.. < chapter xcix 30  THE DOUBLOON >


     Ere now it has been related how Ahab was

wont to pace his quarter-deck, taking regular turns at either limit, the

binnacle

.. <p 427 >

and mainmast; but in the multiplicity of other things requiring narration it

has not been added how that sometimes in these walks, when most plunged in

his mood, he was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there

strangely eyeing the particular object before him.  When he halted before the

binnacle, with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the compass, that

glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of his purpose; and

when resuming his walk he again paused before the mainmast, then, as the same

riveted glance fastened upon the riveted gold coin there, he still wore the

same aspect of nailed firmness, only dashed with a certain wild longing, if

not hopefulness.  But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed

to be newly attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it,

as though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in some

monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them.  And some certain

significance lurks in all things, else all things are little worth, and the

round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by the cartload, as

they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in the Milky Way.  Now

this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of the heart of

gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden sands, the head-waters of

many a Pactolus flows.  And though now nailed amidst all the rustiness of iron

bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes, yet, untouchable and immaculate to

any foulness, it still preserved its Quito glow.  Nor, though placed amongst

a ruthless crew and every hour passed by ruthless hands, and through the

livelong nights shrouded with thick darkness which might cover any pilfering

approach, nevertheless every sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset left


     it last.  For it was set apart and sanctified to one awe-striking end; and

however wanton in their sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as

the white whale's talisman.  Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch

by night, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he would ever

live to spend it.  Now those noble golden coins of South America are as

.. <p 428 >

medals of the sun and tropic token-pieces.  Here palms, alpacas, and

volcanoes; sun's disks and stars; ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich

banners waving, are in luxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious gold

seems almost to derive an added preciousness and enhancing glories, by

passing through those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic.  It so chanced that

the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example of these things.  On its

round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL ECUADOR: QUITO.  So this

bright coin came from a country planted in the middle of the world, and

beneath the great equator, and named after it; and it had been cast midway

up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn.  Zoned by those

letters you saw the likeness of three Andes' summits; from one a flame; a

tower on another; on the third a crowing cock; while arching over all was a

segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual

cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra.

Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now pausing.


     There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and all

other grand and lofty things; look here, --three peaks as proud as Lucifer.

The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the courageous, the

undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this

round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, which, like a magician's

glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious

self.  Great pains, small gains for those who ask the world to solve them; it

cannot solve itself.  Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but

see!  aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox!  and but six months

before he wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries!  From storm to storm!  So

be it, then.  Born in throes, 't is fit that man should live in pains and die

in pangs!  So be it, then!  Here's stout stuff for woe to work on.  So be it,

then.  No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws must

have left their mouldings there since yesterday, murmured Starbuck to

himself, leaning against the bulwarks.  The old

.. <p 429 >

man seems to read Belshazzar's awful writing.  I have never marked the coin

inspectingly.  He goes below; let me read.  A dark valley between three

mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint

earthly symbol.  So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over all

our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope.  If we

bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil; but if we lift them,


     the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer.  Yet, oh, the great sun

is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we would fain snatch some sweet solace

from him, we gaze for him in vain!  This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly,

but still sadly to me.  I will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely.  There

now's the old Mogul, soliloquized Stubb by the try-works, he's been twigging

it; and there goes Starbuck from the same, and both with faces which I

should say might be somewhere within nine fathoms long.  And all from looking

at a piece of gold, which did I have it now on Negro Hill or in Corlaer's

Hook, I'd not look at it very long ere spending it.  Humph!  in my poor,

insignificant opinion, I regard this as queer.  I have seen doubloons before

now in my voyagings; your doubloons of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru,

your doubloons of Chili, your doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of

Popayan; with plenty of gold moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half joes,

and quarter joes.  what then should there be in this doubloon of the Equator

that is so killing wonderful?  By Golconda!  let me read it once.  Halloa!

here's signs and wonders truly!  That, now, is what old Bowditch in his

Epitome calls the zodiac, and what my almanack below calls ditto.  I'll get

the almanack and as I have heard devils can be raised with Daboll's

arithmetic, I'll try my hand at raising a meaning out of these queer

curvicues here with the Massachusetts calendar.  Here's the book.  Let's see

now.  Signs and wonders; and the sun, he's always among 'em.  Hem, hem, hem;


     here they are --here they go --all alive: --Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the

Bull and Jimimi!  here's Gemini himself, or the Twins.  Well; the sun he

wheels among 'em.  Aye, here on the coin he's just crossing the threshold

between two of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring.  Book!  you lie there; the

fact is, you books must know your

.. <p 430 >

places.  You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to

supply the thoughts.  That's my small experience, so far as the Massachusetts

calendar, and Bowditch's navigator, and Daboll's arithmetic go.  Signs and

wonders, eh?  Pity if there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in

wonders!  There's a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist--hark!  By Jove, I have

it!  Look you, Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round

chapter; and now I'll read it off, straight out of the book.  Come, Almanack!


     To begin: there's Aries, or the Ram --lecherous dog, he begets us; then,

Taurus, or the Bull --he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the Twins --


     that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo!  comes Cancer

the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, a roaring

Lion, lies in the path --he gives a few fierce bites and surly dabs with his

paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin!  that's our first love; we marry

and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes Libra, or the Scales --happiness


     weighed and found wanting; and while we are very sad about that, Lord!  how

we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the Scorpion, stings us in rear; we are

curing the wound, when whang come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the

Archer, is amusing himself.  As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside; here's

the battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, and

headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours out his

whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the Fishes, we

sleep.  There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the sun goes through

it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and hearty.  Jollily he,

aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and so, alow here, does jolly

Stubb.  Oh, jolly's the word for aye!  Adieu, Doubloon!  But stop; here comes

little King-Post; dodge round the try-works, now, and let's hear what he'll

have to say.  There; he's before it; he'll out with something presently.  So,

so; he's beginning.  I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold,

and whoever raises a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him.  So,

what's all this staring been about?  It is worth sixteen dollars, that's true;


     and at two cents the cigar, that's nine hundred and

.. <p 431 >

sixty cigars.  I wont smoke dirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and

here's nine hundred and sixty of them; so here goes Flask aloft to spy 'em

out.  Shall I call that wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it has a

foolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a sort of

wiseish look to it.  But, avast; here comes our old Manxman --the old

hearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before he took to the sea.  He

luffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and goes round on the other side of the

mast; why, there's a horse-shoe nailed on that side; and now he's back

again; what does that mean?  Hark!  he's muttering --voice like an old

worn-out coffee-mill.  Prick ears, and listen!  If the White Whale be

raised, it must be in a month and a day, when the sun stands in some one of

these signs.  I've studied signs, and know their marks; they were taught me

two score years ago, by the old witch in Copenhagen.  Now, in what sign will

the sun then be?  The horse-shoe sign; for there it is, right opposite the

gold.  And what's the horse-shoe sign?  The lion is the horse-shoe sign --the

roaring and devouring lion.  Ship, old ship!  my old head shakes to think of

thee.  There's another rendering now; but still one text.  All sorts of men

in one kind of world, you see.  Dodge again!  here comes Queequeg --all

tattooing --looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself.  What says the

Cannibal?  As I live he's comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone; thinks

the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I suppose, as

the old women talk Surgeon's Astronomy in the back country.  And by Jove, he's


     found something there in the vicinity of his thigh --I guess it's Sagittarius,

or the Archer.  No: he don't know what to make of the doubloon; he takes it

for an old button off some king's trowsers.  But, aside again!  here comes

that ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail coiled out of sight as usual, oakum in the

toes of his pumps as usual.  What does he say, with that look of his?  Ah,

only makes a sign to the sign and bows himself; there is a sun on the coin

--fire worshipper, depend upon it.  Ho!  more and more.  This way comes Pip

--poor boy!  would he had died, or I; he's half horrible to me.  He too has

been watching all of these interpreters --myself included --and look now, he

comes to read,

.. <p 432 >

with that unearthly idiot face.  stand away again and hear him.  hark!  I

look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.  Upon my soul,

he's been studying Murray's Grammar!  Improving his mind, poor fellow!  But

what's that he says now -- hist!  I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye

look, they look.  Why, he's getting it by heart --hist!  again.  I look,

you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look.  Well, that's funny.


     And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I'm a crow,

especially when I stand a'top of this pine tree here.  Caw!  caw!  caw!  caw!  caw!

caw!  Ain't I a crow?  And where's the scare-crow?  There he stands; two

bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and two more poked into the sleeves

of an old jacket.  Wonder if he means me? --complimentary! --poor lad! --I

could go hang myself.  Any way, for the present, I'll quit Pip's vicinity.

I can stand the rest, for they have plain wits; but he's too crazy-witty

for my sanity.  So, so, I leave him muttering.  Here's the ship's navel,

this doubloon here, and they are all on fire to unscrew it.  But, unscrew

your navel, and what's the consequence?  Then again, if it stays here, that

is ugly, too, for when aught's nailed to the mast it's a sign that things grow


     desperate.  Ha, ha!  old Ahab!  the White Whale; he'll nail ye!  This is a

pine tree.  My father, in old Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and

found a silver ring grown over in it; some old darkey's wedding ring.  How

did it get there?  And so they'll say in the resurrection, when they come to

fish up this old mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters

for the shaggy bark.  Oh, the gold!  the precious, precious gold! --the green

miser 'll hoard ye soon!  Hish!  hish!  God goes 'mong the worlds

blackberrying.  Cook!  ho, cook!  and cook us!  Jenny!  hey, hey, hey, hey,

hey, Jenny, Jenny!  and get your hoe-cake done!


.. <p 433 >