as

though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in

some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them. And some

certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little

worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell

by the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass

in the Milky Way.

Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of

the heart of gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden sands,

the head-waters of many a Pactolus flows. And though now nailed amidst

all the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes,

yet, untouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it still preserved its

Quito glow. Nor, though placed amongst a ruthless crew and every hour

passed by ruthless hands, and through the livelong nights shrouded with

thick darkness which might cover any pilfering approach, nevertheless

every sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset left it last. For it

was set apart and sanctified to one awe-striking end; and however

wanton in their sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as

the white whale’s talisman. Sometimes they talked it over in the weary

watch by night, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he

would ever live to spend it.

Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the sun

and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes; sun’s

disks and stars; ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich banners waving,

are in luxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious gold seems

almost to derive an added preciousness and enhancing glories, by

passing through those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic.

It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy

example of these things. On its round border it bore the letters,

REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country

planted in the middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and

named after it; and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the

unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the

likeness of three Andes’ summits; from one a flame; a tower on another;

on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of

the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual

cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at

Libra.

Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now

pausing.

“There’s something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and

all other grand and lofty things; look here,—three peaks as proud as

Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the

courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all

are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe,

which, like a magician’s glass, to each and every man in turn but

mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small gains for

those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve itself. Methinks

now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye, he enters the

sign of storms, the equinox! and but six months before he wheeled out

of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born

in throes, ’tis fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So

be it, then! Here’s stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then.”

“No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil’s claws must

have left their mouldings there since yesterday,” murmured Starbuck to

himself, leaning against the bulwarks. “The old man seems to read

Belshazzar’s awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly.

He goes below; let me read. A dark valley between three mighty,

heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint

earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over

all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a

hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil;

but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to

cheer. Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we

would fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain!

This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me. I will

quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely.”

“There now’s the old Mogul,” soliloquized Stubb by the try-works, “he’s

been twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the same, and both with

faces which I should say might be somewhere within nine fathoms long.

And all from looking at a piece of gold, which did I have it now on

Negro Hill or in Corlaer’s Hook, I’d not look at it very long ere

spending it. Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion, I regard this as

queer. I have seen doubloons before now in my voyagings; your doubloons

of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili, your

doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan; with plenty of gold

moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half joes, and quarter joes. What

then should there be in this doubloon of the Equator that is so killing

wonderful? By Golconda! let me read it once. Halloa! here’s signs and

wonders truly! That, now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome calls the

zodiac, and what my almanac below calls ditto. I’ll get the almanac and

as I have heard devils can be raised with Daboll’s arithmetic, I’ll try

my hand at raising a meaning out of these queer curvicues here with the

Massachusetts calendar. Here’s the book. Let’s see now. Signs and

wonders; and the sun, he’s always among ’em. Hem, hem, hem; here they

are—here they go—all alive:—Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the Bull and

Jimimi! here’s Gemini himself, or the Twins. Well; the sun he wheels

among ’em. Aye, here on the coin he’s just crossing the threshold

between two of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring. Book! you lie there;

the fact is, you books must know your places. You’ll do to give us the

bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts. That’s my

small experience, so far as the Massachusetts calendar, and Bowditch’s

navigator, and Daboll’s arithmetic go. Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if

there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders!

There’s a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist—hark! By Jove, I have it!

Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round

chapter; and now I’ll read it off, straight out of the book. Come,

Almanack! To begin: there’s Aries, or the Ram—lecherous dog, he begets

us; then, Taurus, or the Bull—he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini,

or the Twins—that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo!

comes Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue,

Leo, a roaring Lion, lies in the path—he gives a few fierce bites and

surly dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that’s

our first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes

Libra, or the Scales—happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we

are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the

Scorpion, stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound, when whang

come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing

himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here’s the

battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing,

and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours

out his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the

Fishes, we sleep. There’s a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the

sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and

hearty. Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and

so, alow here, does jolly Stubb. Oh, jolly’s the word for aye! Adieu,

Doubloon! But stop; here comes little King-Post; dodge round the

try-works, now, and let’s hear what he’ll have to say. There; he’s

before it; he’ll out with something presently. So, so; he’s beginning.”

“I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and whoever raises

a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him. So, what’s all this

staring been about? It is worth sixteen dollars, that’s true; and at

two cents the cigar, that’s nine hundred and sixty cigars. I won’t

smoke dirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and here’s nine

hundred and sixty of them; so here goes Flask aloft to spy ’em out.”

“Shall I call that wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it has a

foolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a sort of

wiseish look to it. But, avast; here comes our old Manxman—the old

hearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before he took to the sea.

He luffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and goes round on the other

side of the mast; why, there’s a horse-shoe nailed on that side; and

now he’s back again; what does that mean? Hark! he’s muttering—voice

like an old worn-out coffee-mill. Prick ears, and listen!”

“If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day, when

the sun stands in some one of these signs. I’ve studied signs, and know

their marks; they were taught me two score years ago, by the old witch

in Copenhagen. Now, in what sign will the sun then be? The horse-shoe

sign; for there it is, right opposite the gold. And what’s the

horse-shoe sign? The lion is the horse-shoe sign—the roaring and

devouring lion. Ship, old ship! my old head shakes to think of thee.”

“There’s another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men in

one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes Queequeg—all

tattooing—looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself. What says the

Cannibal? As I live he’s comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone;

thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I

suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon’s Astronomy in the back country.

And by Jove, he’s found something there in the vicinity of his thigh—I

guess it’s Sagittarius, or the Archer. No: he don’t know what to make

of the doubloon; he takes it for an old button off some king’s

trowsers. But, aside again! here comes that ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail

coiled out of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of his pumps as usual.

What does he say, with that look of his? Ah, only makes a sign to the

sign and bows himself; there is a sun on the coin—fire worshipper,

depend upon it. Ho! more and more. This way comes Pip—poor boy! would

he had died, or I; he’s half horrible to me. He too has been watching

all of these interpreters—myself included—and look now, he comes to

read, with that unearthly idiot face. Stand away again and hear him.

Hark!”

“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.”

“Upon my soul, he’s been studying Murray’s Grammar! Improving his mind,

poor fellow! But what’s that he says now—hist!”

“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.”

“Why, he’s getting it by heart—hist! again.”

“I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.”

“Well, that’s funny.”

“And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I’m a

crow, especially when I stand a’top of this pine tree here. Caw! caw!

caw! caw! caw! caw! Ain’t I a crow? And where’s the scare-crow? There

he stands; two bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and two more

poked into the sleeves of an old jacket.”

“Wonder if he means me?—complimentary!—poor lad!—I could go hang

myself. Any way, for the present, I’ll quit Pip’s vicinity. I can stand

the rest, for they have plain wits; but he’s too crazy-witty for my

sanity. So, so, I leave him muttering.”

“Here’s the ship’s navel, this doubloon here, and they are all on fire

to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what’s the consequence?

Then again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught’s

nailed to the mast it’s a sign that things grow desperate. Ha, ha! old

Ahab! the White Whale; he’ll nail ye! This is a pine tree. My father,

in old Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found a silver

ring grown over in it; some old darkey’s wedding ring. How did it get

there? And so they’ll say in the resurrection, when they come to fish

up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters

for the shaggy bark. Oh, the gold! the precious, precious, gold! the

green miser’ll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes ’mong the worlds

blackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey,

hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!”