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Moby Dick (or The Whale)
CHAPTER 59 Squid.
Herman Melville
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       _ Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held on
       her way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentle air
       impelling her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three
       tall tapering masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three
       mild palms on a plain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery
       night, the lonely, alluring jet would be seen.
       But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost
       preternatural spread over the sea, however unattended with any
       stagnant calm; when the long burnished sun-glade on the waters seemed
       a golden finger laid across them, enjoining some secrecy; when the
       slippered waves whispered together as they softly ran on; in this
       profound hush of the visible sphere a strange spectre was seen by
       Daggoo from the main-mast-head.
       In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher
       and higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed
       before our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus
       glistening for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once
       more arose, and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is
       this Moby Dick? thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on
       re-appearing once more, with a stiletto-like cry that startled every
       man from his nod, the negro yelled out--"There! there again! there
       she breaches! right ahead! The White Whale, the White Whale!"
       Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in swarming-time
       the bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in the sultry sun, Ahab
       stood on the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind in
       readiness to wave his orders to the helmsman, cast his eager glance
       in the direction indicated aloft by the outstretched motionless arm
       of Daggoo.
       Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary jet had
       gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to connect
       the ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the
       particular whale he pursued; however this was, or whether his
       eagerness betrayed him; whichever way it might have been, no sooner
       did he distinctly perceive the white mass, than with a quick
       intensity he instantly gave orders for lowering.
       The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab's in advance, and all
       swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while,
       with oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo! in the
       same spot where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting
       for the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most
       wondrous phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto revealed to
       mankind. A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a
       glancing cream-colour, lay floating on the water, innumerable long
       arms radiating from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest
       of anacondas, as if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within
       reach. No perceptible face or front did it have; no conceivable
       token of either sensation or instinct; but undulated there on the
       billows, an unearthly, formless, chance-like apparition of life.
       As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck
       still gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild
       voice exclaimed--"Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him,
       than to have seen thee, thou white ghost!"
       "What was it, Sir?" said Flask.
       "The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld,
       and returned to their ports to tell of it."
       But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the
       vessel; the rest as silently following.
       Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have connected
       with the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse of it
       being so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it
       with portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that though one and all
       of them declare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean, yet
       very few of them have any but the most vague ideas concerning its
       true nature and form; notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish to
       the sperm whale his only food. For though other species of whales
       find their food above water, and may be seen by man in the act of
       feeding, the spermaceti whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones
       below the surface; and only by inference is it that any one can tell
       of what, precisely, that food consists. At times, when closely
       pursued, he will disgorge what are supposed to be the detached arms
       of the squid; some of them thus exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty
       feet in length. They fancy that the monster to which these arms
       belonged ordinarily clings by them to the bed of the ocean; and that
       the sperm whale, unlike other species, is supplied with teeth in
       order to attack and tear it.
       There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken of Bishop
       Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid. The manner in
       which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and sinking,
       with some other particulars he narrates, in all this the two
       correspond. But much abatement is necessary with respect to the
       incredible bulk he assigns it.
       By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the mysterious
       creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of
       cuttle-fish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would
       seem to belong, but only as the Anak of the tribe. _
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Etymology
Abstract
CHAPTER 1 Loomings.
CHAPTER 2 The Carpet-Bag.
CHAPTER 3 The Spouter-Inn.
CHAPTER 4 The Counterpane.
CHAPTER 5 Breakfast
CHAPTER 6 The Street.
CHAPTER 7 The Chapel.
CHAPTER 8 The Pulpit.
CHAPTER 9 The Sermon.
CHAPTER 10 A Bosom Friend.
CHAPTER 11 Nightgown.
CHAPTER 12 Biographical.
CHAPTER 13 Wheelbarrow.
CHAPTER 14 Nantucket.
CHAPTER 15 Chowder.
CHAPTER 16 The Ship.
CHAPTER 17 The Ramadan.
CHAPTER 18 His Mark.
CHAPTER 19 The Prophet.
CHAPTER 20 All Astir.
CHAPTER 21 Going Aboard.
CHAPTER 22 Merry Christmas.
CHAPTER 23 The Lee Shore.
CHAPTER 24 The Advocate.
CHAPTER 25 Postscript.
CHAPTER 26 Knights and Squires.
CHAPTER 27 Knights and Squires.
CHAPTER 28 Ahab.
CHAPTER 29 Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb.
CHAPTER 30 The Pipe.
CHAPTER 31 Queen Mab.
CHAPTER 32 Cetology.
CHAPTER 33 The Specksynder.
CHAPTER 34 The Cabin-Table.
CHAPTER 35 The Mast-Head.
CHAPTER 36 The Quarter-Deck.
CHAPTER 37 Sunset.
CHAPTER 38 Dusk.
CHAPTER 39 First Night Watch.
CHAPTER 40 Midnight, Forecastle.
CHAPTER 41 Moby Dick.
CHAPTER 42 The Whiteness of The Whale.
CHAPTER 43 Hark!
CHAPTER 44 The Chart.
CHAPTER 45 The Affidavit.
CHAPTER 46 Surmises.
CHAPTER 47 The Mat-Maker.
CHAPTER 48 The First Lowering.
CHAPTER 49 The Hyena.
CHAPTER 50 Ahab's Boat and Crew.
CHAPTER 51 The Spirit-Spout.
CHAPTER 52 The Albatross.
CHAPTER 53 The Gam.
CHAPTER 54 The Town-Ho's Story.
CHAPTER 55 Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales.
CHAPTER 56 Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes.
CHAPTER 57 Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in Stone; in Mountains; in Stars.
CHAPTER 58 Brit.
CHAPTER 59 Squid.
CHAPTER 60 The Line.
CHAPTER 61 Stubb Kills a Whale.
CHAPTER 62 The Dart.
CHAPTER 63 The Crotch.
CHAPTER 64 Stubb's Supper.
CHAPTER 65 The Whale as a Dish.
CHAPTER 66 The Shark Massacre.
CHAPTER 67 Cutting In.
CHAPTER 68 The Blanket.
CHAPTER 69 The Funeral.
CHAPTER 70 The Sphynx.
CHAPTER 71 The Jeroboam's Story.
CHAPTER 72 The Monkey-Rope.
CHAPTER 73 Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk Over Him.
CHAPTER 74 The Sperm Whale's Head--Contrasted View.
CHAPTER 75 The Right Whale's Head--Contrasted View.
CHAPTER 76 The Battering-Ram.
CHAPTER 77 The Great Heidelburgh Tun.
CHAPTER 78 Cistern and Buckets.
CHAPTER 79 The Prairie.
CHAPTER 80 The Nut.
CHAPTER 81 The Pequod Meets The Virgin.
CHAPTER 82 The Honour and Glory of Whaling.
CHAPTER 83 Jonah Historically Regarded.
CHAPTER 84 Pitchpoling.
CHAPTER 85 The Fountain.
CHAPTER 86 The Tail.
CHAPTER 87 The Grand Armada.
CHAPTER 88 Schools and Schoolmasters.
CHAPTER 89 Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish.
CHAPTER 90 Heads or Tails.
CHAPTER 91 The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud.
CHAPTER 92 Ambergris.
CHAPTER 93 The Castaway.
CHAPTER 94 A Squeeze of the Hand.
CHAPTER 95 The Cassock.
CHAPTER 96 The Try-Works.
CHAPTER 97 The Lamp.
CHAPTER 98 Stowing Down and Clearing Up.
CHAPTER 99 The Doubloon.
CHAPTER 100 Leg and Arm.
CHAPTER 101 The Decanter.
CHAPTER 102 A Bower in the Arsacides.
CHAPTER 103 Measurement of The Whale's Skeleton.
CHAPTER 104 The Fossil Whale.
CHAPTER 105 Does the Whale's Magnitude Diminish?--Will He Perish?
CHAPTER 106 Ahab's Leg.
CHAPTER 107 The Carpenter.
CHAPTER 108 Ahab and the Carpenter.
CHAPTER 109 Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin.
CHAPTER 110 Queequeg in His Coffin.
CHAPTER 111 The Pacific.
CHAPTER 112 The Blacksmith.
CHAPTER 113 The Forge.
CHAPTER 114 The Gilder.
CHAPTER 115 The Pequod Meets The Bachelor.
CHAPTER 116 The Dying Whale.
CHAPTER 117 The Whale Watch.
CHAPTER 118 The Quadrant.
CHAPTER 119 The Candles.
CHAPTER 120 The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch.
CHAPTER 121 Midnight.--The Forecastle Bulwarks.
CHAPTER 122 Midnight Aloft.--Thunder and Lightning
CHAPTER 123 The Musket.
CHAPTER 124 The Needle.
CHAPTER 125 The Log and Line.
CHAPTER 126 The Life-Buoy.
CHAPTER 127 The Deck.
CHAPTER 128 The Pequod Meets The Rachel.
CHAPTER 129 The Cabin.
CHAPTER 130 The Hat.
CHAPTER 131 The Pequod Meets The Delight.
CHAPTER 132 The Symphony.
CHAPTER 133 The Chase--First Day.
CHAPTER 134 The Chase--Second Day.
CHAPTER 135 The Chase.--Third Day.
Epilogue - "AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE"