Moby Dick

Call me Ishmael.

Some years ago,

having little or no money...

I thought I would sail about

and see the oceans of the world.

Whenever I get grim and spleenful...

whenever I feel like

knocking people 's hats off in the street...

whenever it's a damp,

drizzly November in my soul...

I know that it's high time

to get to sea again.

Choose any path you please...

and ten to one,

it carries you down to water.

There 's a magic in water

that draws all men away from the land...

Leads them over the hills down creeks,

and streams, and rivers to the sea.

The sea...

where each man, as in a mirror,

finds himself.

And so it was

I duly arrived at the town of New Bedford...

on a stormy Saturday late in the year 184 1.

-Rum.

-Rum it is. What mark?

To this a penny, to that another penny,

and so on to the top of the glass.

The Cape Horn measure, which

you may drink down for a full shilling.

The penny mark. Nay, the full shilling.

You'll be wanting a room tonight.

You ain't no objections to sharing

a harpooneer's bed with him, have you?

-You going whaling?

-That is my intention.

You need permission. You weren't born

and bred in New Bedford, were you?

No, I'm a stranger here.

-Then you'll have to have permission.

-Permission?

Aye. From us, the men of New Bedford.

The sea is ours.

Other seamen only have

a right of way through it.

And the whale is ours. Ours alone.

No one else may hunt it down and kill it,

unless we say so.

Do you dispute that?

-I do not.

-Good.

Then you have our permission

to sail our sea.

Drink to this boy, mates?

Big whales to you, mate!

Can whales do that?

Why, bless me, whales can do anything!

A whale can jump up like an earthquake...

and come down on you like

a mountain that's somehow put to sea.

A whale can stave in the ribs

of the biggest ships...

swallow whole crews,

pick its teeth with the oars.

Mind, lad, if God ever wanted to be a fish,

he'd be a whale.

Believe that, he'd be a whale.

Ahab.

Who's Ahab?

Captain Ahab to you.

-Who's Captain Ahab?

-Aye.

Ahab's Ahab.

Music.

In Amsterdam there lived a maid

And she was mistress of her trade

I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid

A-roving, a-roving

Sing!

Since roving's been my ruin

I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid

Her cheeks were red, her eyes were brown

Mark well what I do say

Her cheeks were red, her eyes were brown

Her curly hair was hanging down

I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid

A-roving, a-roving

Since roving's been my ruin

I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid

Landlord, which is the harpooneer

I'm to sleep with tonight?

He ain't among them.

He's what you might call

a dark-complexioned chap.

He'll be along

as soon as he finishes selling his head.

-His what?

-Selling his head.

Though he may have some difficulty

in getting rid of it.

New Bedford's overstocked.

-With what?

-Heads, of course!

Come on, lad.

Mark well what I do say

I kissed her once, I kissed her twice

And found she was as cold as ice

I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid

A-roving, a-roving

Since roving's been my ruin

I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid

Now, the young maid was fancy-free

Mark well what I do say

The young maid was fancy-free

If I could take her home with me

I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid

A-roving, a-roving

Since roving's been my ruin

I'll go no more a-roving with you, fair maid

-Wait. Hold on.

-Who the devil are you?

Who no speak? I kill you!

Landlord!

Peter Coffin! Coffin, save me!

Now, now, now.

What is all this about?

Why didn't you tell me

I was sleeping with a cannibal?

I thought you knowed.

Didn't I tell you

he was around the town selling heads?

Landlord, tell him to stash that tomahawk,

or pipe, or whatever you call it.

Well, pleasant dreams.

Better a sober cannibal

than a drunken Christian.

In this same New Bedford,

there stands a Whaleman 's Chapel...

and few are the fishermen shortly bound

for the Indian Ocean or Pacific...

who fail to visit there.

The will of God I did deny

And so my sacred duty fled

Oh, my Lord's awful penalty

Is not to die and yet be dead

The ribs and terrors in the whale

Arched over me a dismal gloom

While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by

And lift me deepening down to doom

I saw the opening maw of hell

With endless pains and sorrows there

Which none but they that feel can tell

Oh, I was plunging to despair

In black distress, I called my God

When I could scarce believe him mine

He bowed his ear to my complaints

No more the whale

Did me confine

Amen

"And God had prepared a great fish...

"to swallow up Jonah."

Shipmates...

the sin of Jonah...

was in his disobedience

of the command of God.

He found it a hard command.

And it was, shipmates...

for all the things that

God would have us do are hard.

If we would obey God,

we must disobey ourselves.

But Jonah still further flouts at God

by seeking to flee from him.

Jonah thinks that a ship made by men...

will carry him into countries

where God does not reign.

He prowls among the shipping...

Like a vile burglar,

hastening to cross the seas.

And as he comes aboard,

the sailors mark him.

The ship puts out...

but soon the sea rebels.

It will not bear the wicked burden.

A dreadful storm comes up.

The ship is like to break.

The boatswain calls

all hands to lighten her.

Boxes, bales, and jars

are clattering overboard.

The wind is shrieking. The men are yelling.

"l fear the Lord," cries Jonah...

"the God of heaven,

who hath made the sea and the dry land."

Again, the sailors mark him.

But wretched Jonah cries out to them

to cast him overboard...

for he knew that for his sake

this great tempest was upon them.

Now behold Jonah...

taken up as an anchor

and dropped into the sea...

into the dreadful jaws awaiting him.

And the great whale shoots

to all his ivory teeth...

Like so many white bolts upon his prison.

And Jonah cries unto the Lord...

out of the fish's belly.

Nut observe his prayer, shipmates.

He doesn't weep and wail.

He feels his punishment is just.

He leaves deliverance to God.

And even out of the belly of hell...

grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones...

God heard him when he cried.

And God spake unto the whale.

And from the shuddering cold

and blackness of the deep...

the whale breached into the sun...

and vomited out Jonah upon the dry land.

And Jonah...

bruised and beaten...

his ears like two seashells...

still multitudinously murmuring

of the ocean...

Jonah did the Almighty's bidding.

And what was that, shipmates?

To preach the truth

in the face of falsehood!

No, shipmates. Woe to him who seeks

to pour oil on the troubled waters...

when God has brewed them into a gale.

Yea, woe to him who,

as the pilot Paul has it...

while preaching to others

is himself a castaway.

Delight is to him...

who, against the proud gods

and commodores of this earth...

stands forth his own inexorable self...

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