Moby Dick. Herman Melville

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СКАЧАТЬ to conceal themselves behind the whale, in order to avoid being seen by us.”

      —COOK’S VOYAGES.

      “The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in

      so great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid to mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood, and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to terrify and prevent their too near approach.”

      —UNO VON TROIL’S LETTERS ON BANKS’S AND SOLANDER’S

      VOYAGE TO ICELAND IN 1772.

      “The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce

      animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen.”

      —THOMAS JEFFERSON’S WHALE MEMORIAL TO THE FRENCH MINISTER IN 1778.

      “And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it?”

      —EDMUND BURKE’S REFERENCE IN PARLIAMENT TO THE NANTUCKET WHALE-FISHERY.

      “Spain—a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe.”

      —EDMUND BURKE. (SOMEWHERE.)

      “A tenth branch of the king’s ordinary revenue, said to be

      grounded on the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from pirates and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are whale and sturgeon. And these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the coast, are the property of the king.”

      —BLACKSTONE.

      “Soon to the sport of death the crews repair:

      Rodmond unerring o’er his head suspends

      The barbed steel, and every turn attends.”

      —FALCONER’S SHIPWRECK.

      “Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires,

      And rockets blew self driven,

      To hang their momentary fire

      Around the vault of heaven.

      “So fire with water to compare,

      The ocean serves on high,

      Up-spouted by a whale in air,

      To express unwieldy joy.”

      —COWPER, ON THE QUEEN’S VISIT TO LONDON.

      “Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at a

      stroke, with immense velocity.”

      —JOHN HUNTER’S ACCOUNT OF THE DISSECTION OF A WHALE. (A SMALL SIZED ONE.)

      “The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of

      the water-works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood gushing from the whale’s heart.”

      —PALEY’S THEOLOGY.

      “The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet.”

      —BARON CUVIER.

      “In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but did not take

      any till the first of May, the sea being then covered with them.”

      —COLNETT’S VOYAGE FOR THE PURPOSE OF EXTENDING THE SPERMACETI

      WHALE FISHERY.

      “In the free element beneath me swam,

      Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle,

      Fishes of every color, form, and kind;

      Which language cannot paint, and mariner

      Had never seen; from dread Leviathan

      To insect millions peopling every wave:

      Gather’d in shoals immense, like floating islands,

      Led by mysterious instincts through that waste

      And trackless region, though on every side

      Assaulted by voracious enemies,

      Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm’d in front or jaw,

      With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs.”

      —MONTGOMERY’S WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD.

      “Io! Paean! Io! sing.

      To the finny people’s king.

      Not a mightier whale than this

      In the vast Atlantic is;

      Not a fatter fish than he,

      Flounders round the Polar Sea.”

      —CHARLES LAMB’S TRIUMPH OF THE WHALE.

      “In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observing the

      whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed: there—pointing to the sea—is a green pasture where our children’s grand-children will go for bread.”

      —OBED MACY’S HISTORY OF NANTUCKET.

      “I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway in the

      form of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale’s jaw bones.”

      —HAWTHORNE’S TWICE TOLD TALES.

      “She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been

      killed by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty years ago.”

      —IBID.

      “No, Sir, ’tis a Right Whale,” answered Tom; “I saw his sprout; he

      threw up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to look at. He’s a raal oil-butt, that fellow!”

      —COOPER’S PILOT.

      “The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette that

      whales had been introduced on the stage there.”

      —ECKERMANN’S CONVERSATIONS WITH GOETHE.

      “My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter?” I answered, “we have been

      stove by a whale.”

      —“NARRATIVE СКАЧАТЬ