Zomby Dick or, The Undead Whale

by Melville, Herman

  We buried him with full honors, such as our beggarly means allowed. The quiet, calm, grassy field in which we laid him was dappled with sun, and flowers waved their bright colors in bold and bright denial of the evil in the world. Though I did not much like Vander, my disdain was not such that the taking of his life did not move me deeply, as it would any other with a soul yet in his body. I did ponder long on the wherefore of that deed, and birthed this requiem for Vander, titled: A Grave Near Petersburg, Virginia

  Head-board and foot-board duly placed—

  Grassed in the mound between;

  Vander is the slumberer’s name—

  Long may his grave be green!

  Quick was his way—a flash and a blow and a pole,

  Full of his fire was he—

  A fire of hell—’tis burnt out now—

  Green may his grave long be!

  May his grave be green, though he,

  Venator of iron mould;

  He had a true heart—true to the Cause,

  Through the blaze of his wrath lies cold.

  May his grave be green—still green

  While happy years shall roll;

  May none come nigh to disinter

  This token planted here, this waving waiflet pole.

  And so saying, Winnifred stepped forward to plant one of Vander’s waiflet poles in the soft earth (for we buried our dead, and did not burn them). Then each of us did plant Vander’s remaining waiflet poles about the mounded earth, with no small thanks and no few tears. All stood in silence for a long moment, then Bat turned, muttering, and stalked off. As if his movement unhinged our own volition, all followed him, each in solemn silence as the sky darkened and a sullen rain began to fall.

  Talking that evening around the fire, those cynics among us said Vander had wept for the loss of all the gold and finery he had by then collected, but I knew—as did most others despite what they said—that for all the piles of fine possessions and no small amount of gold-filled teeth rattling hollowly in the pouch he carried, it was life Vander treasured most in those final moments, aye, cherished beyond all the gold in creation. No small irony was lost on us for keeping Vander’s[1] hard-earned bounty and his boots; the leathern sack of rattling, gold-filled teeth did also fetch a pretty penny.

  [1]Ere Bulkington’s self-imposed doom, he convinced me that Vander’s name was, in truth, Josiah Stegner; though he shall always be Vander to my memory. May he rest in peace.

  No longer do I know whence all those once-boon companions now reside, whether in some loamy abode; whether still wielding lance and sword and spear gainst the undead host; whether ashes upon the wind; or, perhaps like me, fled upon the rolling seas where the grave be always ready dug and the zombies be few and far between. Where’er they may be; I wish to them a short life, and a jolly death!

  Oh, grassy glades! oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in ye,—though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy life,—in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them. Would to God these blessed after-battle calms would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm.

  There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause:—through infancy’s unconscious spell, childhood’s thoughtless faith, adolescent doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in adulthood’s pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, children, and adults again, and Ifs abound eternally.

  Where lies the final harbor whence we unmoor no more? Down what path is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.

  Regardless of the path taken, while we have it in us, Life is but a fast-fish, and none but the innermost Self can lay claim to the waif-pole; but when death’s blow is dealt, then that empty temple—the body—becomes a loose-fish, and claim is laid to the corpse by all and sundry, from undertaker to the fuzz of corpsemold sticking its tiny waifpoles in the dead flesh, consuming it there in the loamy, sunless grave.

  In the end, you must ask: what is the principle of religious belief in skeptic’s heart but a Loose-Fish? What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what are you, dear reader, but a Fast-Fish, and a Loose-Fish, too?

  Chapter

  The Rosebud

  A week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, when we were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapoury, mid-day sea, the many noses on the Pequod’s deck proved more vigilant discoverers than the three pairs of eyes aloft. A peculiar and not very pleasant smell was smelt in the sea.

  “I will bet something now,” said Stubb, “that somewhere hereabouts are some of those drouged whales we tickled the other day. I thought they would keel up before long.”

  Presently, the vapours in advance slid aside; and there in the distance lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must be alongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French colours from his peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture sea-fowl that circled and hovered and swooped around him, it was plain that the whale alongside must be what the fishermen call a blasted whale, that is, a whale that has died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an unappropriated corpse. It may well be conceived what an unsavory odor such a mass must exhale; worse than an Assyrian city in the plague, when the living are incompetent to bury the departed. So intolerable indeed is it regarded by some, that no cupidity could persuade them to moor alongside of it. Yet are there those who will still do it; notwithstanding the fact that the oil obtained from such subjects is of a very inferior quality, and by no means of the nature of attar-of-rose.

  Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the Frenchman had a second whale alongside; and this second whale seemed even more of a nosegay than the first. In truth, it turned out to be one of those problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort of prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the proper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn up his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted whales in general.

  The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger that Stubb vowed he recognised his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines that were knotted round the tail of one of these whales.

  “There’s a pretty fellow, now,” he banteringly laughed, standing in the ship’s bows, “there’s a jackal for ye! I well know that these Crappoes of Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery; for more often than not, all the oil they will get won’t be enough to dip the Captain’s wick into; but look ye, here’s a Crappo that is content with our leavings, the drouged whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too with scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there.

  “Poor devil! I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let’s make him a present of a little oil for dear charity’s sake. For what oil he’ll get from that drouged whale there, wouldn’t be fit to burn in a jail; no, not in a condemned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I’ll agree to get more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours than he’ll get from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of it, it may contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes, ambergris. I wonder now if our old man has thought of that. It’s worth trying. Yes, I’m for it,” and so saying he started for the quarter-deck.

  By this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so that whether or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hope of esc
aping except by its breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin, Stubb now called his boat’s crew, and pulled off for the stranger. Drawing across her bow, he perceived that in accordance with the fanciful French taste, the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in the likeness of a huge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for thorns had copper spikes projecting from it here and there; the whole terminating in a symmetrical folded bulb of a bright red colour. Upon her head boards, in large gilt letters, he read “Bouton de Rose,”—Rose-button, or Rose-bud; and this was the romantic name of this aromatic ship.

  “A wooden rose-bud, eh?” he cried with his hand to his nose, “that will do very well; but how like all creation it smells!” In order to hold direct communication with the people on deck, Stubb had to pull round the bows to the starboard side, and thus come close to the blasted whale; and so talk over it. Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he bawled—“Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy! are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses that speak English?”

  “Yes,” rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who turned out to be the chief-mate.

  “Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the White Whale?”

  “What whale?”

  “The White Whale—a Sperm Whale—Moby Dick, have ye seen him?

  “Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blanc ! White Whale—no.”

  “Very good, then; good bye now, and I’ll call again in a minute.”

  Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab leaning over the quarter-deck rail, looking somewhat fatigued and harried, impatiently awaiting his report; Stubb moulded his two hands into a trumpet and shouted—“No, Sir! No!” Upon which Ahab retired, and Stubb returned to the Frenchman.

  He now perceived that the Guernsey-man, who had just got into the chains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his nose in a sort of bag.

  “What’s the matter with your nose, there?” said Stubb. “Broke it?”

  “I wish it was broken, or that I didn’t have any nose at all!” answered the Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job he was at very much. “But what are you holding yours for?”

  “Oh, nothing! It’s a wax nose; I have to hold it on. Fine day, ain’t it? Air rather gardenny, I should say; throw us a bunch of posies, will ye, Bouton-de-Rose?”

  “What in the devil’s name do you want here?” roared the Guernseyman, flying into a sudden passion.

  “Oh! keep cool—cool? yes, that’s the word! why don’t you pack those whales in ice while you’re working at ‘em? But joking aside, though; do you know, Rose-bud, that it’s all nonsense trying to get any oil out of such whales? As for that dried up one, there, he hasn’t a quarter pint in his whole carcase.”

  “I know that well enough; but, d’ye see, the Captain here won’t believe it; this is his first voyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer before. But come aboard, and mayhap he’ll believe you, if he won’t me; and so I’ll get out of this dirty scrape.”

  “Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow,” rejoined Stubb, and with that he soon mounted to the deck. There a queer scene presented itself. The sailors, in tasselled caps of red worsted, were getting the heavy tackles in readiness for the whales. But they worked rather slow and talked very fast, and seemed in anything but a good humor. All their noses upwardly projected from their faces like so many jib-booms. Now and then pairs of them would drop their work, and run up to the mast-head to get some fresh air. Some thinking they would catch the plague, dipped oakum in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their nostrils. Others having broken the stems of their pipes almost short off at the bowl, were vigorously puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it constantly filled their olfactories.

  Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to the Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the stranger mate expressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited ignoramus, who had brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable a pickle. Sounding him carefully, Stubb further perceived that the Guernsey-man had not the slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris. Stubb therefore held his peace on that head, but otherwise was quite frank and confidential with him, so that the two quickly concocted a little plan for both circumventing and satirizing the Captain, without his at all dreaming of distrusting their sincerity. According to this little plan of theirs, the Guernsey-man, under cover of an interpreter’s office, was to tell the Captain what he pleased, but as coming from Stubb; and as for Stubb, he was to utter any nonsense that should come uppermost in him during the interview.

  By this time their destined victim appeared from his cabin. He was a small and dark, but rather delicate looking man for a sea-captain, with large whiskers and moustache, however; and wore a red cotton velvet vest with watch-seals at his side. To this gentleman, Stubb was now politely introduced by the Guernsey-man, who at once ostentatiously put on the aspect of interpreting between them.

  “What shall I say to him first?” said he.

  “Why,” said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest and the watch and seals, “you may as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort of babyish to me, though I don’t pretend to be a judge.”

  “He says, Monsieur,” said the Guernsey-man, in French, turning to his captain, “that only yesterday his ship spoke a vessel, whose captain and chief-mate, with six sailors, had all Quickened from the plague caught from a blasted whale they had brought alongside.”

  Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know more.

  “What now?” said the Guernsey-man to Stubb.

  “Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him that now I have eyed him carefully, I’m quite certain that he’s no more fit to command a whale-ship than a St. Jago monkey. In fact, tell him from me he’s a baboon.”

  “He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale, the dried one, is far more deadly than the blasted one; Monsieur, he conjures us, as we value our lives, to cut loose from these fish.”

  Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice commanded his crew to desist from hoisting the cutting-tackles, and at once cast loose the cables and chains confining the whales to the ship.

  “What now?” said the Guernsey-man, when the Captain had returned to them.

  “Why, let me see; yes, you may as well tell him now that—that—in fact, tell him I’ve diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps somebody else.”

  “He says, Monsieur, that he’s very happy to have been of service to us.”

  Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful parties (meaning himself and mate) and concluded by inviting Stubb down into his cabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux.

  “He wants you to take a glass of wine with him,” said the interpreter.

  “Thank him heartily; but tell him it’s against my principles to drink with the man I’ve diddled. In fact, tell him I must go.”

  “He says, Monsieur, that his principles won’t admit of his drinking; but that if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink, then Monsieur had best lower all four boats, and pull the ship away from these whales, for it’s so calm they won’t drift.”

  By this time Stubb was over the side, and getting into his boat, hailed the Guernsey-man to this effect,—that having a long tow-line in his boat, he would do what he could to help them by pulling out the lighter whale of the two from the ship’s side. While the Frenchman’s boats were engaged in towing the ship one way, Stubb benevolently towed away at his whale the other way, ostentatiously slacking out a most unusually long tow-line.

  Presently a breeze sprang up; Stubb feigned to cast off from the whale; hoisting his boats, the Frenchman soon increased his distance, while the Pequod slid in between him and Stubb’s whale. Whereupon Stubb quickly pulled to the floating body, and hailing the Pequod to give notice of his intentions, at once proceeded to reap the fruit of
his unrighteous cunning. Seizing his sharp boat-spade, he commenced an excavation in the body, a little behind the side fin. You would almost have thought he was digging a cellar there in the sea; and when at length his spade struck against the gaunt ribs, it was like turning up old Roman tiles and pottery buried in fat English loam. His boat’s crew were all in high excitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking as anxious as gold-hunters.

  And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking, and screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them. Stubb was beginning to look disappointed, especially as the horrible nosegay increased, when suddenly from out the very heart of this plague, there stole a faint stream of perfume, which flowed through the tide of bad smells without being absorbed by it, as one river will flow into and then along with another, without at all blending with it for a time.

  “I have it, I have it,” cried Stubb, with delight, striking something in the subterranean regions, “a purse! a purse!”

  Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls of something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old cheese; very unctuous and savory withal. You might easily dent it with your thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and ash colour. And this, good friends, is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist. Some six handfuls were obtained; but more was unavoidably lost in the sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured were it not for impatient Ahab’s loud command to Stubb to desist, and come on board, else the ship would bid them good bye.