Chapter II. THE CARPET-BAG

carpet-bag, n.
1. a. A travelling bag, properly one made of carpet.

Manhatto
Not a real name for Manhattan. Google this and you’ll come up with Moby-Dick. I think Melville’s just jokingly extrapolating this from his already affected “city of the Manhattoes” in the previous chapter.

packet, n.
2. Short for PACKET-BOAT n.
packet-boat, n.
A boat or ship travelling at regular intervals between two ports, originally for the conveyance of mail, later also of goods and passengers; a mailboat. Originally used of the boat which carried ‘the packet’ of State letters and dispatches, chiefly between England and Ireland.

offer, v.
6. b. intr. with reflexive meaning. Of an object, phenomenon, event, etc.: to present itself; to occur.

the Tyre of this Carthage
Carthage was originally founded a colonial outpost of Tyre. Both were major port cities and the Phoenicians were the greatest sailors of their time. Carthage was taken over by the Romans and so remains significant for longer to a Euro-centric history, whereas Tyre’s prominence declined during the Christian era. As Wikipedia puts it, Tyre was sometimes “taken as an examplar [sic] of the mortality of great power and status” by 19th-century writers.

aboriginal, a.
1. First or earliest so far as history or science gives record; primitive; strictly native, indigenous. Used both of the races and natural features of various lands. 2. spec. Dwelling in any country before the arrival of later (European) colonists.

sloop, n.
1. a. A small, one-masted, fore-and-aft rigged vessel, differing from a cutter in having a jib-stay and standing bowsprit.

concernment, n.
5. The quality of concerning or being important to persons, etc.; importance, weight, moment. b. esp. in the attrib. phrases, of concernment, of great, special, vital (etc.) concernment.

grapnel, n.
2. A small anchor with three or more flukes, used esp. for boats, and for securing a balloon on its descent. (transf. and fig.)

fervent, a.
1. Hot, burning, glowing, boiling.
Yes, yes, as with many other words here, of course I already know this word, but my grasp on its meaning is via the metaphoric sense, and to be sure that I am understanding it correctly when used literally, as here, I feel a look-up has probably been long in order. So this is the opportunity. This will be my last disclaimer, so keep it in mind!

don’t you hear
Has someone told him to move along? Is he referring to such a voice even though nobody has said anything? Or is “don’t you hear” an idiomatic tag as part of an impression of such a voice, where “go on, don’t you hear?” is something folksy like “go on, and don’t be talkin’!” The “patched boots” thing makes me think this is all some kind of sarcastic disgust with his imagined version of the inn’s disgust with him, but the juxtaposition of the “sounds of the tinkling glasses” with “don’t you hear?” has thrown me. Opinions please.

ash, n.
b. Special combinations (chiefly attrib.):ash-box, a receptacle for ashes, (a) a pan beneath a fire-grate, (b) a dust-bin.

“The Trap”
I really can’t say for sure what this means to him – obviously something sardonic and nautical. The relevant traps might be lobster traps or fishing “trap-nets.” This would all be well and good if I knew how he thought it applied – as far as I can tell it seems to have to have to do with the fact that the door stood invitingly open and yet there was an ash-box there for him to trip over as soon as went inside. Is that the trap in question? Is he saying that the ash-box was itself the “sign” of “The Trap?” Or does this actually relate somehow to his odd allusion to Gomorrah? This is exactly the sort of thing I want not to have to shrug at! Someone please explain it to me.

Black Parliament sitting in Tophet
Tophet was a biblical city wherein child sacrifices were supposed to take place. Later, as a result, a term for hell. “Black Parliament” has been the name for several different historical things, none of which seems remotely relevant. I think it’s just an invention, capitalized simply for gothic/biblical force.

blackness of darkness
It may be worth mentioning that while the “weeping and wailing and teeth-gnashing” talk is all over the place in the bible, the phrase “blackness of darkness” appears in only one place in the King James edition that Melville seems to have used: Jude 1:13 – which says that godless men are like “raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.” Given the “raging waves” I tend to suspect the allusion to this particular verse is intentional, but I may be wrong.

pea coffee
U.S. (now hist.), a beverage made by boiling roasted peas in water.

Euroclydon
A stormy wind mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles: see EURAQUILO. Hence occas. with allusion to this, a ‘tempestuous wind’ in general. Also fig.
The Apostle Paul is shipwrecked on Malta after being blown by the wind Euroclydon in Acts 27-28. The wind is named in Acts 27:14.

hob, n.
1. a. (Formerly also hub.) In a fire-place, the part of the casing having a surface level with the top of the grate.
I think this is generally just a shelf near the fire for keeping things warm – that’s what it is on a stove. But I assume this guy’s feet aren’t on the stove.

wight, n.
1. b. orig. and chiefly with (good or bad) epithet, applied to supernatural, preternatural, or unearthly beings. Obs. or rare arch.

Death is the only glazier
If the windows in question are the eyes – and aren’t they? Ishmael says as much in the next couple lines – then I don’t understand why Death is the glazier, unless this is some kind of pun on “glazing” windows and the eyes “glazing” over, which are not the same glazing at all. That doesn’t really work for me, since death is a fair bit worse than the eyes glazing over. Is the idea that a glazier is also the only person qualified to remove windows from their frames? The whole thing doesn’t really work, because the eyes aren’t really “sashless.” Are the windows here just something abstract – the mental portals through which all experience flows? I don’t like that answer either. Once again, please help.

old black-letter
Black-letter is that antiquated style of typeface that we particularly associate with German and Old English. In one way or another he obviously means, “old book guy,” but this is an odd construction and I’m interested if anyone thinks there’s more to the joke.

lint
3. a. A soft material for dressing wounds (formerly also to burn for tinder), prepared by ravelling or scraping linen cloth. b. Fluff of any material.

cope-stone
The top or head stone of a building; almost always fig. the crown, completion, finishing touch.

chips
I take it he means the chips left by a sculptor. No?

Lazarus rare.
A leper; a beggar.

Dives
1. The Latin word for ‘rich (man)’, occurring in the Vulgate, Luke xvi; whence commonly taken as the proper name of the rich man in that parable; and used generically for ‘rich man’.
Lazarus and Dives are an opposed pair in one of Jesus’ parables, whose names, as per the OED, have come to stand for the archetypes they represent. Lazarus goes to heaven and Dives goes to hell and there’s no saving him; he should have paid more attention to the bible when he was alive. End of story. This explains the “redder one afterwards” joke that comes up immediately.

the Moluccas
The Malaku Islands, in Indonesia, just west of New Guinea.

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