Billy Budd and Other Stories

Home > Fiction > Billy Budd and Other Stories > Page 38
Billy Budd and Other Stories Page 38

by Herman Melville


  Not long before death, while lying under the influence of that magical drug which, soothing the physical frame, mysteriously operates on the subtler element in man, he was heard to murmur words inexplicable to his attendant: ‘Billy Budd, Billy Budd.’ That these were not the accents of remorse would seem clear from what the attendant said to the Bellipotent’s senior officer of marines, who, as the most reluctant to condemn of the members of the drumhead court, too well knew, though here he kept the knowledge to himself, who Billy Budd was.

  29

  Some few weeks after the execution, among other matters under the head of ‘News from the Mediterranean,’ there appeared in a naval chronicle of the time, an authorized weekly publication, an account of the affair. It was doubtless for the most part written in good faith, though the medium, partly rumor, through which the facts must have reached the writer served to deflect and in part falsify them. The account was as follows:

  ‘On the tenth of the last month a.deplorable occurrence took place on board H.M.S. Bellipotent. John Claggart, the ship’s master-at-arms, discovering that some sort of plot was incipient among an inferior section of the ship’s company, and that the ringleader was one William Budd; he, Claggart, in the act of arraigning the man before the captain, was vindictively stabbed to the heart by the suddenly drawn sheath knife of Budd.

  ‘The deed and the implement employed sufficiently suggest that though mustered into the service under an English name the assassin was no Englishman, but one of those aliens adopting English cognomens whom the present extraordinary necessities of the service have caused to be admitted into it in considerable numbers.

  ‘The enormity of the crime and the extreme depravity of the criminal appear the greater in view of the character of the victim, a middle-aged man respectable and discreet, belonging to that minor official grade, the petty officers, upon whom, as none know better than the commissioned gentlemen, the efficiency of His Majesty’s navy so largely depends. His function was a responsible one, at once onerous and thankless; and his fidelity in it the greater because of his strong patriotic impulse. In this instance as in so many other instances in these days, the character of this unfortunate man signally refutes, if refutation were needed, that peevish saying attributed to the late Dr Johnson, that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

  ‘The criminal paid the penalty of his crime. The promptitude of the punishment has proved salutary. Nothing amiss is now apprehended aboard H.M.S. Bellipotent.’

  The above, appearing in a publication now long ago superannuated and forgotten, is all that hitherto has stood in human record to attest what manner of men respec- , tively were John Claggart and Billy Budd.

  30

  Everything is for a term venerated in navies. Any tangible object associated with some striking incident of the service is converted into a monument. The spar from which the foretopman was suspended was for some few years kept trace of by the bluejackets. Their knowledges followed it from ship to dockyard and again from dockyard to ship, still pursuing it even when at last reduced to a mere dockyard boom. To them a chip of it was as a piece of the Cross. Ignorant though they were of the secret facts of the tragedy, and not thinking but that the penalty was somehow unavoidably inflicted from the naval point of view, for all that, they instinctively felt that Billy was a sort of man as incapable of mutiny as of wilful murder. They recalled the fresh young image of the Handsome Sailor, that face never deformed by a sneer or subtler vile freak of the heart within. This impression of him was doubtless deepened by the fact that he was gone, and in a measure mysteriously gone. On the gun decks of the Bellipotent the general estimate of his nature and its unconscious simplicity eventually found rude utterance from another foretopman, one of his own watch, gifted, as some sailors are, with an artless poetic temperament. The tarry hand made some lines which, after circulating among the shipboard crews for a while, finally got rudely printed at Portsmouth as a ballad. The title given to it was the sailor’s.

  BILLY IN THE DARBIES

  Good of the chaplain to enter Lone Bay

  And down on his marrowbones here and pray

  For the likes just o’ me, Billy Budd.-But, look:

  Through the port comes the moonshine astray!

  It tips the guard’s cutlass and silvers this nook;

  But ‘twill die in the dawning of Billy’s last day.

  A jewel-block they’ll make of me tomorrow,

  Pendant pearl from the yardarm-end

  Like the eardrop I gave to Bristol Molly-

  O, ’tis me, not the sentence they’ll suspend.

  Ay, ay, all is up; and I must up too,

  Early in the morning, aloft from alow.

  On an empty stomach now never it would do.

  They’ll give me a nibble-bit o’ biscuit ere I go.

  Sure, a messmate will reach me the last parting cup;

  But, turning heads away from the hoist and the belay,

  Heaven knows who will have the running of me up!

  No pipe to those halyards.-But aren’t it all sham?

  A blur’s in my eyes; it is dreaming that I am.

  A hatchet to my hawser? All adrift to go?

  The drum roll to grog, and Billy never know?

  But Donald he has promised to stand by the plank

  So I’ll shake a friendly hand ere I sink.

  But-no! It is dead then I’ll be, come to think.

  I remember Taff the Welshman when he sank.

  And his cheek it was like the budding pink.

  But me they’ll lash in hammock, drop me deep.

  Fathoms down, fathoms down, how I’ll dream fast asleep

  I feel it stealing now. Sentry, are you there?

  Just ease these darbies at the wrist,

  And roll me over fair!

  I am sleepy, and the oozy weeds about me twist.

  FOR THE BEST IN PAPERBACKS, LOOK FOR THE

  In every corner of the world, on every subject under the sun, Penguin represents quality and variety—the very best in publishing today

  For complete information about books available from Penguin—including Penguin Classics, Penguin Compass, and Puffins—and how to order them, write to us at the appropriate address below Please note that for copyright reasons the selection of books varies from country to country.

  In the United States: Please write to Penguin Group (USA), P.O. Box 12289 Dept. B, Newark, NewJersey 07101-5289 or call 1-800-788-6262.

  In the United Kingdom: Please write to Dept. EP, Penguin Books Ltd, Bath Road, Harmondsworth, West Drayton, Middlesex UB7 0DA.

  In Canada: Please write to Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Suite 300, Toronto, Ontario M4V 3B2.

  In Australia: Please write to Penguin Books Australia Ltd, P.O. Box 257, Ringwood, Victoria 3134.

  In New Zealand: Please write to Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Private Bag 102902, North Shore Mail Centre, Auckland 10.

  In India: Please write to Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Panchsheel Shopping Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017.

  In the Netherlands: Please write to Penguin Books Netherlands bv, Postbus 3507, NL-1001 AHAmsterdam.

  In Germany: Please write to Penguin Books Deutschland GmbH, Metzlerstrasse 26, 60594 Frankfurt am Main.

  In Spain: Please write to Penguin Books S.A., Bravo Murillo 19, 1° B, 28015 Madrid.

  In Italy: Please write to Penguin Italia s.r.l., Via Benedetto Croce 2, 20094 Corsico, Milano.

  In France: Please write to Penguin France, Le Carré Wilson, 62 rue Benjamin Baillaud, 31500 Toulouse.

  In Japan: Please write to Penguin Books Japan Ltd, Kaneko Building, 2-3-25 Koraku, Bunkyo-Ku, Tokyo 112.

  In South Africa: Please write to Penguin Books South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Private Bag X14, Parkview, 2122 Johannesburg.

  CLICK ON A CLASSIC

  www.penguinclassics.com

  The world’s greatest literature at your fingertips

  Constantly updated information on more than a t
housand titles,

  from Icelandic sagas to ancient Indian epics, Russian drama to

  Italian romance, American greats to African masterpieces

  The latest news on recent additions to the list, updated

  editions, and specially commissioned translations

  Original essays by leading writers

  A wealth of background material, including biographies

  of every classic author from Aristotle to Zamyatin, plot

  synopses, readers’ and teachers’ guides, useful web links

  Online desk and examination copy assistance for academics

  Trivia quizzes, competitions, giveaways, news on

  forthcoming screen adaptations

  Read more Herman Melville in Penguin Classics

  The Confidence-Man

  Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Stephen Matterson

  Part satire, part allegory, part hoax, The Confidence-Man is a slippery metaphysical comedy set on April Fool’s Day aboard the Mississippi steamer Fidèle.

  ISBN 0-14-044547-1

  Moby-Dick

  Or, The Whale

  Edited with an Introduction by Andrew Delbanco

  Explanatory Commentary by Tom Quirk

  The story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself, Melville’s masterpiece is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.

  ISBN 0-14-243724-7

  Pierre

  Or, The Ambiguities

  Introduction and Notes by William C. Spengemann

  A domestic tragedy and a land-based story, both subject and setting represent striking departures for Melville. But this spiritual autobiography in the guise of a Gothic novel, which describes the literary career of its idealistic hero, is now recognized as Melville’s advance into the arena of the modern novel.

  ISBN 0-14-043484-4

  Redburn

  Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Harold Beaver

  Based on his own experiences on a ship sailing between New York and Liverpool, Melville tells a powerful story of pastoral innocence transformed to disenchantment and disillusionment.

  ISBN 0-14-043105-5

  Typee

  Introduction and Explanatory Commentary by John Bryant

  Typee is a fast-moving adventure tale, an autobiographical account of the author’s Polynesian stay, an examination of the nature of good and evil, and a frank exploration of sensuality and exotic ritual.

  ISBN 0-14-043488-7.

  FOR THE BEST IN CLASSIC LITERATURE LOOK FOR THE

  The Last of the Mohicans

  James Fenimore Cooper

  Introduction by Richard Slotkin

  Tragic, fast-paced, and stocked with the elements of a classic Western adventure, this novel takes Natty Bumppo and his Indian friend Chingachgook through hostile Indian territory during the French and Indian War.

  ISBN 0-14-039024-3

  Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea

  Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

  Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Thomas Philbrick

  Dana’s account of his passage as a common seaman from Boston around Cape Horn to California, and back, is a remarkable portrait of the seagoing life. Bringing to the public’s attention for the first time the plights of the most exploited segment of the American working class, he forever changed readers’ romanticized perceptions of life at sea.

  ISBN 0-14-039008-1

  Nature and Selected Essays

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Edited with an Introduction by Larzer Ziff

  This sampling includes fifteen essays that highlight the formative and significant ideas of this central American thinker: “Nature,” “The American Scholar,” “An Address Delivered Before the Senior Class in Divinity College, Cambridge,” “Man the Reformer,” “History,” “Self-Reliance,” “The Over-Soul,” “Circles,” “The Transcendentalist,” “The Poet,” “Experience,” “Montaigne: Or, the Skeptic,” “Napoleon: Or, the Man of the World,” “Fate,” and “Thoreau.”

  ISBN 0-14-243762-X

  The Scarlet Letter

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Introduction by Nina Baym with Notes by Thomas E. Connolly Hawthorne’s novel of guilt and redemption in pre-Revolutionary Massachusetts provides vivid insight into the social and religious forces that shaped early America.

  ISBN 0-14-243726-3

  The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Other Stories

  Washington Irving

  Introduction and Notes by William L. Hedges

  Irving’s delightful 1819 miscellany of essays and sketches includes the two classic tales “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.”

  ISBN 0-14-043769-X

  The Portable Abraham Lincoln

  Abraham Lincoln

  Edited by Andrew Delbanco

  The essential Lincoln, including all of the great public speeches, along with less familiar letters and memoranda that chart Lincoln’s political career. With an indispensable introduction, headnotes, and a chronology of Lincoln’s life.

  ISBN 0-14-017031-6

  Moby-Dick

  Or, The Whale

  Herman Melville

  Edited with an Introduction by Andrew Delbanco

  Explanatory Commentary by Tom Quirk

  The story of an eerily compelling madman pursuing an unholy war against a creature as vast and dangerous and unknowable as the sea itself, Melville’s masterpiece is also a profound inquiry into character, faith, and the nature of perception.

  ISBN 0-14-243724-7

  The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Writings

  Edgar Allan Poe

  Edited with an Introduction and Notes by David Galloway

  This selection includes seventeen poems, among them “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” and “The Bells”; nineteen tales, including “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Pit and the Pendulum”; and sixteen essays and reviews.

  ISBN 0-14-143981-S

  Uncle Tom’s Cabin

  Or, Life Among the Lowly

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  Edited with an Introduction by Ann Douglas

  Perhaps the most powerful document in the history of American abolitionism, this controversial novel goaded thousands of readers to take a stand on the issue of slavery and played a major political and social role in the Civil War period.

  ISBN 0-14-039003-0

  Walden and Civil Disobedience

  Henry David Thoreau

  Introduction by Michael Meyer

  Two classic examinations of individuality in relation to nature, society, and government. Walden conveys at once a naturalist’s wonder at the commonplace and a Transcendentalist’s yearning for spiritual truth and self-reliance. “Civil Disobedience” is perhaps the most famous essay in American literature—and the inspiration for social activists around the world, from Gandhi to Martin Luther King, Jr.

  ISBN 0-14-039044-8

  Nineteenth-Century American Poetry

  Edited with an Introduction and Notes by

  William C. Spengemann with Jessica F. Roberts

  Whitman, Dickinson, and Melville occupy the center of this anthology of nearly three hundred poems, spanning the course of the century, from Joel Barlow to Edwin Arlington Robinson, by way of Bryant, Emerson, Longfellow, Whittier, Poe, Holmes, Jones Very, Thoreau, Lowell, and Lanier.

  ISBN 0-14-043587-5

  Selected Poems

  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Lawrence Buell

  Longfellow was the most popular poet of his day. This selection includes generous samplings from his longer works-Evangeline, The Courtship of Miles Standish, and Hiawatha-as well as his shorter lyrics and less familiar narrative poems.

  ISBN 0-14-039064
-2

  Leaves of Grass

  Walt Whitman

  Edited with an Introduction by Malcolm Cowley

  This is the original and complete 1855 edition of one of the greatest masterpieces of American literature, including Whitman’s own introduction to the work.

  ISBN 0-14-042199-8

  The Education of Henry Adams

  Henry Adams

  Edited with an Introduction and Notes by Jean Gooder

  In this memoir Adams examines his own life as it reflects the progress of the United States from the Civil War period to the nation’s ascendancy as a world power. A remarkable synthesis of history, art, politics, and philosophy, The Education of Henry Adams remains a provocative and stimulating interpretation of the birth of the twentieth century.

  ISBN 0-14-044557-9

  1

  The American Spaniards have long been in the habit of making presents of islands to deserving individuals. The pilot Juan Fernandez procured a deed of the isle named after him, and for some years resided there before Selkirk came. It is supposed, however, that he eventually contracted the blues upon his princely property. for after a time he returned to the main. and as report goes. became a very garrulous barber in the city of Lima.

 

 

 


‹ Prev