The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out.
I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, whereโer I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass.
Yonder, by ever-brimming gobletโs rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sunโslow dived from noonโgoes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. โTis ironโthat I knowโnot gold. โTis split, tooโthat I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!
Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can neโer enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good nightโgood night! (waving his hand, he moves from the window.)
โTwas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the match itself must needs be wasting! What Iโve dared, Iโve willed; and what Iโve willed, Iโll do! They think me madโStarbuck does; but Iโm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness thatโs only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; andโAye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. Thatโs more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bulliesโTake some one of your own size; donโt pommelย me!ย No, yeโve knocked me down, and I am up again; butย yeย have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahabโs compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrentsโ beds, unerringly I rush! Naughtโs an obstacle, naughtโs an angle to the iron way!