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Moby Dick

by Herman Melville

Call me Ishmael. A young sailor boards the whaling ship Pequod, captained by the monomaniac Ahab, who will hunt the great white whale to the ends of the earth — and beyond reason.

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Chapters
  1. Chapter 1Chapter 1 — Loomings
  2. Chapter 2Chapter 2 — The Carpet-Bag
  3. Chapter 3Chapter 3 — The Spouter-Inn
  4. Chapter 4Chapter 4 — The Counterpane
  5. Chapter 5Chapter 5 — Breakfast
  6. Chapter 6Chapter 6 — The Street
  7. Chapter 7Chapter 7 — The Chapel
  8. Chapter 8Chapter 8 — The Pulpit
  9. Chapter 9Chapter 9 — The Sermon
  10. Chapter 10Chapter 10 — A Bosom Friend
  11. Chapter 11Chapter 11 — Nightgown
  12. Chapter 12Chapter 12 — Biographical
  13. Chapter 13Chapter 13 — Wheelbarrow
  14. Chapter 14Chapter 14 — Nantucket
  15. Chapter 15Chapter 15 — Chowder
  16. Chapter 16Chapter 16 — The Ship
  17. Chapter 17Chapter 17 — The Ramadan
  18. Chapter 18Chapter 18 — His Mark
  19. Chapter 19Chapter 19 — The Prophet
  20. Chapter 20Chapter 20 — All Astir
  21. Chapter 21Chapter 21 — Going Aboard
  22. Chapter 22Chapter 22 — Merry Christmas
  23. Chapter 23Chapter 23 — The Lee Shore
  24. Chapter 24Chapter 24 — The Advocate
  25. Chapter 25Chapter 25 — Postscript
  26. Chapter 26Chapter 26 — Knights and Squires
  27. Chapter 27Chapter 27 — Knights and Squires
  28. Chapter 28Chapter 28 — Ahab
  29. Chapter 29Chapter 29 — Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb
  30. Chapter 30Chapter 30 — The Pipe
  31. Chapter 31Chapter 31 — Queen Mab
  32. Chapter 32Chapter 32 — Cetology
  33. Chapter 33Chapter 33 — The Specksnyder
  34. Chapter 34Chapter 34 — The Cabin-Table
  35. Chapter 35Chapter 35 — The Mast-Head
  36. Chapter 36Chapter 36 — The Quarter-Deck
  37. Chapter 37Chapter 37 — Sunset
  38. Chapter 38Chapter 38 — Dusk
  39. Chapter 39Chapter 39 — First Night-Watch
  40. Chapter 40Chapter 40 — Midnight, Forecastle
  41. Chapter 41Chapter 41 — Moby Dick
  42. Chapter 42Chapter 42 — The Whiteness of the Whale
  43. Chapter 43Chapter 43 — Hark!
  44. Chapter 44Chapter 44 — The Chart
  45. Chapter 45Chapter 45 — The Affidavit
  46. Chapter 46Chapter 46 — Surmises
  47. Chapter 47Chapter 47 — The Mat-Maker
  48. Chapter 48Chapter 48 — The First Lowering
  49. Chapter 49Chapter 49 — The Hyena
  50. Chapter 50Chapter 50 — Ahab’s Boat and Crew. Fedallah
  51. Chapter 51Chapter 51 — The Spirit-Spout
  52. Chapter 52Chapter 52 — The Albatross
  53. Chapter 53Chapter 53 — The Gam
  54. Chapter 54Chapter 54 — The Town-Ho’s Story
  55. Chapter 55Chapter 55 — Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales
  56. Chapter 56Chapter 56 — Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True
  57. Chapter 57Chapter 57 — Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in
  58. Chapter 58Chapter 58 — Brit
  59. Chapter 59Chapter 59 — Squid
  60. Chapter 60Chapter 60 — The Line
  61. Chapter 61Chapter 61 — Stubb Kills a Whale
  62. Chapter 62Chapter 62 — The Dart
  63. Chapter 63Chapter 63 — The Crotch
  64. Chapter 64Chapter 64 — Stubb’s Supper
  65. Chapter 65Chapter 65 — The Whale as a Dish
  66. Chapter 66Chapter 66 — The Shark Massacre
  67. Chapter 67Chapter 67 — Cutting In
  68. Chapter 68Chapter 68 — The Blanket
  69. Chapter 69Chapter 69 — The Funeral
  70. Chapter 70Chapter 70 — The Sphynx
  71. Chapter 71Chapter 71 — The Jeroboam’s Story
  72. Chapter 72Chapter 72 — The Monkey-Rope
  73. Chapter 73Chapter 73 — Stubb and Flask kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk
  74. Chapter 74Chapter 74 — The Sperm Whale’s Head—Contrasted View
  75. Chapter 75Chapter 75 — The Right Whale’s Head—Contrasted View
  76. Chapter 76Chapter 76 — The Battering-Ram
  77. Chapter 77Chapter 77 — The Great Heidelburgh Tun
  78. Chapter 78Chapter 78 — Cistern and Buckets
  79. Chapter 79Chapter 79 — The Prairie
  80. Chapter 80Chapter 80 — The Nut
  81. Chapter 81Chapter 81 — The Pequod Meets The Virgin
  82. Chapter 82Chapter 82 — The Honor and Glory of Whaling
  83. Chapter 83Chapter 83 — Jonah Historically Regarded
  84. Chapter 84Chapter 84 — Pitchpoling
  85. Chapter 85Chapter 85 — The Fountain
  86. Chapter 86Chapter 86 — The Tail
  87. Chapter 87Chapter 87 — The Grand Armada
  88. Chapter 88Chapter 88 — Schools and Schoolmasters
  89. Chapter 89Chapter 89 — Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish
  90. Chapter 90Chapter 90 — Heads or Tails
  91. Chapter 91Chapter 91 — The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud
  92. Chapter 92Chapter 92 — Ambergris
  93. Chapter 93Chapter 93 — The Castaway
  94. Chapter 94Chapter 94 — A Squeeze of the Hand
  95. Chapter 95Chapter 95 — The Cassock
  96. Chapter 96Chapter 96 — The Try-Works
  97. Chapter 97Chapter 97 — The Lamp
  98. Chapter 98Chapter 98 — Stowing Down and Clearing Up
  99. Chapter 99Chapter 99 — The Doubloon
  100. Chapter 100Chapter 100 — Leg and Arm
  101. Chapter 101Chapter 101 — The Decanter
  102. Chapter 102Chapter 102 — A Bower in the Arsacides
  103. Chapter 103Chapter 103 — Measurement of The Whale’s Skeleton
  104. Chapter 104Chapter 104 — The Fossil Whale
  105. Chapter 105Chapter 105 — Does the Whale’s Magnitude Diminish?—Will He Perish?
  106. Chapter 106Chapter 106 — Ahab’s Leg
  107. Chapter 107Chapter 107 — The Carpenter
  108. Chapter 108Chapter 108 — Ahab and the Carpenter
  109. Chapter 109Chapter 109 — Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin
  110. Chapter 110Chapter 110 — Queequeg in His Coffin
  111. Chapter 111Chapter 111 — The Pacific
  112. Chapter 112Chapter 112 — The Blacksmith
  113. Chapter 113Chapter 113 — The Forge
  114. Chapter 114Chapter 114 — The Gilder
  115. Chapter 115Chapter 115 — The Pequod Meets The Bachelor
  116. Chapter 116Chapter 116 — The Dying Whale
  117. Chapter 117Chapter 117 — The Whale Watch
  118. Chapter 118Chapter 118 — The Quadrant
  119. Chapter 119Chapter 119 — The Candles
  120. Chapter 120Chapter 120 — The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch
  121. Chapter 121Chapter 121 — Midnight.—The Forecastle Bulwarks
  122. Chapter 122Chapter 122 — Midnight Aloft.—Thunder and Lightning
  123. Chapter 123Chapter 123 — The Musket
  124. Chapter 124Chapter 124 — The Needle
  125. Chapter 125Chapter 125 — The Log and Line
  126. Chapter 126Chapter 126 — The Life-Buoy
  127. Chapter 127Chapter 127 — The Deck
  128. Chapter 128Chapter 128 — The Pequod Meets The Rachel
  129. Chapter 129Chapter 129 — The Cabin
  130. Chapter 130Chapter 130 — The Hat
  131. Chapter 131Chapter 131 — The Pequod Meets The Delight
  132. Chapter 132Chapter 132 — The Symphony
  133. Chapter 133Chapter 133 — The Chase—First Day
  134. Chapter 134Chapter 134 — The Chase—Second Day
  135. Chapter 135Chapter 135 — The Chase.—Third Day
  136. Chapter 136Epilogue — The Drama's Done

Chapter 1 — Loomings

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.

There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.

Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster—tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?

But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles of them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither?

Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.

But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were...