Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely-- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery1 part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly2 November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin3 warehouses4, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately5 stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical6 flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
There now is your insular7 city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves8 as Indian isles9 by coral reefs--commerce surrounds it with her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole10 is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward11. What do you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed12 in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks13 glasses! of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster-- tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched14 to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand--miles of them--leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys15, streets and avenues,-- north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue16 of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thither17?
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged18 in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan19 happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation20 and water are wedded21 for ever.
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, quietest, most enchanting22 bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit23 and a crucifix were within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping24 spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade25 knee-deep among Tiger-lilies--what is the one charm wanting?-- Water there is not a drop of water there! Were Niagara but a cataract26 of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust27 healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration28, when first told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity29, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting30, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom31 of life; and this is the key to it all.
Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to grow hazy32 about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick-- grow quarrelsome--don't sleep of nights--do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;--no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate33 all honorable respectable toils34, trials, and tribulations35 of every kind whatsoever36. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners37, and what not. And as for going as cook,--though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board--yet, somehow, I never fancied broiling38 fowls;--though once broiled40, judiciously41 buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled fowl39 than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge bakehouses the pyramids.
No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb43 down into the fore-castle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper44 in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of honor, particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe45 of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics46 to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time.
What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity47 amount to, weighed, I mean, in the scales of the New Testament48? Do you think the archangel Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly49 and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain't a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me about--however they may thump50 and punch me about, I have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way or other served in much the same way-- either in a physical or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be content.
Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction51 that the two orchard52 thieves entailed53 upon us. But being paid,-- what will compare with it? The urbane54 activity with which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign55 ourselves to perdition!
Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome56 exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt57 the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way-- he can better answer than any one else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence58 that was drawn59 up a long time ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:
"Grand Contested Election for the Presidency60 of the United States. "WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL." "BLOODY61 BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN."
Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces-- though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives62 which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion63 that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating64 judgment65.
Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself. Such a portentous66 and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils67 of the whale; these, with all the attending marvels68 of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented69 with an everlasting70 itch71 for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it--would they let me--since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates72 of the place one lodges73 in.
By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits74 that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid42 most of them all, one grand hooded75 phantom, like a snow hill in the air.
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watery
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| adj.有水的，水汪汪的；湿的，湿润的 | |
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drizzly
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| a.毛毛雨的(a drizzly day) | |
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coffin
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| n.棺材，灵柩 | |
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warehouses
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| 仓库，货栈( warehouse的名词复数 ) | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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insular
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| adj.岛屿的，心胸狭窄的 | |
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wharves
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| n.码头，停泊处( wharf的名词复数 ) | |
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isles
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| 岛( isle的名词复数 ) | |
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mole
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| n.胎块；痣；克分子 | |
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northward
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| adv.向北；n.北方的地区 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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bulwarks
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| n.堡垒( bulwark的名词复数 )；保障；支柱；舷墙 | |
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clinched
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| v.（尤指两人）互相紧紧抱[扭]住( clinch的过去式和过去分词 )；解决（争端、交易），达成（协议） | |
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alleys
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| 胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径 | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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caravan
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| n.大蓬车；活动房屋 | |
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meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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wedded
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| adj.正式结婚的；渴望…的，执著于…的v.嫁，娶，（与…）结婚( wed的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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enchanting
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| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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hermit
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| n.隐士，修道者；隐居 | |
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overlapping
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| adj./n.交迭（的） | |
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wade
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| v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉 | |
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cataract
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| n.大瀑布，奔流，洪水，白内障 | |
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robust
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| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
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vibration
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| n.颤动，振动；摆动 | |
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deity
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| n.神，神性；被奉若神明的人(或物) | |
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tormenting
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| 使痛苦的，使苦恼的 | |
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phantom
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| n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的 | |
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hazy
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| adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的 | |
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abominate
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| v.憎恨，厌恶 | |
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toils
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| 网 | |
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tribulations
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| n.苦难( tribulation的名词复数 )；艰难；苦难的缘由；痛苦 | |
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whatsoever
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| adv.（用于否定句中以加强语气）任何；pron.无论什么 | |
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schooners
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| n.（有两个以上桅杆的）纵帆船( schooner的名词复数 ) | |
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broiling
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| adj.酷热的，炽热的，似烧的v.（用火）烤（焙、炙等）( broil的现在分词 )；使卷入争吵；使混乱；被烤（或炙） | |
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fowl
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| n.家禽，鸡，禽肉 | |
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broiled
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| a.烤过的 | |
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judiciously
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| adv.明断地，明智而审慎地 | |
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mid
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| adj.中央的，中间的 | |
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plumb
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| adv.精确地，完全地；v.了解意义，测水深 | |
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grasshopper
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| n.蚱蜢，蝗虫，蚂蚱 | |
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awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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stoics
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| 禁欲主义者，恬淡寡欲的人，不以苦乐为意的人( stoic的名词复数 ) | |
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indignity
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| n.侮辱，伤害尊严，轻蔑 | |
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testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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thump
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| v.重击，砰然地响；n.重击，重击声 | |
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infliction
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| n.（强加于人身的）痛苦，刑罚 | |
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orchard
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| n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场 | |
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entailed
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| 使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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urbane
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| adj.温文尔雅的，懂礼的 | |
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consign
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| vt.寄售（货品），托运，交托，委托 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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smelt
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| v.熔解，熔炼；n.银白鱼，胡瓜鱼 | |
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providence
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| n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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presidency
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| n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期) | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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discriminating
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| a.有辨别能力的 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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portentous
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| adj.不祥的，可怕的，装腔作势的 | |
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perils
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| 极大危险( peril的名词复数 )； 危险的事（或环境） | |
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marvels
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| n.奇迹( marvel的名词复数 )；令人惊奇的事物（或事例）；不平凡的成果；成就v.惊奇，对…感到惊奇( marvel的第三人称单数 ) | |
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tormented
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| 饱受折磨的 | |
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everlasting
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| adj.永恒的，持久的，无止境的 | |
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itch
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| n.痒，渴望，疥癣；vi.发痒，渴望 | |
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inmates
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| n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 ) | |
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lodges
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| v.存放( lodge的第三人称单数 )；暂住；埋入；（权利、权威等）归属 | |
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conceits
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| 高傲( conceit的名词复数 )； 自以为； 巧妙的词语； 别出心裁的比喻 | |
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hooded
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| adj.戴头巾的；有罩盖的；颈部因肋骨运动而膨胀的 | |
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