MOBY DICK
A monologue from the
novel by Herman Melville
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NOTE: This monologue is reprinted
from Moby Dick; or, the Whale. Herman Melville. New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1851. |
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ISHMAEL: Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind
how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and
nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would
sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It
is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the
circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth;
whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever
I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses,
and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially
whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires
a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping
into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then,
I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is
my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish
Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship.
There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost
all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly
the same feelings towards the ocean with me. Now, when I say
that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow
hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs,
I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a
passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse,
and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides,
passengers get sea-sick--grow quarrelsome--don't sleep of nights--do
not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;--no, I never go
as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever
go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon
the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them.
For my part, I abominate all honourable respectable toils, trials,
and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much
as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships,
barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as
cook,--though I confess there is considerable glory in that,
a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board--yet, somehow, I
never fancied broiling fowls;--though once broiled, judiciously
buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no
one who will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially,
of a broiled fowl than I will. No, when I go to sea, I go as
a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle,
aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me
about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper
in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant
enough. It touches one's sense of honour, particularly if you
come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers,
or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous
to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording
it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in
awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from
a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of
Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But
even this wears off in time. What of it, if some old hunks of
a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks?
What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales
of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks
anything the less of me, because I promptly and respectfully
obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain't a
slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains
may order me about--however they may thump and punch me about,
I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that
everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way--either
in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so
the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub
each other's shoulder-blades, and be content. And more importantly,
I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of
paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a
single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers
themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world
between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the
most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed
upon us. But BEING PAID,--what will compare with it? The urbane
activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous,
considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root
of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man
enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!
MORE
MONOLOGUES BY HERMAN MELVILLE |
