Moby Dick Page #6

on that day, you shall have my share.

My 10% of the profits...

of this entire voyage.

Aye!

Gold will pour out of Moby Dick's wounds

into your hands.

Every drop of his blood...

another Spanish doubloon!

What say you to that, men?

Sing out!

They're all dumfounded, sir, and so am l.

Hooray for Captain Ahab!

Pip, grog all around.

A sail, sir, to starboard.

The Rachel, out of New Bedford.

Captain Gardiner's ship.

She's coming around.

Captain Ahab,

have you seen a whaleboat adrift?

I've seen nothing.

You've seen the white whale?

We harpooned him

not 10 miles from this spot.

Not dead.

-You didn't kill him?

-No.

We lost a boat, towed out of sight by him.

To ruin.

Three days and nights we've searched.

My boy was in it.

My own son. Twelve years old.

Captain Ahab, will you help me search?

As we are Christians,

we cannot refuse this man.

You will. I know you will help!

You must!

You must,

and you shall do this thing for me!

If thee say no, we'll be in black disgrace.

At home, they'll spit

at the mention of the Pequod's name.

Captain Ahab, answer me!

Captain Gardiner...

I seek the white whale!

Your own son's murderer!

I am losing time.

Time? I've lost my whole world!

I will not go.

I will follow till you say aye to me.

Run, men. Stand by to lower.

I am coming over, Captain.

Avast! Touch not a rope! I must go.

Goodbye, I say, and fare thee well.

God help you, Captain Gardiner!

God forgive you, Captain Ahab.

Stoke up the tryworks.

We shall run forward laden with fire...

to render the white whale's flesh

into unholy oil.

Blacksmith...

I set ye a task.

Take these harpoons and lances.

Melt them down.

Forge me new weapons...

that will strike deep and hold fast.

Nut do not douse them in water.

They must have a proper baptism.

What say ye, all ye men?

Will you give as much blood

as shall be needed to temper the steel?

Aye!

To my anger, now add your own.

You be the cogs that fit my wheel...

the gunpowder that takes my torch.

Pledge yourselves heart...

soul...

body...

-life and lung--

-Aye, sir.

...as I pledge myself.

Death to Moby Dick.

Death.

Up helm!

Bring the wind aft!

Hold it!

Sir, shall I shorten sail?

No. She runs well enough.

Weather main brace!

Weather yards!

The braces, men! Haul away!

Haul away! Lay on your backs and haul!

Earn your salt!

By all that's holy, Captain!

We'll lose every inch of canvas

if we don't ease the ship!

Mr. Starbuck...

we're three days behind Moby Dick!

This wind is heaven-sent.

Heaven-sent to destroy us.

Cut away those rags!

Get new canvas aloft!

All hands, tend sails!

Aye, aye, sir.

Get aloft.

They'll trammel under!

Aloft with ye! Aloft!

Get up there! Get aloft!

Captain, we cannot get more canvas up

in this wind!

We must!

She won't come up!

The masts!

Cut them away! Cut!

It's away with the masts, or we capsize!

The masts! Cut the masts!

Let fall.

Let fall, I say.

I'll run you through.

St. Elmo's fire!

Have mercy on us!

Aye, men!

Mark it well.

It lights our way to the white whale!

Thus I put out...

the last fear.

Clear away!

Raise new sail! We're running on!

Jump, my hearties! Jump now!

Where are the crew of the Pequod?

There is not one face I know among 30.

He has snatched their souls.

Look at them. They are gloves.

Ahab fills them. Ahab moves them.

You must admit, Mr. Starbuck,

he called that typhoon's bluff.

Stood toe-to-toe with the bully,

traded blows with it till it hollered, "Help! "

Aye, man. And did you see

how he grabbed St. Elmo's fire by the tail?

Only Ahab would do that.

I see how madmen beget more madmen.

Yet could I cure their madness now?

Great God, where art thou?

Shall l?

Heave up!

Avast!

It's a mild day, Starbuck.

Mild-looking sky.

On such a day, I struck my first whale.

A boy harpooneer. Forty, aye.

Forty years and a thousand lowerings ago.

Why this madness of the chase...

this boiling blood and smoking brow?

Why palsy the arm at the oar,

the iron, and the lance?

I feel old, Starbuck, and bowed.

As though I were Adam...

staggering under the piled centuries...

since paradise.

Stand close, Starbuck. Close to me.

Let me look into a human eye.

It is better than to gaze into sea or sky.

Captain, now for the last time, I ask thee,

I implore thee...

Iet us fly these deadly waters.

Let us home.

Have they not such mild blue days

even as this in old New Bedford?

What is it?

What nameless, inscrutable,

unearthly thing...

commands me against all human lovings

and longings...

to keep pushing and crowding

and jamming myself on all the time...

making me do

what in my own natural heart...

I dare not dream of doing?

Is Ahab, Ahab?

Is it l, God, or who...

that lifts this arm?

But if the great sun cannot move...

except by God's invisible power...

how can my small heart beat...

my brain think thoughts...

unless God does that beating,

does that thinking...

does that living...

and not l?

By heavens, man...

we are turned round and round

in this world...

Like yonder windlass...

and fate is the handspike.

And all the time, that smiling sky...

and this unsounded sea.

Look ye into its deeps...

and see the everlasting slaughter

that goes on.

Who put it into its creatures

to chase and fang one another?

Where do murderers go, man?

Who's to doom...

when the judge himself

is dragged before the bar?

But it is a mild day...

and a mild-looking sky.

What ails you, Starbuck?

Why do you tremble so?

Because I do not have the bowels

to slaughter thee...

and save the whole ship's company

from being dragged to doom.

I plainly see my miserable office:

to obey, rebelling.

Worse still, to help thee

to thine impious end.

Starbuck, ye are tied to me.

This act is immutably decreed.

It was rehearsed by ye and me...

a billion years before this ocean rolled.

The air.

Do you smell it, lads,

what the wind carries?

It smells like land.

-Like an island.

-Aye.

A coral reef, green moss, shells...

bits and pieces

from all the oceans he ever swam through.

An island to himself is the white whale.

Elijah.

What say you, lad?

The day we sailed, a man....

Elijah, his name was.

-Well?

-He said....

He said, "A day will come at sea...

"when you smell land

where there be no land.

"And on that day,

Ahab will go to his grave.

"But he will rise again and beckon.

"And then all...

"all, save one, shall follow."

There she blows!

Look.

Mastheaders, the birds mark the place.

Watch the birds!

Helmsman, luff a point.

Stand by the boats!

Down topgallants!

-Same old bet, Stubb?

-Aye.

No, Pip. Stay on board.

You be captain in my absence.

Stand ye there on the deck in my place.

Lower away!

I'm Captain Pip.

Did you see him, men?

Did you see his hump?

Like a great snow hill.

Did you see the way he slides along?

There's majesty for you.

Don't look.

I'll look for you.

Did you see the lances in his back?

My lances.

Mine.

Struck in him years ago.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes