Chương Chương 40 · Midnight, Forecastle.

HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS.

(_Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging, leaning,

and lying in various attitudes, all singing in chorus_.)

Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies! Farewell and adieu to you,

ladies of Spain! Our captain’s commanded.—

1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR. Oh, boys, don’t be sentimental; it’s bad for the

digestion! Take a tonic, follow me!

(_Sings, and all follow._)

Our captain stood upon the deck, A spy-glass in his hand, A viewing of

those gallant whales That blew at every strand. Oh, your tubs in your

boats, my boys, And by your braces stand, And we’ll have one of those

fine whales, Hand, boys, over hand! So, be cheery, my lads! may your

hearts never fail! While the bold harpooner is striking the whale!

MATE’S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK. Eight bells there, forward!

2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR. Avast the chorus! Eight bells there! d’ye hear,

bell-boy? Strike the bell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let me

call the watch. I’ve the sort of mouth for that—the hogshead mouth. So,

so, (_thrusts his head down the scuttle_,) Star-bo-l-e-e-n-s, a-h-o-y!

Eight bells there below! Tumble up!

DUTCH SAILOR. Grand snoozing to-night, maty; fat night for that. I mark

this in our old Mogul’s wine; it’s quite as deadening to some as

filliping to others. We sing; they sleep—aye, lie down there, like

ground-tier butts. At ’em again! There, take this copper-pump, and hail

’em through it. Tell ’em to avast dreaming of their lasses. Tell ’em

it’s the resurrection; they must kiss their last, and come to judgment.

That’s the way—_that’s_ it; thy throat ain’t spoiled with eating

Amsterdam butter.

FRENCH SAILOR. Hist, boys! let’s have a jig or two before we ride to

anchor in Blanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand

by all legs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine!

PIP. (_Sulky and sleepy._) Don’t know where it is.

FRENCH SAILOR. Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, I

say; merry’s the word; hurrah! Damn me, won’t you dance? Form, now,

Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle? Throw yourselves!

Legs! legs!

ICELAND SAILOR. I don’t like your floor, maty; it’s too springy to my

taste. I’m used to ice-floors. I’m sorry to throw cold water on the

subject; but excuse me.

MALTESE SAILOR. Me too; where’s your girls? Who but a fool would take

his left hand by his right, and say to himself, how d’ye do? Partners!

I must have partners!

SICILIAN SAILOR. Aye; girls and a green!—then I’ll hop with ye; yea,

turn grasshopper!

LONG-ISLAND SAILOR. Well, well, ye sulkies, there’s plenty more of us.

Hoe corn when you may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here

comes the music; now for it!

AZORE SAILOR. (_Ascending, and pitching the tambourine up the

scuttle_.) Here you are, Pip; and there’s the windlass-bitts; up you

mount! Now, boys! (_The half of them dance to the tambourine; some go

below; some sleep or lie among the coils of rigging. Oaths a-plenty_.)

AZORE SAILOR. (_Dancing_) Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig

it, stig it, quig it, bell-boy! Make fire-flies; break the jinglers!

PIP. Jinglers, you say?—there goes another, dropped off; I pound it so.

CHINA SAILOR. Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away; make a pagoda of

thyself.

FRENCH SAILOR. Merry-mad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through

it! Split jibs! tear yourselves!

TASHTEGO. (_Quietly smoking._) That’s a white man; he calls that fun:

humph! I save my sweat.

OLD MANX SAILOR. I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what

they are dancing over. I’ll dance over your grave, I will—that’s the

bitterest threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds round

corners. O Christ! to think of the green navies and the green-skulled

crews! Well, well; belike the whole world’s a ball, as you scholars

have it; and so ’tis right to make one ballroom of it. Dance on, lads,

you’re young; I was once.

3D NANTUCKET SAILOR. Spell oh!—whew! this is worse than pulling after

whales in a calm—give us a whiff, Tash.

(_They cease dancing, and gather in clusters. Meantime the sky

darkens—the wind rises_.)

LASCAR SAILOR. By Brahma! boys, it’ll be douse sail soon. The sky-born,

high-tide Ganges turned to wind! Thou showest thy black brow, Seeva!

MALTESE SAILOR. (_Reclining and shaking his cap_.) It’s the waves—the

snow’s caps turn to jig it now. They’ll shake their tassels soon. Now

would all the waves were women, then I’d go drown, and chassee with

them evermore! There’s naught so sweet on earth—heaven may not match

it!—as those swift glances of warm, wild bosoms in the dance, when the

over-arboring arms hide such ripe, bursting grapes.

SICILIAN SAILOR. (_Reclining_.) Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad—fleet

interlacings of the limbs—lithe swayings—coyings—flutterings! lip!

heart! hip! all graze: unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye,

else come satiety. Eh, Pagan? (_Nudging_.)

TAHITAN SAILOR. (_Reclining on a mat_.) Hail, holy nakedness of our

dancing girls!—the Heeva-Heeva! Ah! low veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I

still rest me on thy mat, but the soft soil has slid! I saw thee woven

in the wood, my mat! green the first day I brought ye thence; now worn

and wilted quite. Ah me!—not thou nor I can bear the change! How then,

if so be transplanted to yon sky? Hear I the roaring streams from

Pirohitee’s peak of spears, when they leap down the crags and drown the

villages?—The blast! the blast! Up, spine, and meet it! (_Leaps to his

feet_.)

PORTUGUESE SAILOR. How the sea rolls swashing ’gainst the side! Stand

by for reefing, hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell

they’ll go lunging presently.

DANISH SAILOR. Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou

holdest! Well done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He’s no more

afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic

with storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes!

4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old Ahab

tell him he must always kill a squall, something as they burst a

waterspout with a pistol—fire your ship right into it!

ENGLISH SAILOR. Blood! but that old man’s a grand old cove! We are the

lads to hunt him up his whale!

ALL. Aye! aye!

OLD MANX SAILOR. How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort

of tree to live when shifted to any other soil, and here there’s none

but the crew’s cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady. This is the sort

of weather when brave hearts snap ashore, and keeled hulls split at

sea. Our captain has his birthmark; look yonder, boys, there’s another

in the sky—lurid-like, ye see, all else pitch black.

DAGGOO. What of that? Who’s afraid of black’s afraid of me! I’m

quarried out of it!

SPANISH SAILOR. (_Aside_.) He wants to bully, ah!—the old grudge makes

me touchy (_Advancing_.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable

dark side of mankind—devilish dark at that. No offence.

DAGGOO (_grimly_). None.

ST. JAGO’S SAILOR. That Spaniard’s mad or drunk. But that can’t be, or

else in his one case our old Mogul’s fire-waters are somewhat long in

working.

5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. What’s that I saw—lightning? Yes.

SPANISH SAILOR. No; Daggoo showing his teeth.

DAGGOO (_springing_). Swallow thine, mannikin! White skin, white liver!

SPANISH SAILOR (_meeting him_). Knife thee heartily! big frame, small

spirit!

ALL. A row! a row! a row!

TASHTEGO (_with a whiff_). A row a’low, and a row aloft—Gods and

men—both brawlers! Humph!

BELFAST SAILOR. A row! arrah a row! The Virgin be blessed, a row!

Plunge in with ye!

ENGLISH SAILOR. Fair play! Snatch the Spaniard’s knife! A ring, a ring!

OLD MANX SAILOR. Ready formed. There! the ringed horizon. In that ring

Cain struck Abel. Sweet work, right work! No? Why then, God, mad’st

thou the ring?

MATE’S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK. Hands by the halyards! in

top-gallant sails! Stand by to reef topsails!

ALL. The squall! the squall! jump, my jollies! (_They scatter_.)

PIP (_shrinking under the windlass_). Jollies? Lord help such jollies!

Crish, crash! there goes the jib-stay! Blang-whang! God! Duck lower,

Pip, here comes the royal yard! It’s worse than being in the whirled

woods, the last day of the year! Who’d go climbing after chestnuts now?

But there they go, all cursing, and here I don’t. Fine prospects to

’em; they’re on the road to heaven. Hold on hard! Jimmini, what a

squall! But those chaps there are worse yet—they are your white

squalls, they. White squalls? white whale, shirr! shirr! Here have I

heard all their chat just now, and the white whale—shirr! shirr!—but

spoken of once! and only this evening—it makes me jingle all over like

my tambourine—that anaconda of an old man swore ’em in to hunt him! Oh,

thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on

this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men that have no

bowels to feel fear!