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Table of Contents
Chapter 37
SUNSET
The cabin; by the stern
windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out. I leave a white and turbid wake;
pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell
to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass. Yonder, by the ever-brimming
goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue.
The diver sun --slow dived from noon, --goes down; my soul mounts up! she
wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this
Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; i, the wearer, see
not its far flashings; but darkly feel that i wear that, that dazzlingly
confounds. 'Tis iron --that I know--not gold. 'Tis split, too --that I feel;
the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal;
aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most
brain-battering fight! Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the
sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light,
it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy.
Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most
subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good night
--good night! ( waving his hand, he moves from the window.) 'Twas not so hard
a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at ..
2 the least; but my one
cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they revolve. Or, if you
will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all stand before me; and I their
match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the match itself must needs be wasting!
What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad
--Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness
that's only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be
dismembered; and--Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember
my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more
than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players,
ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as
school-boys do to bullies, --Take some one of your own size; don't pommel me!
No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come
forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come,
Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye
cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The
path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved
to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under
torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to
the iron way! ..
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