AI illustration by Paula Galindo.
By OZ FRITZ
Special guest blogger
This week: Chapters 21 “– 34, Going Aboard” through “The Cabin-Table”
Chapter 21 puts us right at the borderline of land and sea. Ishmael and Queequeg arrive just before 6 a.m. in the misty dawn to board the ship for departure. They meet resistance at this membrane from Elijah, a Prophet in Moby Dick as well as in the Bible. Two chapters earlier, Elijah had given them a vague and sinister warning about signing up to ship out with Captain Ahab. The Pequod receives onboard her final supplies before casting off on a three year excursion to hunt whales. “It was now clear sunrise.” The voyage begins on Christmas day.
Melville had an excellent education growing up in New York City in privileged circumstances. He was well-read and well-traveled. Moby Dick seems an early attempt to write the Great American novel while simultaneously expanding out to encompass the entire world. On another level, it reads as a profound treatise on the inner life – magic, spirituality and mysticism; framed as the classic model of a journey into Unknown territory encountering monsters, Leviathans and who knows what other challenges to their sanity sailing the seas of the Unconscious.
The Bible appears a transparent major influence in Moby Dick. We’ve already been through a sermon on Jonah and the Whale in a church modelled off a whaling vessel. The Biblical Ishmael is considered the ancestor of Arabs and a Muslim Prophet. His name means “God has hearkened.” Ishmael reputedly lived to the age of 137. 137 = “a receiving; the Qabalah.” Ishmael adds to 151. 151 = “TETRAGRAMMATON OF THE GODS is one TETRAGRAMMATON”, which seems another way of saying “God has hearkened.”
151 also = “The Fountain of Living Waters (Jeremiah xvii 13).” Of course, our adventure takes place in the watery world. The “Fountain of Living Waters” will turn up literally, in the eponymous chapter 41, “Moby Dick,” when Ishmael mentions the story of the Arethusa fountain in Syracuse, Sicily “whose waters were believed to have come from the Holy Land.” Arethusa is a nymph in Greek mythology who symbolizes “the untamable essence of the feminine nature.”
My understanding holds that Kabballah came into existence through esoteric Hebrew scholars and mystics searching to unlock or decode secrets found in the Bible. Melville seems to have known as much about the Bible as Aleister Crowley. It follows that Kabballah turns up in Moby Dick as part of the Biblical influence. The very first thing we read in the novel suggests this:
“Etymology
(Supplied by a Late Consumptive Usher to a Grammar School.)
[The pale Usher – threadbare in coat, heart, body and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality.]
Usher is derived from Ush meaning “to enter into.” In the Bible, ushers were doorkeepers serving the temple. Right from the get-go we’re told we’re in School. His coat, heart, body and brain suggest the four common neurocircuits. Reminded of his own mortality can suggest working on higher consciousness (via lexicons and grammars) to survive that mortality. However, he’s already dead. The initial communication in Moby Dick comes from a dead guy.
The “queer handkerchief” with all the flags perhaps foretells the international composition of the crew of the Pequod which gets delineated in chapter 40.
The first alternate language spelling of WHALE is given in Hebrew as the letters Tau and Nun final to give “Tan” from Job 7:12 “Am I a sea, or a whale, that thou settest watch over me?”
Tau = The Universe and Nun = Death in the Tarot.
In the next section, “Extracts” which consists of various quotes and accounts of whales throughout history, literature and mythology, the 11th quote is from Rabelais, a noted Cabalist and major influence on Aleister Crowley and James Joyce among others (the influence of The Whale in Finnegans Wake will be examined later). The 13th quote comes from Spenser’s The Fairie Queen, a classic of magick literature.
In this week’s chapters, after the Pequod sets sails, we encounter several new characters and learn more about others. Also, we have discussion about metaphysical aspects of life on the ocean and the endeavor of whale hunting. Chapter 23 briefly tells of Bulkington and his spiritual relationship to the sea where we are told the highest truth resides. Chapter 24 gives a vigorous defence of whaling by Ishmael who invokes various historical characters to support his argument. This continues into chapter 25 where we find some discussion of the magical act of anointing in relation to the coronation of kings and queens. Ishmael wonders if the act of anointing might apply to the inner as well as the outer.
Chapters 26 and 27, both titled “Knights and Squires” introduces us to the Pequod’s senior crew, Starbuck, Stubb and Flask in that order. The chapter title suggests the story of Don Quixote who imagined he was a knight errant. Cervantes, the author of said story, has his “stumped and paupered arm” clothed with “leaves of finest gold” by God at the end of chapter 26, Starbuck’s chapter. John Bunyan, author of the spiritual classic The Pilgrim’s Progress gets mentioned in the same breath. The Pilgrim’s Progress tells of journey into the Unknown in search of communion with God. I read it for the first time recently based on a favorable mention by Crowley combined with finding a copy for a buck at a thrift store. I highly recommend it if one is able to get past the overtly Christian trappings. It seems relevant to understanding one metaphor behind Moby Dick. Andrew Jackson, the 7th President of the United States gets mentioned heroically in the same breath as the other two, but I have no idea why?
Stubb appears next in the chain of command at the beginning of chapter 27. His many confrontations with death by getting close up to the monsters he hunts “converted the jaws of death into an easy chair.” Coincidentally, this also occurs with bardo training which confronts death in less dangerous situations. Just as Starbuck is an inveterate coffee drinker, Stubb likes to constantly smoke. Last, but not least, we meet Flask. These three, Starbuck, Stubb and Flask command the smaller boats that go after whales when spotted. They comprise the “Knights” in Melvilles medieval metaphor. Next come the “Squires,” the men who steer the smaller boats and help with the harpooning. They work in close conjunction with the Knights. Queequeg is Starbuck’s squire. Tashtego, a Native American, squires for Stubb. He’s compared to “the Prince of the Powers of Air” which seems an analogy straight out of the Cabala. Daggoo, a gigantic African native “was the Squire of little Flask who looked like a chess-man beside him.” Daggoo gets compared to Ahasuerus, an ancient Persian king who appears in the Bible.
Chapter 28 brings us to the book’s central human character, the enigmatic, mysterious, mythopoeic, strangely marked and scarred Captain Ahab. He tends to be regarded as the personification of obsession and evil like his Biblical counterpart, Ahab the King of Israel who “did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him” (1 Kings 16:30), but he’s a much more complex character. A couple or so chapters later we’re told he has a conscience. In this chapter we find out that a certain whale chomped off his left leg. He didn’t replace it with a wooden peg leg, but with ivory carved from the jawbone of a sperm whale. In one sense, Ahab is part whale. Counter to his dour disposition, he’s observed, more than once, almost smiling.
Shakespeare seems up there with the Bible as a profound influence on The Whale. Chapter 31, “Queen Mab” gives a little tour of Stubb’s subconscious life when he describes a dream he had to Flask of Ahab kicking him with his ivory leg. No mention of Queen Mab in this short chapter but those familiar with Shakespeare and people who know how to google know that she is a fairy in Romeo and Juliet, a miniature creature who rides her chariot over sleeping humans helping them “give birth” to dreams.
Chapter 32 “Cetology” provides a literary taxonomy of whales. Ironically, the Sperm Whale was once known by the English as the Trumpa. Sperm whales, like Moby Dick are the largest whales. Their name is a misnomer having nothing to do with male reproductive cells, but rather named for a waxy substance called spermaceti used in ointments, textiles, cosmetics and industrial lubricants. At the chapter’s end, Melville declares that he’s leaving his cetological system unfinished. He justifies this then reveals the scope of what he’s trying to accomplish:
“For small erections may be finished by their architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from completing anything. This whole book is but a draught – nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience.”
Next week: please read Chapters 35-42, "The Mast-Head" through "The Whiteness of the Whale."
12 comments:
I need to get caught up and read these passages before I comment further, but I just want to commend Oz for the effort he put into this post. He even came up with an original illustration!
I was unsure if the Cetology chapter was still supposed to be one narrated by Ishmael or not. The style and depth of knowledge made it look to me more like the work of the Sub-Sub-Librarian, or perhaps Melville himself. When signing up on the Pequod, Ishmael admitted having never been whale hunting before, so I wouldn’t think him to be so knowledgeable about them at this point. It could also be written from the perspective of a ‘future-Ishmael’ rather than ‘present-Ishmael’.
Oz Fritz, you mention how in Hebrew, ‘whale’ is spelled Tau + Nun. Tau means a cross, and Nun is fish. You note how the Bible (the cross, in a way) appears a major influence in Moby Dick. You also note the link between Nun and the tarot Death card, thus marking fish and death as somehow preordained in this book we’re reading. Moby Dick as an essay, or unpacking, of the very concept of whale as per the original Hebrew, and its allegorical ramification, just like the story of Jonah already was, back in older times.
You also pointed out (in the blog post about the band Chicago) how you connect 23 with death and a bardo experience. This chapter 23 seems concerned with the idea of never resting still in comfort, and constantly putting oneself out there, in “the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea”, even at the risk of losing one’s life. Because “as in landlessness alone resides the highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God – so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety!”
Crowley on the Death card enjoined us to “die daily”.
At the end of the Cabin-Table chapter I found the sentence “he lived in the world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled Missouri.” That made me smile, as last week the blog post about the Chapel Perilous biography saw comments discussing the spellings of grizzly bear vs grisly bear.
Behold the wonders of Queen Mab:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrc1sBltZgM
Thank-you, Tom. All very perceptive, Spookah.
It seems true that Ishmael doesn't always narrate. The Cetology chapter seems to come from Melville as evidenced by how he ends that chapter kind of breaking a literary 4th wall to talk about the writing of Moby Dick itself. I quoted this at the end of the OP.
He talks about great works being left unfinished. I connect this with esoteric lines of work deliberately left unfinished or open ended for future students to carry them on. Gurdjieff and Crowley did this. Perhaps great works of literature like Moby Dick, Finnegans Wake, The Cantos and perhaps even Wilson's Tales of the Tribe got deliberately left unfinished (except for Wilson) to be carried on by future readers, scholars and commentators such as this group. Nietzsche has a quote to the effect that one philosopher shoots an arrow of thought to be picked up by a future philosopher to shoot further.
Interesting post.
Chapter 22
“... and Charity, his sister, had placed a small choice copy of Watts in each seaman’s berth.”
I didn’t get the reference, so I looked it up. Isaac Watts (1674-1748) was a famous English writer of hymns. So the pious Charity has placed hymn books with the sailors, to give them something to sing instead of bawdy songs.
“We … blindly plunged like fate into the lone Atlantic.” I love that phrase.
Chapter 23
“ … in the port of safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that’s kind to our mortalities.”
As I was making dinner, I thought how pleasant it was to be inside a warm, well-lit house on a cold night in northern Ohio. Poor Eric and Oz, it’s a pleasure that’s denied to people who live in California!
“For this reason, a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air.” (A passage from Chapter 11, “Nightgown.”)
Also, I like how the chapter serves as the gravestone for Bulkington: “this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington.”
Chapter 24
“Often, adventures which Vancouver dedicates three chapters to, these men accounted unworthy of being set down in the ship’s common log.” This appears to be a reference to George Vancouver, the British explorer (1757-1798), who penned books about his voyages. Vancouver, Canada, and many other places are named after him.
What a beautiful chapter, and I especially like the last paragraph.
By the way, does anyone know enough Latin American history to comment on Melville's claim that visiting whaleships helped bring about the liberation of South America from the Spanish? It's not an area of history I know much about.
Chapter 32, “Cetology”
This chapter has a couple of really good sentences, such as the last one: “Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience.”
And I liked the sentence about how unfair it was for men to label a particular animal the Killer Whale: “Exception must be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the ground of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included.”
That said, I did get the impression that science was not Herman Melville’s strong suit. He obviously gets some very basic facts wrong: The Sperm Whale is not the biggest whale, and there are big differences between fish and whales, which in fact are mammals, though Melville somehow doesn’t agree. “Ishmael's observations are not a complete scientific study, even by standards of the day,” says the Wikipedia article on “Cetology of Moby-Dick.” It notes that little was known at that time about the Blue Whale, so maybe we can let Melville off the hook there.
My own sense reading the chapter was that it did sound like Ishmael was speaking.
I thought whales may have been classified as mammals after Melville wrote The Whale and that's why he got it wrong, but it was in the 17th Century when they first considered whales as mammals. I wrongly believed him about that sperm whales were the largest of the species.
I missed Melville claiming whalers helped with South American independence. Simon Bolivar gets credit for liberating Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela from Spanish control. I couldn't find any connection with whalers. I did see an article that said Spain didn't establish whaling in their South American colonies. The article said that only Brazil ( a Portuguese colony, of course) engaged in whaling, but only for it's own use not for international export.
Toward the beginning of the Cetology chapter, this whale taxonomy issue is covered: "in some quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish." Melville (or whoever is supposed to be narrating here) brings up the Swede Carolus Linnaeus as a proponent of whale as not fish. But then he rejects this opinion because some random friends of his find "that the reasons set forth were altogether insufficient", and even uses the Bible as proof! ("call upon holy Jonah to back me.")
Chapter 23 "The Lee Shore" – the glossary states "lee" as "the side of a vessel away from the wind." This chapter advocates for the subject, one Bulkington, to not retreat from facing the wind of the "howling infinite" which is also perhaps Death. It presents the dichotomy of the shore = land = safety out of the wind vs the ocean - landlessness.
In multiple places Melville seems to show knowledge of the correspondence between Tiphareth and the key number 6, one instance demonstrated in my OP. In chapter 23, Tom has pointed out: “this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington.” This chapter ends with: "Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing – straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!"
Straight up from Tiphareth we find the apotheosis of Kether. In chapter 73 we find a character wearing a "cabalistically-cut coat." This dude turns out to be a religious demagogue who considers Moby Dick to be God.
Back to chapter 23, Crowley connects 23 with the formula "Get Out." Moby Dick's chapter 23 implores Bulkington to get out from the safety and comfort of the shore.
Well Oz, as I mentioned to Tom yesterday in a text: I caught up just in time to be late for this week's post.
This is a great post and your Biblical analysis of these chapters was really eye-opening. I've read the Bible, but it's been over a decade and I really should revisit it- so your commentary was invaluable.
Oddly(?) my favorite part of these chapters was Ishmael's impassioned defense of whaling as a profession. I did catch the Queen Mab reference as I fought to be Mercutio when we read through Romeo and Juliet in school. I had already read the speech in one of my Shakespeare kid's books on in one of my compelations of literature and that was the precipitating factor.
I was dissapointed to find out that Starbucks is actually a clever name.
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