Moby Dick; Or, The Whale

by Herman Melville

  CHAPTER 37

  Sunset

  The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out.

  I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks,where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track;let them; but first I pass.

  Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blushlike wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun--slow dived from noon--goes down; my soul mounts up! shewearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavythat I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it brightwith many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings;but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds.'Tis iron--that I know--not gold. 'Tis split, too--that I feel;the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat againstthe solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needsno helmet in the most brain-battering fight!

  Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise noblyspurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light,it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I canne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low,enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly!damned in the midst of Paradise! Good night--good night!(waving his hand, he moves from the window.)

  'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least;but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels,and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder,they all stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that tofire others, the match itself must needs be wasting! What I've dared,I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad--Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened!That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself!The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and--Aye! I lostthis leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer.Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye,ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players,ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will notsay as schoolboys do to bullies--Take some one of your own size;don't pommel me! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again;but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags!I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye;come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me,else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me?The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon mysoul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifledhearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush!Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!