But pity there was none.įor all his old age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knot-holes of the noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale’s eyes had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were beheld. As the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper part of his form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was plainly revealed. His life, as they significantly call it, was untouched. And then you have to play better than anyone elseįrom this last vent no blood yet came, because no vital part of him had thus far been struck.

Even now, when the boats pulled upon this whale, and perilously drew over his swaying flukes, and the lances were darted into him, they were followed by steady jets from the new made wound, which kept continually playing, while the natural spout-hole in his head was only at intervals, however rapid, sending it saffrighted moisture into the air. Not so with the whale one of whose peculiarities it is to have an entire non-valvular structure of the blood-vessels, so that when pierced even by so small a point as a harpoon, a deadly drain is at once begun upon his whole arterial system and when this is heightened by the extraordinary pressure of water at a great distance below the surface, his life may be said to pour from him in incessant streams. Yet so vast is the quantity of blood in him, and so distant and numerous its interior fountains, that he will keep thus bleeding and bleeding for a considerable period even as in a drought a river will flow, whose source is in the well-springs of far-off and undiscernible hills. In most land animals there are certain valves or flood-gates in many of their veins, whereby when wounded, the blood is in some degree at least instantly shut off in certain directions. His motions plainly denoted his extreme exhaustion. There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? The diver sun, slow dived from noon, goes down my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of human mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. But my whole clock’s run down my heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to lift again. His heaven-insulting purpose, God may wedge aside. The hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the small gold-fish has its glassy globe.

Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of human mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea Drop cap and first lineįor in his eyes I read some lurid woe would shrivel me up, had I it.

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