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Moby Dick
Chapter 60. The Line
Herman Melville
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       With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as well as for the better understanding of all similar scenes elsewhere presented, I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible whale-line.
       The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp, slightly vapored with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case of ordinary ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable to the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to the sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary quantity too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which it must be subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general by no means adds to the rope's durability or strength, however much it may give it compactness and gloss.
       Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though not so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and I will add (since there is an aesthetics in all things), is much more handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian to behold.
       The whale-line is only two thirds of an inch in thickness. At first sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By experiment its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one hundred and twenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly equal to three tons. In length, the common sperm whale-line measures something over two hundred fathoms. Towards the stern of the boat it is spirally coiled away in the tub, not like the worm-pipe of a still though, but so as to form one round, cheese-shaped mass of densely bedded "sheaves," or layers of concentric spiralizations, without any hollow but the "heart," or minute vertical tube formed at the axis of the cheese. As the least tangle or kink in the coiling would, in running out, infallibly take somebody's arm, leg, or entire body off, the utmost precaution is used in stowing the line in its tub. Some harpooneers will consume almost an entire morning in this business, carrying the line high aloft and then reeving it downwards through a block towards the tub, so as in the act of coiling to free it from all possible wrinkles and twists.
       In the English boats two tubs are used instead of one; the same line being continuously coiled in both tubs. There is some advantage in this; because these twin-tubs being so small they fit more readily into the boat, and do not strain it so much; whereas, the American tub, nearly three feet in diameter and of proportionate depth, makes a rather bulky freight for a craft whose planks are but one-half inch in thickness; for the bottom of the whale-boat is like critical ice, which will bear up a considerable distributed weight, but not very much of a concentrated one. When the painted canvas cover is clapped on the American tubline, the boat looks as if it were pulling off with a prodigious great wedding-cake to present to the whales.
       Both ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything. This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First: In order to facilitate the fastening to it of an additional line from a neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale should sound so deep as to threaten to carry off the entire line originally attached to the harpoon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like a mug of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other; though the first boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort. Second: This arrangement is indispensable for common safety's sake; for were the lower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the whale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking minute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed boat would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of the sea; and in that case no town-crier would ever find her again.
       Before lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line is taken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead there, is again carried forward the entire length of the boat, resting crosswise upon the loom or handle of every man's oar, so that it jogs against his wrist in rowing; and also passing between the men, as they alternately sit at the opposite gunwales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in the extreme pointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size of a common squill, prevents it from slipping out. From the chocks it hangs in a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the boat again; and some ten or twenty fathoms (called box-line) being coiled upon the box in the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale still a little further aft, and is then attached to the short-warp- the rope which is immediately connected with the harpoon; but previous to that connexion, the short-warp goes through sundry mystifications too tedious to detail.
       Thus the whale-line folds the whole boat in its complicated coils, twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction. All the oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so that to the timid eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliest snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of mortal woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen intricacies, and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at any unknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings; he cannot be thus circumstanced without a shudder that makes the very marrow in his bones to quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habit- strange thing! what cannot habit accomplish?- Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, and brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany, than you will hear over the half-inch white cedar of the whaleboat, when thus hung in hangman's nooses; and, like the six burghers of Calais before King Edward, the six men composing the crew pull into the jaws of death, with a halter around every neck, as you may say.
       Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for those repeated whaling disasters- some few of which are casually chronicled- of this man or that man being taken out of the boat by the line, and lost. For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in the boat, is like being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings of a steam-engine in full play, when every flying beam, and shaft, and wheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you cannot sit motionless in the heart of these perils, because the boat is rocking like a cradle, and you are pitched one way and the other, without the slightest warning; and only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and simultaneousness of volition and action, can you escape being made a Mazeppa of, and run away with where the all-seeing sun himself could never pierce you out.
       Again: as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself; for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm; and contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal powder, and the ball, and the explosion; so the graceful repose of the line, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought into actual play- this is a thing which carries more of true terror than any other aspect of this dangerous affair. But why say more? All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, everpresent perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.
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本书目录

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. Fedallah
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 Honor 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 Toward 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