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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i &middot ii &middot 1

Chapter I. LOOMINGS

Ishmael
Okay, after all these years, it’s nice to get this straight, and this time I’m not going to forget it. Ishmael is Abraham’s first son, by his servant, Hagar. Hagar and Ishmael are sent away after the birth of Isaac and wander in the desert. Their water runs out but they are miraculously saved by God and [reel change] Ishmael goes on to play Isaac’s part in the origins of Islam. Muhammad is his descendant. But let’s be honest, Melville probably probably doesn’t expect it to be taken from the Islamic angle. I think the key concept here is the unblessed, tainted son, sent wandering.

spleen, n.
8. With the: c. Excessive dejection or depression of spirits; gloominess and irritability; moroseness; melancholia. Now arch.

hypo, n. ? Obs.
Morbid depression of spirits. [Abbreviation of HYPOCHONDRIA: cf. HYP.]

Cato
Cato the Younger (95 BC-46 BC), politician who fought Caesar and committed suicide when Caesar defeated his forces, stabbing himself with a sword and then, apparently, ripping open his wound after it had been mended against his will. The classical image of principled suicide.

Manhattoes
OED gives this as a possible plural for
Manhattan, n.
a. A member of a North American Indian people formerly inhabiting Manhattan Island, N.Y.

mole, n.
2. A massive structure, esp. of stone, serving as a pier, breakwater, or causeway.

Sabbath
My 20th-century Jewish upbringing has left me uncertain as to whether a 19th-century non-Jew would have meant Saturday or Sunday by this word. OED says Sunday.

Corlears Hook
Correctly, or originally, “Corlaer’s Hook,” later “Corlear’s Hook.” Map. On the Lower East Side, where the shoreline bends northward. Example of:

hook, n.
9. A sharp bend or angle in the course or length of anything; esp. a bend in a river (now in proper names). [Perh. in some cases influenced by Du. hoek corner, nook.]

Coenties Slip
One of several “slips” on the very southern tip of Manhattan. We’ve walked south down the East River.

slip, n.
c. local. A narrow roadway or passage.
I think in this particular geographical case, as per the article above, it means a very narrow harbor/inlet.

Whitehall
Once, a mansion at the southern tip of Manhattan; nowadays just a short street very near Coenties Slip, heading north toward Broadway. It seems more likely, however, that we’re supposed to walk around up the shore on the other side of the island. Perhaps a different street used by be called Whitehall Street? [Wikipedia]

spile, n.
1. a. = PILE n. 3.
pile, n.
3. a. A pointed stake or post; spec. in later use, a large and heavy beam of timber or trunk of a tree, usually sharpened at the lower end, of which a number are driven into the bed of a river, or into marshy or uncertain ground for the support of some superstructure, as a bridge, pier, quay, wall, the foundation of a house, etc. Also extended to cylindrical or other hollow iron pillars, used for the same purposes.

pier-head, n.
1. The outward or seaward end of a pier.
See, I had to check, because it was either that or the opposite.

bulwark, n.
3. The raised woodwork running along the sides of a vessel above the level of the deck. Usually pl.

in the rigging
Well, “rigging” just means what I think it means (it apparently can also mean the ridge of a roof, but I don’t think he’d say “in the rigging” if that’s what he meant), so I’m confused. He’s describing the way “landsmen” gather at the piers to look out at the water. Is he saying that these non-sailors just trespass their way onto the ships and climb up in the rigging? That would surprise me. Maybe he is talking about people on the roofs. I’m asking a simple question here, people – someone answer me!

lath, n.
1. a. A thin narrow strip of wood used to form a groundwork upon which to fasten the slates or tiles of a roof or the plaster of a wall or ceiling, and in the construction of lattice or trellis work and Venetian blinds.
b. collect. Laths as a material used in building (chiefly as a groundwork for a coating of plaster) to form a wall or partition. Freq. in lath and plaster (often written with hyphens, esp. when used attrib. or quasi-adj.).

clinched, ppl. a.
Firmly fastened as a nail or bolt; clinker-built.

What do they here?
This oddly archaic construction (I assume I’m correct in reading this as syntactically parallel to “What want they here?”) would seem to indicate an allusion, but I can’t find anything to explain what does he here. The phrase “what do they here?” appears in several other places that don’t seem relevant. (Handel’s Belshazzar?) Was this just “an expression” at the time? I haven’t seen it before, or if I have, I haven’t thought about it.

lee, n.
1. a. Protection, shelter, rarely pl. Also in phrases in, under (the) lee (of) both in material and immaterial senses.
Surely, the nautical connotation is not coincidental. Whether it’s intentional is another question.

league, n.
a. An itinerary measure of distance, varying in different countries, but usually estimated roughly at about 3 miles; app. never in regular use in England, but often occurring in poetical or rhetorical statements of distance. marine league: a unit of distance = 3 nautical miles or 3041 fathoms.
I knew it was a measure of distance but I didn’t know how far. Again, with a nautical connotation.

the Saco
The Saco River, in Maine (and northern New Hampshire). Here’s a painting from the school he’s talking about. It would have been fun to find exactly the painting he’s describing but it probably doesn’t exist.

bark, barque, n.
3. spec. A sailing vessel of particular rig; in 17th c. sometimes applied to the barca-longa of the Mediterranean; now to a three-masted vessel with fore- and main-masts square-rigged, and mizenmast ‘fore-and-aft’ rigged: till recent times a comparatively small vessel; now there are many of 3,000 to 5,000 tons, nearly all the larger steamers being barks. (In this sense frequently spelt barque by way of distinction.)
It also means “boat” or “rowing boat” or “barge” in more general senses, but I thought it was worth checking out whether there was a more specific meaning. In this little rhetorical flourish he doesn’t mean anything too particular, I’d guess.

brig, n.
a. A vessel (a) originally identical with the brigantine (of which word brig was a colloquial abbreviation); but, while the full name has remained with the unchanged brigantine, the shortened name has accompanied the modifications which have subsequently been made in rig, so that a brig is now
(b) A vessel with two masts square-rigged like a ship’s fore- and main-masts, but carrying also on her main-mast a lower fore-and-aft sail with a gaff and boom.

schooner, n.
1. a. A small sea-going fore-and-aft rigged vessel, originally with only two masts, but now often with three or four masts and carrying one or more topsails.
That one I was comfortable enough with, but I thought I’d better cover all the bases here.

judgmatical, a. colloq.
Characterized by good practical judgement; judicious, discerning; judicial.
Hence judgmatically adv., in the manner, or with the air, of a judge.
What a great, stupid word!

It is out of the idolatrous dotings…
I know he’s being comical, but it’s a pretty wacky joke with a couple of layers, so I had to read it over and over to make sure I was understanding. He’s whimsically equating the Egyptians’ worship of certain animals with his “not to say reverential” fondness for chicken, and then saying, in jest, that the Egyptians actually liked to eat those animals and “worshipped” them on those terms – and that, accordingly, the pyramids are like big ovens to honor their favorite dishes, mummified inside. I think that sitting here and thinking about what he’s saying is making it a lot more ridiculous than he intended. But I was taken aback by the sudden shot of silliness, delivered with that characteristic ominous deadpan. I know, it’s not just silliness; these kinds of grandiose “pagan” parallelisms are obviously a serious part of the fabric of the book. But it’s still pretty silly.

forecastle
2. The fore part of a ship.
3. In merchant vessels, the forward part of the vessel, under the deck, where the sailors live.

OED offers, under Spellings:
Also written fo’c’sle, after sailors’ pronunc.
but doesn’t have a proper Pronunciation section and thus doesn’t answer my longstanding question: should I ALWAYS pronounce it that way or is that just an optional, low, “sailor-talk” version? I’m basically saying “Foxxle” in every context and I think that may be very wrong. Won’t somebody help me?

spar, n.
4. a. Naut. ‘The general term for all masts, yards, booms, gaffs, etc.’ (Young, 1846).

Van Rensselaer
Prominent New York Dutch family, descendants of Killian Van Rensselaer (1595-1644).

Randolph
Prominent Virginia family, from Williamsburg. Descendants of Sir John Randolph (1693-1737).

Hardicanute
This seems to be satire, a dig at the Van Rensselaers and such. Harthacanute (~1018-1042) was the King of Denmark and England until 1042, just one generation before the Norman conquest would end the Anglo-Saxon line. Here’s Wikipedia’s handy list of British monarchs. Anyway, seems to me that the point is: the great prominence of the “Hardicanutes,” who no doubt would have felt they were above being bossed around on a ship, was transient. Vanity. The subsequent example of the powerful country schoolmaster is a prod in the same direction.

tar, n.
3. A familiar appellation for a sailor: perh. abbreviation of TARPAULIN. Cf. JACK-TAR.
4. attrib. and Comb. c. Special Combs.: tar-pot, (a) a pot containing tar; (b) humorously applied to a sailor (cf. 3)
Either Melville’s punning the phrase off the expression “tar-pot,” or else he knows about some better derivation than the OED involving sailors actually using tar out of a pot.

Hm. Here we go: in Benito Cereno a short story from 1855, Melville describes a sailor “tarring a strap of a large block” by “continually thrusting his hand into the tar-pot” (I suppose I should have put a few …’s in there). “Block” in the “block and tackle” sense – a pulley, essentially. The tar is to make the strap (by which it is hung) water-resistant. I imagine this is something low-ranking sailors had to do all the time. OED, why didn’t you figure this out? “Tarpaulin”? Pshaw!

Seneca and the Stoics
Seneca the Younger (4 BC-AD 65), author and Stoic philosopher. Some of his works, like On Anger and On Tranquility of Mind deal with applying Stoic philosophy to the trials of life. Pretty self-helpish, actually.

hunks, n.
A term of obloquy for a surly, crusty, cross-grained old person, a ‘bear’; now, usually, a close-fisted, stingy man; a miser. (Generally with close, covetous, niggardly, or other uncomplimentary epithet.)

Pythagorean maxim
The Pythagorean maxim is: “Abstain from beans.” There seem to be widely differing opinions as to what this means and why – a seemingly reasonable theory is that the beans in question are vote-counting beans and this is Pythagoras’ instruction to his followers not to be become involved with politics – but the most entertaining and thus most popular possibility is that it’s advice about avoiding flatulence. This, in any case, is what Melville’s getting at. That’s right: Winds from astern? Atmosphere at secondhand? Fart humor!

quarterdeck, n. Naut.
a. Originally, a smaller deck situated above the HALF-DECK (q.v.), covering about a quarter of the vessel. Obs. b. In later use: That part of the upper or spar-deck which extends between the stern and after-mast, and is used as a promenade by the superior officers or cabin-passengers. Also transf.

commonalty, n.
3. The general body of the community; the common people, as distinguished from those in authority, from those of rank and title, or ‘the upper classes’ generally; the ‘commons’ collectively.
I put this here because I didn’t recognize the word, even though there was no question what it meant.

BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN
First Anglo-Afghan War, 1838-1842. Presidential elections were held in 1836 and 1840. Am I wrong or does this quasi-date the events in the novel to 1840-1 (or, at least, between 1836 and 1842)?

spring, n.
23. fig. a. That by which action is produced, inspired, or instigated; a moving, actuating, or impelling agency, cause, or force; a motive.

Patagonian, a.
1. a. Of or relating to Patagonia or its inhabitants, spec. the Patagons. b. With reference to the Patagons’ alleged height: gigantic, huge, immense.
The question is whether he means “South American” or “big.” I’m a context-reader so I’m inclined to think he means “exotic and overwhelming” but I don’t really know.

would they let me
Opinion: does he mean “would it, the horror, let me,” or does he mean “would some generic conservative chaperone figures, they, let me”? I want it to be the former but I can’t quite hear “they” correctly. Is this an old-fashioned usage or the same usage that one still hears today as something lazy and inexact? I always thought that was a contemporary sloppiness, to say “they” for any third person.

flood-gate, n.
1. sing. and pl. A gate or gates that may be opened or closed, to admit or exclude water, esp. the water of a flood; spec. the lower gates of a lock.
b. transf. and fig. chiefly in expressions relating to rain or tears.
I hear this expression all the time but I wasn’t sure where real “flood-gates” might be found or what they’d look like, and it seemed like it might be relevant in this nautical atmosphere. But now I don’t think it is.

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i &middot ii

EXTRACTS

This second installment is going to be by far the longest entry in this project, or on this site, ever. Oops, in fact, it was too long for the site’s software to handle, if you can believe that, so I’ve had to split it into two parts.

This is NOT, I repeat, NOT an essay or review or “blog entry,” so for god’s sake, please don’t try to read this if you’re not actually reading along in Moby-Dick!

Which you might as well do, ’cause why not, right?

Just a note about what I’ve gotten myself into here – I actually forgot, when I began this whole effort a couple weeks ago, that Moby-Dick was going to start with the following trial by fire for the Look-It-Up Club. Since my game plan is to only continue when I actually know what I’ve read, that necessitated tracking down each snippet. But it’s actually been a lot of fun getting to know all these “extracts.” I’d like to think that that fun is at least partially made available, below, to anyone who is actually reading along with me. However, I know that in such things, the process is its own reward, and what follows is mostly just a byproduct of my personal process. On the other hand, if someone had given me the following, prior to my reading this section, I would have been very glad to have it. So hopefully it can be worth something to somebody.

Now, I don’t actually think that Melville intended his readers to recognize (or god forbid track down) all his extracts. In fact I think the intended effect is supposed to be of inassimilable, incoherent overabundance. Semi-humorous but also a sort of clearing of the palate – like repeating a word over and over until it loses meaning to the ear. Also a sort of absurdist cetocentric human history, bringing us from the Creation all the way up into the salty American milieu of the novel with everyone ever and only talking about whales. Basically, I see it as similar in purpose and effect to the preceding Etymology, but more involved and, obviously, broader in scope.

I do, however, think that Melville expected a suitably educated reader to recognize many of these sources by their titles and authors, at least in a general way. The quotes may be meant to seem whimsically esoteric, but I think we as readers are expected to immediately make sense of the citations themselves. Well, maybe not all of them; some things here are really unavoidably obscure. But I certainly don’t think the impression of obscurity would have been so forceful for Melville’s intended reader, and in any case, you get to answer these questions for yourself: the notes (and links) below allow you to role-play a reader at a level of learnedness of your choosing.

You can bet I skipped this in high school! I think everyone skips this. But it’s been, as I said, lots of fun actually reading all of these and finding out what they are – I feel like I’ve been taken on a delightfully arbitrary whirlwind tour of the vast, extremely musty archives of Western Civilization, which is, I think, exactly what Melville had in mind. I think, in fact, the delightful arbitrariness was a crafted thing – I come away from this with the sense that the man put some thought into it and took care to get the effect he wanted. You just have to trust him and dive in to all the dust with your attention at full – and I do recommend it. Though, okay, maybe it’s not for everyone. But seriously, give it a shot. And take your time.

I’ve numbered my IDs of the extracts themselves, just to help clarify what’s what and hopefully make this endless list a little easier to follow. Vocabulary follows the ID of the extract in which it appears.

All definitions are from the OED, by the way. Also, you can get a good look at most pages of the edition I’m using (in smaller but more accurate scans than Amazon) through Google, starting here. My text varies a bit from the original version that you find for free all over the net. It’s the result of some scholarly work and in this section the differences really show – Melville made some little mistakes/changes in copying out these quotes, and the editors have reverted some of them to their correct, original form.

All the links from authors’ names are just to Wikipedia, but why not? So it’s occasionally completely sophomoric and/or inaccurate – it’s still the most useful reference source online. Plus, the articles generally contain a bunch of other relevant links, so it’s quite often the best starting place.

Okay then.

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Vatican
1. b. Used with reference to the artistic or literary treasures preserved here; the Vatican galleries or library.
That’s not exactly it, though – in this case he apparently just means “Vatican-type places.”

promiscuously, adv.
1. In a promiscuous manner; without distinction, discrimination, or order; indiscriminately; at random, in confusion.

Hampton Court
I could have guessed, but I wasn’t sure.

hie, v.
2. To hasten, speed, go quickly.

royal-mast
royal, 12. Naut. a. royal sail, a small sail hoisted above the topgallant sail.
b. royal mast: (see quot. 1867).
1867 SMYTH Sailor’s Word-bk. 471 Royal-mast, a yet smaller mast, elevated through irons at the head of the topgallant-mast; but more generally the two are formed of one spar.
Essentially, the highest point on the ship.

seven-storied heavens
The idea of seven heavens seems to be common to Christianity, Islam, Jewish mysticism, and several Eastern religions as well. Purgatory is seven-tiered in Dante. Basically, a generic semi-mystical concept, though in the context I’m pretty sure he’s talking about the Christian heaven. For what it’s worth, I only count six vertical sails on the tallest diagram I can find.

Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael
The three (and only, in common tradition) archangels. I wasn’t familiar with Raphael.

splintered hearts
Apparently pure Melville and not an allusion. Though I found one guy who claims that this whole passage is a “burlesque” on 1 Corinthians 13:12 – “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” I guess he sees it as a play on “glass.” I’m not so sure I buy that, and what difference would it make anyway? It’s obvious enough that the passage is a burlesque in general and the quasi-religious aspect is already loud and clear.

And here we go with the extracts themselves.

1. Genesis.
Genesis 1:21 (King James Version, as are the rest of the Bible references)

2. Job.
Job 41:32 (just one small part of a whole litany about Leviathan, at the climax of God’s rant about His supremacy, all of which would seem to be the biblical precedent for Moby-Dick).

hoary, a.
1. b. Having white or grey hair, grey-haired.
Yeah, so I looked it up.

3. Jonah.
Jonah 1:17

4. Psalms.
Psalm 104:26
The context is pretty much “how great and manifold are thy works, including, for example, the sea and the stuff in it – we all wait on Thee for our sustenance.”

5. Isaiah.
Isaiah 27:1
Part of a confusing Messianic prophecy. Okay, I’m glad I just read the wikipedia article on Leviathan. That’s all probably pretty important basic grounding stuff, and it helps make some sense of passages like this.

sore, a.
1. Causing or involving bodily pain; painful, grievous; distressing or severe in this respect: b. Of a blow, bite, weapon, etc., now mainly arch. or dial.

6. Holland’s Plutarch’s Morals.
Plutarch‘s Moralia (basically his collected non-Lives essays), as translated by Philemon Holland (1552-1637). To my surprise, not only is the longstanding Holland translation nowhere to be found on the web, but NO translation of the complete Moralia is currently available in searchable form. I was reduced to downloading these hefty pdfs and poking around. I found the quote in volume V, in section 31 of the essay Which are Most Crafty, Water-Animals or Those Creatures That Breed Upon the Land? The excerpt is actually part of a strange and charming passage discussing the generous and sociable relationship between the whale and his friend, the “leader” fish, who shows him the way and helps him stay clear of the shallows. The sentence given is actually incomplete; it continues on to say, “but acknowledging his conductor, he receives him and lodges him, like an anchor, safely in his jaws.”
By the way, he’s going in chronological order, more or less. Plutarch = AD 46–122.

incontinently, adv.
Straightway, at once, immediately, arch.

7. Holland’s Pliny.
Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79): Naturalis Historiae, as translated, again, by Philemon Holland. This time, Holland’s version is online. The quote is from Book 9, Chapter III: Of the monstrous fishes in the Indian sea.

whirlpool, n.
? The large blowing whale, obs.

arpent
Also arpen, -ine (erron. arpentier).
An obsolete French measure of land, containing a hundred square perches, and varying with the different values of the perch from about an acre and a quarter to about five-sixths of an acre.

8. Tooke’s Lucian. The True History
The True History, a zany “Swiftian” parody of Homer, by Lucian of Samosata (120–180), satirist. In a translation by William Tooke, published 1820. From Book I. Melville has changed a couple words and done his best to cut out the really crazy stuff. The whale is described as being about 300 miles long. It swallows them and there’s a whole inhabited world inside it.

9. Other or Octher’s verbal narrative…
This is actually also from Hakluyt’s Principall Navigations…, as was the opening quote in the Etymology section in our last installment. – choose your link: Text copy (1884 ed.) / Original edition. Though this article (which goes into some depth investigating the transmission of many of the excerpts) notes that Melville apparently came by this quotation at least thirdhand, which would explain why he didn’t note the source the same way. If I understand correctly, Octher is from Finland and is talking about his explorations in northernmost Scandinavia.

horse-whale
The walrus.

10. Montaigne. Apology for Raimond Sebond.
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), from An Apology for Raymond Sebond. This passage is basically a sentence-for-sentence plagiarism of the Plutarch passage above, with a little “Plutarch writes about this” sentence appended. In fact, it seems to be part of a longer sequence all lifted more or less directly from the Plutarch essay.

sea-gudgeon
The Black Goby or Rock-fish. Obs.

11. Rabelais.
Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais (1493–1553), Book IV (1552), Chapter 33. Doré’s illustration of the monster in question, a little later when it’s dead.

12. Stowe’s Annals.
Annales, or a General Chronicle of England (1580 and many later editions) by John Stow (1525–1605). Noted for having been among Shakespeare’s sources in writing his Histories. Not online.

13. Lord Bacon’s Version of the Psalms.
From Psalm 104 (see above for the corresponding biblical line) as rendered in verse by Francis Bacon (1561–1626). “Leviathan” and “pan” are the rhyming ends of consecutive lines. The odd article-less use of “pan” might well just be a concession to the meter – see below. The complete poem can be read in this book.

pan, n.
OED doesn’t have any helpful surprises for me. It just means “pan.” I guess I’m just going to read this as equivalent to “like a boiling pan.” Unless anyone has better suggestions.

14. Ibid. History of Life and Death.
Bacon’s Historia Vitae et Mortis (1623). The two sentences are actually from separate places and presented in reverse order here: they are, respectively, taken from items 48 and 41 under “Length and Shortness of Life in Animals.” In context, Bacon is saying that he isn’t certain how long whales live. The version of the text given by Melville is from this 1834 edition by Basil Montagu, who seems to have rewritten rather freely. This direct reproduction of an early edition (1638) has yet a different text. Neither of the other two versions uses the word “ork,” by the way.

orc, n.
1. Originally: any of various ferocious sea creatures. In later use: a large cetacean, esp. the killer whale, Orcinus orca. Now rare.

or, if you prefer:

orken, n. pseudo-arch. Obs. rare.
A sea-monster.

15. King Henry.
History of Henry IV, Part I (1596?): Act I, scene 3. Hotspur is complaining about the irritating courier whose opinion this is. I think. Shakespeare’s dates, by the way, are (1564–1616). No Wikipedia this time.

sovereign, a.
3. Of remedies, etc.: Efficacious or potent in a superlative degree. Freq. in fig. use.

parmacety, n. Obs.
1. = SPERMACETI n. Also fig. arch. and Eng. regional in later use.

…and, well, we might as well get this out of the way now…

spermaceti
1. A fatty substance, which in a purified state has the form of a soft white scaly mass, found in the head (and to some extent in other parts) of the sperm-whale (Physeter macrocephalus) and some other whales and dolphins; it is used largely in various medicinal preparations, and in the manufacture of candles.

inward, a.
1. c. Of medicine: = INTERNAL a. Obs.
I think that makes sense of it. It’s the accumulation of tiny uncertainties like this that makes reading Shakespeare difficult.

16. Hamlet.
The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1602?): Act III, scene 2. Polonius, humoring Hamlet’s “madness,” is suckered into agreeing with his third consecutive assessment of the same cloud.

17. The Faerie Queen.
The Faerie Queene (1596) by Edmund Spenser (1552–1599), from Book VI, Canto X. This is not an easy read, but I believe the sense of the immediate context is just your typical Cupid’s arrow/sting of love talk. The excerpt begins oddly in the middle of a sentence; he’s talking about Sir Calidore’s “smart” from the “poysnous point deepe fixed in his hart.” Which, and here the excerpt begins, can’t be cured by a doctor; the only thing for him is to return to Pastorella, the woman who “wounded” him in the first place. Frankly, I’m not sure I understand the whale analogy: a wounded whale flees from the sea to the shore. First of all: it does? Second of all: how is that like returning to the source of one’s love-wound in order to ease the pain? Wouldn’t the source of the whale’s wound be at sea? I genuinely don’t get it and would love if someone would explain this to me.

recure, v. Obs.
2. To cure (a disease, sickness, etc.); to heal, make whole (a wound or sore).

mote, v. Now arch.
A modal auxiliary, normally complemented by the bare infinitive. 4. Expressing permission or possibility: was (or were) permitted to, might, could.

dint, v.
1. trans. To strike, beat, knock. Obs.

breed, v.
1. c. fig. Obs.
(Just making sure! I feel like I need to really be on my toes when it comes to archaic English)

main, n.
5. a. Short for MAIN SEA n.; the open sea. Now chiefly poet.
I mean, I knew that, but I didn’t know it.

18. Sir WIlliam Davenant. Preface to Gondibert
Sir WIlliam Davenant (1606-1668), A Discourse upon Gondibert, an heroick poem (1651), which included a “Preface to his most honour’d friend Mr. Hobs” (the friend being Thomas Hobbes, whose excellently-titled essay “The Answer of Mr. Hobbes to Sr Will. D’Avenant’s Preface before Gondibert” was also included). The quote is from paragraph 61. He’s discoursing on the troubled interrelationships among the various participants in government and is saying, I think, that military men generally see politicians as greedy little wimps, except for sometimes when they get envious and impressed, and then think them “immense as whales…” etc.

19. Sir T. Browne. Of Sperma Ceti and the Sperma Ceti Whale. Vide his V.E.
From Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646-72), by Sir Thomas Browne (1685–1682), also known by the delightful name of Vulgar Errors. The work is a sort of scientific encylopedia based on the refutation of common misconceptions. The quote is the first sentence of the cited section on whales: Book III, chapter XXVI. The first vulgar error he dispenses with: no, it’s not whale sperm.

the learned Hofmannus in his work of thirty years
Caspar Hofmann (1572-1648), De medicamentis officinalibus (1646).

nescio quid sit
= “I don’t know what it is.”

20. Waller’s Battle of the Summer Islands.
Two excerpts from Canto III of The Battle of the Summer Islands (1645) by Edmund Waller (1606–1687). Included in this edition of Waller’s works. The Summer Islands (Somers’ Islands) are Bermuda. The poem is a mock-heroic account of men trying and failing to kill two whales that have been stranded in shallow water.

Spencer’s Talus with his iron flail
In Spencer’s The Faerie Queene, Sir Arthegall has an iron man, Talus, whom he sends to dish out justice with his iron flail. Crazy. Incidentally, the original edition of Moby-Dick has “modern” instead of “iron,” which must be an error because it makes absolutely no sense. Weird, though.

flail, n.
1. An instrument for threshing corn by hand, consisting of a wooden staff or handle, at the end of which a stouter and shorter pole or club, called a swingle or swipple, is so hung as to swing freely.
2. A military weapon resembling a threshing-flail in construction, but usually of iron or strengthened with iron, and often having the striking part armed with spikes. Cf. MORNING-STAR.
See, obvious though that may seem, that was a worthwhile look-up for me, because I sort of pictured something with a cat o’ nine tails shape when I heard the word “flail.” Whereas had you shown me the picture of the flail, I would probably have called it a “mace.” This sort of confusion comes from my never having played fantasy role-playing games.

21. Opening Sentence of Hobbes’s Leviathan.
That pretty much says it all. Except that it’s actually the fifth sentence. Published 1651. The fame of the metaphor notwithstanding, this really has nothing to do with whales. Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679).

22. Holy War.
In the original American edition, Melville attributed this to “Pilgrim’s Progress.” But that’s wrong, it’s from a different work by John Bunyan (1628–1688): The Holy War (1682). I wonder, though, if Melville had gotten it right the first time, whether he would have thought Holy War was really famous enough to stand alone without a clarifying Bunyan’s in front of it. Anyway, Mansoul is a town (or is it? oh-ho!) and it is here cheerfully agreeing to the demand of the tyrannical giant Diabolus that all the inhabitants recognize him as their king and pledge eternal and irreversible loyalty to him. Silly Mansoul!

sprat, n.
1. A small sea-fish, Clupea Sprattus, common on the Atlantic coasts of Europe.
” ‘Sprat’, you didn’t know? ‘Sprat?’ ” Shut up. I knew. Sure I knew. By the way, OED, it’s called Sprattus sprattus nowadays, and you’re not supposed to capitalize the species name.

23. Paradise Lost.
John Milton (1608–1674). Published 1667. Lines 201–202 of Book I. Context: Satan is as big as… (a whale!).

24. Ibid.
Lines 412–416 of Book VII. Here’s what those textual notes I found cached in Google have to say about this one:

In quoting from Paradise Lost (VII. 412–16), HM revised Milton: he gives “in the deep” instead of Milton’s original “on the deep” (although this may be a typo) and “his breath spouts out a sea” instead of Milton’s “his trunk spouts out a sea.” Both changes, neither one corrected by British editors, may reflect HM’s scorn (addressed in Ch. 55) for erroneous renderings of whales, which do not have “trunks” nor sleep “on” the deep.

These changes are, however, corrected (or scare-quotes “corrected,” depending on your opinion) by the editors of my edition.

25. Fuller’s Profane and Holy State.
Thomas Fuller (1608–1661), The Holy State and the Profane State (1642). Not yet available online so I can’t find out the actual object of the metaphor. Something moral no doubt. The work seems to have been often referred to as The Holy and Profane States, but this form, with the reversed billing, is exclusive to Melville, intentional or not.

26. Dryden’s Annus Mirabilis.
John Dryden (1631–1700), Annus Mirabilis (1667), a major poem about the historically significant events of the previous year: namely, the battles of the Second Anglo-Dutch War and the Great Fire of London. The Dutch eventually won the war but that hadn’t happened yet, so the poem just celebrates the English victory in the St. James’s Day Battle. The Leviathan image is a metaphor (apparently meant to inspire pride!) for the English warships that are waylaying Dutch merchant ships.

fry, n.
3. Young fishes just produced from the spawn; spec. the young of salmon in the second year, more fully salmon fry.
4. Hence, as a collective term for young or insignificant beings: now chiefly in phrase lesser, small or young fry. a. The smaller kinds of fish or other animals.

27. Thomas Edge’s Ten Voyages to Spitzbergen, in Purchass.
Okay, this was tough, but I think I’ve got it sorted out. This and the next three extracts are all from travel journals of the type collected in Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations (mentioned above and previously). These present quotes, however, come not from Hakluyt himself but from later collections, by authors who were intentionally following in Hakluyt’s footsteps. Hakluyt’s first major successor was Samuel Purchas (1575?–1626), who acknowledged his intentions in this regard right in the title of Hakluytus posthumus, or, Purchas his Pilgrimes (1625). So it would seem that Melville is saying he got this from Purchas’s collection. But I can’t find it there. I might just be overlooking it, but I don’ t think I am, because: In 1704, John Harris (1666–1719) published another such collection, called Navigantium atque Itinerantium Bibliotheca, or, A Compleat Collection of Voyages and Travels, which incorporated the bulk of Purchas his Pilgrimes. It is clear from the quotes that follow that Melville used Harris as a source. And this Thomas Edge thing appears there, in Book IV. Chap. XXIII: The Ten several Voyages of Captain Thomas Edge and others to Greenland (called by the Dutch Spitsbergen) at the Charge of the worshipful Muscovia Company, which is not one of the accounts attributed to Purchas’s collection. But my guess is, Melville got it from Harris, got confused in his notes and thought Harris had attributed it to Purchas, and so tried to attribute it back to its original source. Where it doesn’t actually appear.

Ahem.

28. Sir T. Herbert’s Voyages into Asia and Africa. Harris Coll.
In the Harris collection cited above, this appears in Book III, the section called Sir Thomas Herbert Baronet, his Travels, Begun in 1626, into divers parts of Africa and Asia Major, in which the two famous Monarchies of the Mogul and Persian are principally describ’d, with what is remarkable in those places from other Authors in Purchass, &c., and specifically in Chapter XX: Sir Thomas Herbert’s Travels from England to Goa in the East-Indies.

fuzz, v.
2. trans. To cover with fine or minute particles.
That’s the closest thing in the OED, but of course that’s not what’s meant here. Now that I know there’s no secret archaic meaning in the dictionary, I find this usage delightful. Obviously what he means is that the whales were, you know, fuzzing up the water, like whales do.

29. Schouten’s Sixth Circumnavigation
In the same Harris collection as the previous two quotes. The quote comes from Book I. Chap. VIII. The Sixth Circum-Navigation, by William Cornelison Schouten of Horne. This one actually is one of the narratives that comes from Purchas. If you check it out, you’ll see that the original version was a first-person account, which has been lightly reworded by Harris on its way into the third person.

30. A Voyage to Greenland, A.D. 1671. Harris Coll.
As it says. The five quotations are from several different sections of a long account in Book IV, and are not in their original order. The first quote is from Chap. XXXIX. The first Part of the Voyage to Spitzbergen and Greenland, containing an Account of the Voyage thither, and of the Weather, from April the 15th, to August the 21st, 1671. The rest of the quotes are from a whole section on whales in Chap. XLII. The Voyage to Spitzbergen, Part IV. Of the Animals of Spitzbergen.. Here’s the second quote, which is actually about the Finfish, an animal that the author contrasts with whales but which is now called a Fin Whale. The accompanying illustration. The third quote. The fourth quote (Melville has “Shetland”; my edition restores “Hitland.”) The noteworthy fifth quote. Whew.

from the Elbe
So sue me, I wasn’t sure where the mouth of the Elbe was. Right here, on the western side of the base of what I was about to call the Danish pensinsula, but which I have just learned I should call Jutland. Should I be embarrassed about my geographical ignorance? I was for a minute there, but I just now got over it.

Hitland
Old name (a variant on the original Norse name, Hjaltland) for Shetland. You know, the Shetland Islands. I guess Melville was doing us all an intentional favor changing this to “Shetland,” and the editors undid it. Thanks a lot, editors.

31. Sibbald’s Fife and Kinross.
Robert Sibbald (1641–1722), A History Ancient and Modern of the Sheriffdoms of Fife and Kinross (1710). Fife and Kinross-shire were adjacent counties (or at one time, I guess, “sheriffdoms”) in Scotland. Sibbald’s history isn’t anywhere online, but the whale incident and part of the same excerpt are included in these annals of Dunfermline, Dunfermline being a district of Fife and the ancient capital of Scotland.

Best to sort this stuff out now:
whalebone, n.
2. The elastic horny substance which grows in a series of thin parallel plates in the upper jaw of certain whales in place of teeth; baleen: used esp. for stiffening parts of the dress, etc.
5. a. attrib. and Comb. … whalebone-whale, a whale of the family Balænidæ, having plates of whalebone developed from the palate instead of teeth; a right whale.

baleen
3. Whalebone.

Pitfirten
“Pitfirten” is an outright typo in University of California edition. In the Northwestern-Newbery edition that it follows, this is “Pitfirren,” which is in turn an editorial emendation of Melville’s own typo, “Pitferren.” BUT, “Pitfirren” is an archaic version of what is today uniformly spelled “Pitfirrane,” which is an estate in present-day Crossford, just outside Dunfermline. Basically, the Dunfermline Golf Club on this map.

Added 11/17/06! Ladies and Gentlemen, I happened to come across the following information by sheer chance while in Scotland this August on non-Moby-Dick-related business. A whalebone arch, as described, stands on top of North Berwick Law in North Berwick, some miles away from Dunfermline, and has stood there since 1709. Okay, well, the jawbone isn’t actually there right now – the most recent one rotted and collapsed in 2005. But they’ll be replacing it, just like they replaced the original in 1933. Now, the date of 1709 (one year before Sibbald published his History) doesn’t jibe with Sibbald’s given date of 1652 for the whale, but perhaps the jaw was transferred to Berwick after 50 years elsewhere. Though that still doesn’t account for the fact that Sibbald, by 1710, would have known about this. One assumes he would have seen fit to mention that the garden was on top of a major feature like North Berwick Law if that was the bone he meant. So, regardless of what “Pitfirrane” signifies, it probably isn’t the same arch. There may well have been several whale-bone arches in the area – why not?

weight, n.
21. c. Used in various localities as a name for the customary unit for weighing particular commodities (e.g. wool, hemp, cheese, potatoes); the quantity denoted differs greatly in different places … Obs.
That’s something that I’ve always kind of rolled with, but it’s nice to see it in writing.

32. Richard Stafford’s Letter from the Bermudas. Phil. Trans. A.D. 1668.
An Extract of a Letter, written to the Publisher from the Bermudas by Mr. Richard Stafford; concerning the Tides there, as also Whales, Sperma Ceti, strange Spiders-Webbs, some rare Vegetables, and the Longevity of the Inhabitants, published in Philosophical Transactions (later of the Royal Society of London) Vol. III (1668). This paper contains an excerpt from some Society records that mention that Stafford was “sheriff” of the Bermudas, and this genealogical page gives his dates as (?1600–?1676). Those textual notes I found point out that Melville probably got the quote secondhand from this source, which will come up again later in Moby-Dick. Notice that in the original, Stafford was only one of about twenty men who intended to try to kill a sperm whale. In Melville’s version, he’s going it alone. I could believe that this has been changed because of the specific content of the novel, but it’s also possibly just a way of streamlining it. Though it does render the unmodified subject “myself” rather awkward.

33. N.E. Primer.
A couplet from the alphabet poem in The New England Primer. First edition circa 1686, attributed to Benjamin Harris. By Melville’s time, the W couplet had generally been replaced with one about Washington.

34. Captain Cowley’s Voyage round the Globe. A.D. 1729.
Account of William Ambrosia Cowley, buccaneer (fl. 1683-1699), as included in A Collection of Original Voyages by William Hacke, 1699, under the title “Cowley’s Voyage Round the Globe.” This page, for what it’s worth, shows how the published text compares to various surviving earlier manuscript copies of Cowley’s account. The voyage, incidentally, was in 1683; Melville’s date is and has always been flat-out wrong, and no editor yet seems to have been clever enough to point it out. Go me.

35. Ulloa’s South America.
From Relación historica del viaje a la America Meridional y observaciones sobre Astronomia y Fisica (1748) – or in English, A Voyage to South America – by Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa (1716-1795): explorer, scientist, governor of Louisiana. The original version of the translation has the whale’s breath giving off an unsupportable “fœtor” rather than “smell,” which is even more entertaining. Furthermore, though Google Print once again doesn’t want to let me browse this 250-year-old book, I’ve still managed to read enough lines to make out the context, and it’s pretty amusing – he’s reporting that some sort of serpent is claimed to have a kind of breath that hypnotizes its victims. The whale example is part of his explanation of why he’s willing to believe it – if whale breath can drive you mad, it’s surely conceivable that snake breath could hypnotize you.

insupportable
1. That cannot be supported, endured, or borne; insufferable; unbearable.

38. Rape of the Lock.
Alexander Pope (1688-1744), The Rape of the Lock (1712-14). From Canto II. The poem is – for those of us who might have known this once but forgot – a mock-heroic account of a silly social incident in which a lock of hair is cut against the owner’s wishes. “Sylphs,” elemental spirits of some sort (see below), are here described as guarding over her various fan, her earring, her watch… and her petticoat.

sylph
1. a. One of a race of beings or spirits supposed to inhabit the air (orig. in the system of Paracelsus).
The poem, however, pretty much invents its own particular mythology for the word, only approximately derived from the pre-existing meaning.

seven-fold fence
He would seem to be describing the tiers of petticoats, or of a multi-layered petticoat. Seven may well have been a joking exaggeration at that time, though by the 19th century it certainly wasn’t.

ribs of whale
By this he’s referring to strips of whalebone, which are, just to review, not actually whale bones; they’re baleen. Frequently used to stiffen garments etc.

39. Goldsmith, Nat. His.
That’s Oliver Goldsmith (1730?-1774), the guy who wrote The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) and She Stoops to Conquer (1773). He apparently also wrote an eight-volume thing called An History of the Earth, and Animated Nature (1774), a compilation of other people’s work with a poetical spin put on it all. Prized today for its illustrated plates. An abridged version for school use was published in 1845 as Goldsmith’s Natural History. Can’t find an online copy.

contemptible
I looked this up because it had a note of hostility in it that seems incongruous today, but there is no alternate definition. The definition depends on the meaning of “despise,” so I looked that up too, and it also only has the one meaning. But I notice that both it and “contemn” (the infrequently heard verb form of “contempt”), to the degree that they don’t refer to one another, are defined as “to treat as of small value,” or “to look down upon,” which, strictly speaking, are just what is meant here. So I guess that either the words “despise” and “contemn” have only taken on a sneering connotation since 1774, or else in 1774 it was perfectly normal to apply a sneering tone to something as impersonal as the relative sizes of animals. On consideration, I’m pretty certain it’s the latter.

40. Goldsmith to Johnson
Same Goldsmith. This is from Boswell’s Life of Johnson, but not quite. Melville has paraphrased, apparently in order to get it all into one sentence, and in so doing has made it less clear and less witty. The context and actual quote: Goldsmith tells Johnson that the trick to writing a fable about little fishes is making them talk like little fishes, and then in response to Johnson’s laughter, says “Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so easy as you seem to think; for if you were to make little fishes talk, they would talk like WHALES.”

41. Cook’s Voyages
From The Voyages of Captain James Cook Round the World, variously published starting around 1790. This edition, the only one I could find with anything like the Melville quote – he again seems to have reworded – is from 1842.

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This way to Part 2.

Hello. This is just Part 2 of a list that was too long to post in one piece. Go to Part 1 to get your bearings.

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42. Uno Von Troil’s Letters on Banks’s and Solander’s Voyage to Iceland in 1772.
Uno Von Troil (1746-1803), archbishop of Uppsala. Letters on Iceland (1777, trans. into English 1780). Joseph Banks, British naturalist and Daniel Solander, Swedish naturalist.

brimstone
1. Formerly the common vernacular name for SULPHUR.

Okay, this one I don’t really understand, and without a copy of the source (nowhere to be found online), I can’t seem to make any progress. He says “other articles of the same nature” – what nature? The common element to “dung, brim-stone,” and “juniper-wood” would seem to be that they all smell. Dung and brimstone smell bad; juniper wood smells good, right? They frighten whales away with strong odors? Nothing in Google is willing to endorse this theory, which doesn’t sound very likely to begin with. I feel stupid. Help with this.

43. Thomas Jefferson’s Whale Memorial to the French minister in 1788.
Here it is in an 1829 edition of Jefferson’s collected writings. I have no idea why Melville calls it “Whale Memorial to the French minister.” It’s actually part of a description of the whaling industry that Jefferson had printed up and distributed to French politicians in an effort to convince them not to ban American whale oil from the French market. While it’s possible that calling it a “Memorial” is some sort of joke on Melville’s part, it seems more like he was just making a ridiculous mistake.

Nantuckois
This word for the residents of Nantucket seems to be peculiar to the writings of Thomas Jefferson. He does not, of course, mean the Wampanoag tribe – he just means the present-day whalers.

address, n.
4. General preparedness or readiness for an event: skill, dexterity, adroitness.

44. Edmund Burke’s Reference in Parliament to the Nantucket Whale-Fishery.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797), in what’s generally published as Speech on Conciliation With the American Colonies (text / 1900 edition). The quote refers to “the spirit by which [American fishing] has been exercised,” but he then goes on to talk almost exclusively about whaling, so the reference is fair.

45. Edmund Burke. [somewhere.]
Well, I found it somewhere. For those of you who don’t want to click on the link – it’s a throwaway quote to start off a book review in the May 1831 issue of The Gentleman’s Magazine, London. That’s a [somewhere] if ever there was one. Of course, it’s surely not Melville’s source. But this still makes me marvel at the sort of revelations that Google Print et al. might start turning up for scholars. It’s odd to think that only six months ago, it wouldn’t have been possible for me or anyone else to find this, whereas the implicit challenge to find it has been in print since 1851. In a few more years it may even become possible to read Finnegans Wake.

46. Blackstone.
William Blackstone (1723-1780), English jurist, from his Commentaries on the Laws of England, the first accessible major treatise on common law; influential in the formation of American law. This is from Book I, Chapter 8, wherein the king seems to be entitled to a lot of stuff. Here’s the text, but unfortunately as scanned in automatically from a first edition, apparently – so you’ll have to search for the royal fifb, whale and fturgeon.

47. Falconer’s Shipwreck.
William Falconer (1732-1769), Scottish poet, known primarily for his poem The Shipwreck (1762), and who actually went on to die in a shipwreck. The poem is discussed in context in this long essay. Melville’s extract is not quite consecutive – it’s lines 71, 75 and 76 of Canto II. Rodmond is one of the various doomed characters. He is here seen in the act of killing dolphins, not whales. At this point the ship hasn’t wrecked yet. But it will. Here’s an artist’s conception of what that will look like.

48. Cowper, on the Queen’s visit to London.
William Cowper (1731-1800), English poet, in a little-known poem, On the Queen’s Visit to London, The Night of 17th March, 1789. He’s describing fireworks that are part of the celebration of King George III’s return to health after his first long episode of illness (as mentioned here). Queen Charlotte visits London in secret and is deeply moved to see how much the people love George. I’m no judge of poetry but this seems to me to be really quite remarkably bad. I’m not going to judge Cowper based on it – I’m just saying. Even this excerpt is awful, no?

unwieldy, a.
4. Indisposed to submit to guidance or command; restive, recalcitrant, indocile.

49. John Hunter’s account of the dissection of a whale. [A small sized one.]
John Hunter (1728-1793), Scottish surgeon, in Observations on the Structure and Oeconomy of Whales in the 1787 edition of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. However, Melville didn’t get it from there, he got it from Natural Theology by Paley, where it appears adjacent to the next extract. Hunter didn’t actually observe the heart pumping; he’s just reasoning based on its size – the heart is that of a Sperm whale, and “[a small sized one]” is Melville’s own two cents.

50. Paley’s Theology.
Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity (1802), the best-known work of William Paley (1743-1805), Christian apologist. This is the work from whence comes the “if I found a pocket watch in a field I would know it had a maker” argument by design. The whale quote comes from Chapter X: Of the Vessels of Animal Bodies, where it precedes and sets up the Hunter quote above.

bore, n.
2 a. The cylindrical perforation or cavity of a tube, gun, etc. b. Hence, the interior measurement or diameter of a tube; the calibre of a gun; also fig. and transf.

the water-works at London bridge
Destroyed in the 1820s with the building of the new London Bridge. Here’s what they looked like. I think this is saying that 250 gallons per minute was pumped through a 7-inch bore.

51. Baron Cuvier.
Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), French zoologist (who introduced the idea of phyla), in his major work of taxonomy, The Animal Kingdom (1727/1731). He actually writes, “The Cetacea are mammiferous animals…” But I have it from those notes I found that Melville probably got this from a frequent source, the Penny Cyclopaedia (1833-1843), where the quote could have been altered. I doubt that Melville himself would have felt the need to drop the word “Cetacea.”

mammiferous, a.
1. (Chiefly in scientific use.) = MAMMALIAN a. Obs.
Obviously.

52. Colnett’s Voyage for the Purpose of Extending the Spermacetti Whale Fishery.
James Colnett (1753?-1806), A Voyage to the South Atlantic and round Cape Horn into the Pacific Ocean for the purpose of extending the Spermaceti Whale Fisheries and Other Objects of Commerce (1798). Not available online – there’s an excerpt here but it’s the wrong part. Melville mentions this work again in Chatper 55.

53. Montgomery’s Pelican Island.
James Montgomery (1771-1854), British poet, from The Pelican Island (1828). I can’t find it anywhere online. Misattributed in the original edition to a different Montgomery poem, The World Before the Flood (1813), because it is so misattributed in this work, The Whale and His Captors by Henry T. Cheever, from whence Melville must have gotten it. Cheever will be quoted in his own right below. Incidentally, the Bunyan Holy War extract (#22 above) seems likely to have been borrowed from Cheever’s book as well.

shoal, n.
I know this to mean:
A place where the water is of little depth; a shallow; a sand-bank or bar.
but it also means:
1. A large number of fish, porpoises, seals, whales, etc. swimming together; = SCHOOL n.

trackless, a.
Without a track or path; pathless; not marked by a track; untrodden.
Just checking.

front, n.
1. a. = FOREHEAD 1. Now only poet. or in highly rhetorical language.

54. Charles Lamb’s Triumph of the Whale.
Charles Lamb (1775-1834), English writer, opening lines of a satirical poem, The Triumph of the Whale (1812). The whole thing mocks George IV, the current Prince of Wales. Get it? If you don’t get it, here’s how the poem ends: “This (or else my eyesight fails), / This should be the PRINCE OF WHALES.” Get it?

Io
A Greek and Latin exclamation of joy or triumph; sometimes in Eng. as n., an utterance of ‘Io!’, an exultant shout or song. Also Io pæan: see PÆAN.

paean, n.
1. Ancient Greek Hist. A solemn song or chant; spec. a hymn of thanksgiving for deliverance, victory in battle, etc., addressed to Apollo (or occas. another god or goddess); (hence also) a war song invoking such victory.
io paean: an utterance of ‘O Paean!’, ‘Thanks to Paean!’ (an exclamation of joy or triumph addressed to Apollo).

finny, a.
3. a. Of or pertaining to fish.

55. Obed Macy’s History of Nantucket.
Obed Macy (1762-1844), The History of Nantucket: Being a Compendious Account of the First Settlement of the Island by the English, Together with the Rise & Progress of the Whale Fishery (1835). Not online. The notes say that Melville might have gotten this from J. Ross Browne’s Etchings of a Whaling Cruise (1846), to be referenced elsewhere in Moby-Dick, which however is also not online.

56. Hawthorne’s Twice Told Tales
Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), in The Village Uncle (1835), collected in the second edition of the Twice-Told Tales (1841).

57. Ibid.
Also from the second edition of Twice-Told Tales, in the story Chippings With a Chisel (1838). The narrator is in the company of a tombstone-carver. The original has “An elderly lady” instead of “she” (and “before” instead of “ago”); Melville has, oddly, changed the quote to be less self-contained.

58. Cooper’s Pilot.
James Fenimore Cooper (1759-1851), The Pilot: A Tale of the Sea (1823). In Chapter XVII. (Google Print / UVA).

oil, n.
oil-butt now rare, a butt or barrel containing oil; (fig.) a whale containing much oil.

59. Eckermann’s Conversations with Goethe.
Johann Peter Eckermann (1792-1854), essentially Goethe’s Boswell. His book is called Conversations With Goethe (1836-1848), and this is from the entry for Sunday, January 31, 1830. Goethe, unfortunately, doesn’t comment on the introduction of whales (“and sea monsters”) on stage.

60. Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Whale Ship Essex…
Owen Chase (1798-1869), First Mate on the Essex, in his 1821 account of the 1820 incident, Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex. A major inspiration for Moby-Dick. I find to my surprise that the incident was the subject of a recent non-fiction bestseller in the Longitude vein, In the Heart of the Sea (2000). The original narrative isn’t online but it’s searchable in two different editions on Amazon. The context of the quote is: The ship has already been completely wrecked and half-sunk, and the crew has all abandoned it. All of this has happened unbenknownst to the captain, who was off in another one of the small boats. He comes back and says, horrified, “Oh my God! where is the ship?” Then this exchange occurs.

61. Elizabeth Oakes Smith. The Drowned Mariner.
Elizabeth Oakes Smith (1806-1893), writer, abolitionist, feminist. Opening lines of The Drowned Mariner (before 1845).

shroud, n.
1. A set of ropes, usually in pairs, leading from the head of a mast and serving to relieve the latter of lateral strain; they form part of the standing rigging of a ship. a. pl.

phosphor, n.
Also -pher, -fer, -phore.
2. Anything that phosphoresces, or emits light without sensible heat: = PHOSPHORUS 2. In mod. use, any substance exhibiting phosphorescence or fluorescence, esp. one that is an artificially prepared solid.
Does she just mean the appearance of reflected moonlight in the water, or is there some actual substance implied?

62. Scoresby.
William Scoresby (1789-1857), English explorer-scientist. From two different places in An Account of the Arctic Regions and Northern Whale Fishery (1820). The edition linked to is a slightly re-edited one, from 1849, which may well have been Melville’s source, since the quotes appear in the given order there (they’re reversed in the original). Google has the original edition, too, but only Volume I. The first quote comes from Volume II. Melville, by the way, has ratcheted “two or three miles” up to “three or four miles.”

English miles
Miles as we know them (5280 feet, 1760 yards) were apparently established by statute under Elizabeth I and are thus “English miles” or “Statute miles.” 10440 yards = 5.93 miles. The point here may well be that he is not measuring in nautical miles, which are longer (1852 m). 10440 yards = 5.15 nautical miles.

63. Thomas Beale’s History of the Sperm Whale, 1839.
Thomas Beale (1807-1849), doctor, The Natural History of the Sperm Whale (1839). The first half is from Part I Chapter XIII: Chase and capture of the Sperm Whale. The second half is from Part I Chapter II: Habits of the Sperm Whale – Feeding.

habitude
1. Manner of being or existing; constitution; inherent or essential character; mental or moral constitution, disposition; usual or characteristic bodily condition, temperament: = HABIT

64. Frederick Debell Bennett’s Whaling Voyage Round the Globe, 1840.
Frederick Debell Bennett (1806-1859), another doctor, in Narrative of a Whaling Voyage Round the Globe, From the Year 1833-1836. (1840). The quote is from Appendix Chapter VI: Dangers of the Sperm Fishery.

cachalot
A genus of whales, belonging to the family Catodontidæ, distinguished by the presence of teeth in the lower jaw. The Common Cachalot, or Sperm Whale, which yields spermaceti, grows to the length of 70 feet, and has a head nearly one-half of the length of the body; it occurs in all seas, but its home is the Pacific Ocean.
So, like he says: Sperm Whale.

65. J. Ross Browne’s Etchings of a Whaling Cruise, 1846.
Etchings of a Whaling Cruise (1846). The excerpt is from Chapter VIII. By the way, these last several excerpts, and some others here, have all been linked from the same guy’s extremely useful site full of period whaling sources. Several of the works listed above as unavailable online are, according to his site, upcoming additions. So stay tuned here for, say, the Obed Macy History of Nantucket. Although he seems not to have updated in two years. Hm. Maybe don’t stay tuned then. Still a great general Moby-Dick reference.

masthead, n.
1. a. Naut. The head or highest part of a mast; esp. the head of the lower mast, as a place for observation, or the highest part of the whole mast, as a place for flying a flag, (formerly) for punishment, etc.

point, n.
9. Each of the equidistant points on the circumference of the mariner’s compass, indicated by one of the thirty-two rays drawn from the centre, which serve to particularize the part of the horizon whence the wind is blowing or in the direction of which an object lies.

lee, n.
2. a. Chiefly Naut. The sheltered side of any object; hence the side (of a ship, the land, an eminence, etc.) that is turned away from the wind.

bowes – b-o-o-o-s!
No idea. Is this just the word “blows” mutating as the speaker gets more and more excited? I think it is; I looked up bows (and “bowes”) but there’s nothing meaningful there. Please let me know if you understand this differently (or better).

66. Narrative of the Globe Mutiny, by Lay and Hussey, survivors. A.D. 1828
The first sentence of A Narrative of the Mutiny, on Board the Ship Globe of Nantucket in the Pacific Ocean, Jan. 1824 (1828), by William Lay (1805?-?) and Cyrus M. Hussey (1805-1829), the only non-mutineer non-massacred crew members. They were stranded in the Marshall Islands for two years as prisoners of the natives after a more-or-less crazed megalomaniacal crewmate led a bloody mutiny and tried to start his own empire there, or something. A wild story. You get two different options if you want to read a Barnes & Noble-ready recent retelling. Poe almost definitely used this text as a source in writing The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym.

transaction
3. That which is or has been transacted; an affair in course of settlement or already settled; a piece of business; in pl. doings, proceedings, dealings. Also fig.

67. Missionary Journal of Tyerman and Bennet.
Daniel Tyerman (1773-1828) and George Bennet (1776-?), missionaries sent by the London Missionary Society to report on whether they were making any progress, in their Journal of Voyages and Travels by the Rev. Daniel Tyerman and George Bennet, Esq. (1831). The book itself isn’t anywhere to be found online, but I found the quote itself on page 39 of yet another Barnes & Nobling. The “he” of the quote is a Captain Stavers, and the Barnes & Noble author seems to feel that he was probably just trying to intimidate our poor missionaries.

lance, n.
1. a. A weapon, consisting of a long wooden shaft and an iron or steel head, held by a horseman in charging at full speed, and sustained formerly by a rest, now by a strap, through which the arm is passed.
2. A similar weapon, used for various purposes, e.g. for spearing fish; also in the whale-fishery, with modifying prefixes, as bomb-, gun-, hand-lance, an instrument for killing the whale, after he has been harpooned and wearied out.

68. Report of Daniel Webster’s Speech…
Daniel Webster (1782-1852), in Remarks in the Senate of the United States, on the Application for the Erection of a Breakwater at Nantucket (May? 1828). The published version of the speech is not from a written draft but is a reconstructed third-person account from the reporter’s notes, hence “report of.” The Senatorial context for this speech baffles me with its dullness – having ultimately (I think) sorted it all out, to no particular end, I’ll just say that Webster is explaining the economic importance of the whaling industry and thus the significance of a perhaps-unimportant-seeming “internal improvements” project like a breakwater at Nantucket; this in the context of a larger debate about the system by which funds are allocated for public works. Important as that topic may be, it’s still about the dullest thing I can possibly think of.

breakwater
1. Anything that breaks the force of the waves at a particular place, esp. a solid structure of rubble and masonry erected to form or protect a harbour, etc.

69. The Whale and His Captors…
Henry T. Cheever (1814-1897), travel writer / missionary, in The Whale and His Captors; or, The Whalemen’s Adventures, and The Whale’s Biography, as Gathered on the Homeward Cruise of the “Commodore Preble” (1849). In Chapter IX: Episodes in the Fortunes of Whalemen
(text / original). A whale has suddenly leaped out of the water and come down on a small boat, smashing it in half, and the crew, having pulled themselves out of the water, realizes why one guy is missing.

70. Life of Samuel Comstock [the mutineer], by his brother, William Comstock. Another version of the Whale-ship Globe narrative.
Exactly as it says – you remember the Globe mutiny from #66 above. The title of this work, in its slightly fuller version, is The Life of Samuel Comstock, The Terrible Whaleman (1840). He’s the crazy guy. Not online.

71. McCulloch’s Commercial Dictionary.
John Ramsay McCulloch (1789-1864), economist, A Dictionary, Practical, Theoretical and Historical of Commerce and Commercial Navigation (1832). Not online. But. Here’s the definition of “Whale Fishery” in an 1833 encyclopedia that paraphrases what is clearly the same source. As does this article from 1846, possibly at one remove. In any case, I feel pretty comfortable assuming that the quote comes from McCulloch’s entry on “Whale Fishery.”

72. From “Something” unpublished.
The amazing internet notwithstanding, this is still untraceable. This article assumes this is Melville’s comment on the preceding extract, which does seem likely. However, having just seen that McCulloch’s “haunts of the whale” sentence found its way into several other texts, I could believe that some other author found the same quote and made the same comment. But then why so coy about the source? I’m just going to assume it’s by Melville. Is “something” the as-yet unpublished manuscript of Moby-Dick and he’s chicken-before-egg “extracting” it from the very spot in which it stands? Or is it actually from some other Melville effort that never otherwise saw the light of day? No way to know. Moving on.

73. Currents and Whaling. U.S. Ex. Ex.
Charles Wilkes (1798-1877), naval officer and explorer (and according to Wikipedia, an influence on the character of Captain Ahab), known for having led the 1838-1842 United States Exploring Expedition of the Pacific. The quote is from the resulting publication, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition (1845), in Volume V Chapter XII: Currents and Whaling.

under short sail
I can’t find anyone who wants to outright define this for me, but a little research shows it to mean just what it sounds like: the sails are shortened (partially tied up) to slow the ship. The no-doubt-upcoming vocab word in this case is

reef, v.
1. a. trans. To reduce the extent of (a sail) by taking in or rolling up a part and securing it.

74. Tales of a Whale Voyager to the Arctic Ocean.
Robert Pierce (Pearse?) Gillies (1788-1858), British?, Tales of a Voyager to the Arctic Ocean (1826). Not online and, by Google’s reckoning, very much forgotten.

75. Newspaper Account of the Taking and Retaking of the Whale-ship Hobomock.
This is a bit of a mess. This same article more or less sorts it out. Basically, the first edition had “Hobomack,” but there was never a ship Hobomack, just a “Hobomok.” The present editorial choice is based, I suppose, on the guess that Melville chose to spell it this way but his “o” was mistaken. However, the whole thing is wrong because no such incident ever took place on the Hobomok, though similar incidents took place on other ships. Melville has gotten his ships confused. The assumption in that article then seems to be that since it’s so contaminated by mistakes, Melville must have concocted the whole quote, but I sense a “badly cited note-taking” theme emerging here and would bet that this was copied out of a newspaper account of something else, which Melville later labeled from memory, incorrectly. The internet is bigger than all of us but it still doesn’t have every page of every obscure 19th-century newspaper fully text-searchable. At least not for me.

76. Cruise in a Whale Boat.
James A. Rhodes, A Cruise in a Whale Boat, by a party of fugitives (1848). Not online and very rare.

77. Miriam Coffin or The Whale Fishermen.
Joseph C. Hart (1798-1855), Miriam Coffin, or The Whale-Fishermen (1834). The first novel about Nantucket whaling. Seems to be about the tragedy of the fact that when whaling men are away at sea, their damnably female wives have to handle their financial affairs and are liable to lose everything. Volume 2 Chapter X. In the original sentence, the whale rises “with inconceivable velocity,” but Melville cut that; I guess he could conceive of it. The whale is about to come down on the ship and sink it.

78. A Chapter on Whaling in Ribs and Trucks.
Ribs and Trucks, from Davy’s Locker; Being Magazine Matter Broke Loose, and Fragments of Sundry Things Inedited (1842), by “W.A.G.” Rare stuff, not online. One of the sources I found attributes the work to Horatio Hastings Weld (1811-1888), editor and writer, so maybe that’s who W.A.G. is.

ribs and trucks
trucks, n.
2. Naut. b. One of the small wooden blocks through which the rope of a parrel is threaded to prevent its being frayed against the mast.

ribs, n.
9. Naut. b. ribs of the parrel, ribs and trucks (see quots.).
1867 SMYTH Sailor’s Word-bk., Ribs and Trucks, used figuratively for fragments. Ibid., Ribs of a Parrel,..the ribs were pieces of wood, each about one foot in length, having two holes in them through which the two parts of the parrel-rope are reeved with a bull’s-eye between.

parrel, n.
Naut. 1. A sliding band of rope or metal attaching a spar or sail to a mast while allowing it vertical movement.

Try this diagram to help put it all together.

79. Darwin’s Voyage of a Naturalist.
Charles Darwin (1809-1882). Voyage of a Naturalist Round the World (or A Naturalist’s Voyage Round the World) is one of several names under which the work now commonly known as Voyage of the Beagle was published, though the original title was actually Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the countries visited during the voyage round the world of H.M.S. Beagle (1839) on the journey that lasted from 1831 to 1836. The excerpt is from Chapter X and takes place in Tierra del Fuego.

80. Wharton the Whale Killer.
Harry Halyard, Wharton the Whale-Killer, or, The Pride of the Pacific: A Tale of the Ocean (1848). I get the impression it was a children’s book. It’s not online, but check out the great titles of Harry’s other works. Also, I have good reason to believe “Harry Halyard” is a pseudonym.

stern, v.
2. trans. To propel a boat stern foremost; also intr. to go stern foremost.
In this sense developed from the whaling term stern all, the order to back off after an harpoon has been entered, where stern originally = ASTERN.

81. Nantucket Song.
This little rhyme appears twice in Browne’s Etchings of a Whaling Cruise (#65 above); once as a toast, in Chapter II, and then as the chorus of a song, “Captain Bunker,” in Chapter VII. The wordings are a tiny bit different, and the present version sort of averages the two. This song will appear in full in Chapter XL of Moby-Dick.There were quite a few Captain Bunkers out of Nantucket.

82. Whale Song.
This forms the epigraph to Cheever’s Whale and His Captors (see #69 above).

---

Whew. I won’t deny I’m glad to be done with that. But I don’t regret it!

Well, partially I do: when I was at the very end of compiling the above, I found another useful piece of Google-cached frontmatter from that unpublished edition of Moby-Dick: a list of Melville’s sources. Most of these I had already worked out for myself, but seeing them it was clear that the bibliography-style list was a genuinely helpful service to the reader – and that, having found all these online texts, I might well have created a similar concise resource in html, rather than piling it all on as above. So I’m just going to whip one off now. Then I get to read Chapter 1. I’ve earned it!

Another note, an important one – I recognize that by posting all this stuff, I’m creating pages that will send a call out to Moby-Dick-interested parties, through Google. I have to imagine that there may be a variety of Moby-Dick readers and perhaps even a couple {gulp} serious Melville scholars passing through these parts as time passes. So, to those of you who are just here for the whale and don’t know or care who I am, a crucial disclaimer: This is a personal site and this is just something I’m doing for fun, as an exercise to accompany my unscholarly, inexpert, run-of-the-mill “someone-gave-me-this-book-so-I’m-reading-it” reading of Moby-Dick. My only research tool is Google and my standards vary greatly with my patience, which varies with my whims, which are most definitely not acceptable sources for a term paper. Though it makes me feel better about all this wasted time to think that it might have some kind of value for others, I am not making any claims about the accuracy or relevance of anything I post here. In fact I am explicitly claiming that these posts are 100% about my reading of Moby-Dick that began in February of 2006, and for all I know, no other. You turn this into a reference at your own risk! Corrections are eagerly invited – but not complaints.

Okay, except for that online bibliography of sources thing I just mentioned – that’ll be a resource that I’ll stand by. It’s just gonna be links, after all. Coming right up.

I read Moby-Dick very badly back in high school. Which is to say I only read probably 1/4 of the text, and my selection included the beginning and the end. Now, because I’ve received a lovely lovely copy for my birthday, I have the urge to do it right. Excessively right – no proceeding until I’m sure I know what everything means. “Means” in the most literal sense. Like I have to understand all the words. Not holding myself to a high enough standard in this respect, I believe, has been a major impediment to my enjoyment of many books. I am not alone in having suffered from the white-lie self-delusion of “okay sure fine I get the idea.”

So I’m writing down everything that I need to look up. I expect this to take about a year, maybe more. Actually, I expect to abandon this effort before I come anywhere near completing it. Usually when I start doomed OCD projects like this, their abortive fruits end up lost in the bowels of my personal computer (abortive -> fruits -> bowels?), but now that I have this lovely forum, you’re all beneficiaries. And you can share in the shame of it all, too.

The following will be incomprehensible without a copy of Moby-Dick. Like this one. Or this one. Read along with me, at my sub-glacial pace! Until I quit!

Here you go, internet.

ETYMOLOGY

usher, n.
4. An assistant to a schoolmaster or head-teacher; an under-master, assistant-master. Now rare.

Hackluyt
Richard Hakluyt (1552-1616), author of several important works on travel and exploration, including The Principall Navigations, Voiages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation (1589/1598-1600). Melville’s quote comes from this section on Iceland (text version / original edition), where it would seem to actually be from the pen of one Arngrímur Jónsson (1568-1648). The language in question is, as you might have guessed, Icelandic.

Richardson’s Dictionary
A New Dictionary of the English Language, by Charles Richardson, published in 1837. Richardson’s dictionary had no definitions, only quotations. In this sense, a precursor to the OED.

Incidentally, neither the current Merriam-Webster nor the current OED specifically mentions derivation from “roundness,” “to roll,” or “to wallow” in its etymology for whale.

PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, Fegee.
PEHEE-NUEE-NUEE, Erromangoan.

Fegee is obviously just Melville’s spelling of Fiji, by which he means the language Fijian. Erromangoan is now Erromangan, a language of Erromango, in Vanuatu, one of the most language-dense nations in the world. Melville’s source for these is presumably personal experience, and no doubt things have changed a lot since he was there, but Melville’s words seem to derive from Polynesian languages, and Erromangan and Fijian seem to be rather different beasts. But frankly it’s a complicated mess down there and I’m not about to work it out.

But I will go a bit further, because I just came across some guy’s textual notes, apparently for a forthcoming edition of Moby-Dick, hiding in the Google cache, and here’s what he says:

Etymology: Melville’s list of non-English language words for “whale” is not entirely correct. The Hebrew word is particularly garbled. Both American and British editions print the letters nh (nun and he), or “hen” (as read from right to left), which has a number of meanings, none of which is “whale” or “leviathan.” HM’s source was no doubt Kitto’s Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature, which gives the letters nt (nun and tav), or “tan,” as “whale,” even though the actual Hebrew word for whale is “tanin” or “tanim.” Chances are HM intended Kitto’s erroneous word “tan” but his printer gave him “hen.” The NN [Northwestern-Newberry, 1988] edition corrects the text to “tan”; however, LCE [Longman Critical Edition, forthcoming!] retains the original to underscore this textual problem. … The Greek in both American and British versions is rendered in a non-standard typeface and seems to begin with the letter chi; however, it is, in fact, a kappa, which is proper. LCE follows this original Greek transcription. It corrects “whœl” to “whæl” for the Anglo-Saxon entry. However, it does not correct “Hvalt” (Danish for “arched”) to “Hval” (“whale”), nor HM’s confusion of Dutch for German, nor the repetition of “Whale” for the Icelandic (instead of “Hvalur”); all of which are revised in the NN edition. The Fegee and Erromangoan words are either sailor talk or HM’s invention; the Polynesian for whale is actually “pahua” or “palaoa.”

First of all: guy who wrote that, if find yourself reading this and you want me to take down your as-yet-unpublished notes that you were foolish enough to leave where Google could find them, just leave a comment and I’ll be glad to do so!

Second of all, I am reading from the beautiful University of California Edition, which identifies itself as a sort of preliminary version of the “NN” edition. However, for the Hebrew, I see chet dalet, which is seriously off the mark, apparently a second generation of typesetting error by someone who doesn’t know from Hebrew. However, contrary to that guy’s notes, my research (and instinct) suggests that “tanim” is the plural and “tan” is indeed the correct singular for, say, Jonah’s whale. No?

My edition also, incidentally, seems to have fallen for the Greek error mentioned. It seems to have χήτος instead of κήτος. Hm. I think. Or maybe it’s just a direct reproduction of the confusing font from the original. You can see what I’m seeing by “searching inside the book” on Amazon. (Search for “nuee.”)

Third of all: In chapter 40 of Omoo, Melville writes:

All over these seas, the word “nuee” is significant of quantity. Its repetition is like placing ciphers at the right hand of a numeral; the more places you carry it out to, the greater the sum.

This is clearly the Polynesian word now written as “Nui” meaning “big” or “great.” And though I can’t find any “pekee” or “pehee,” I do find “pakake” meaning whale. And also (same link) “paikea,” a whale and/or a mythical sea monster. This is also the name of the protagonist in the hit Maori film Whale Rider (2002)! So anyway, I don’t think “sailor talk or HM’s invention” is fair at all – I’m willing to buy that Melville was really trying to get it right but ended up with pehee-nuee-nuee and pekee-nuee-nuee in his attempt to say “really, really big sea monster” in two variants of Polynesian (which Fijian and Erromangan aren’t, quite).

Okay. I have now so totally read page viii of Moby-Dick and nobody could reasonably claim otherwise. Yeah yeah, I thought about it, too. Babel; mortality; civilization; cannibals. Man, language, the eternal. I gotcha. All very Dave Eggers of him to put it on the “Etymology” page, too.

Just vii+576 left to go!