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As if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being the first assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now coming for the three crews. Ahab’s boat was central; and cheering his men, he told them he would take the whale head-and-head,—that is, pull straight up to his forehead,—a not uncommon thing; for when within a certain limit, such a course excludes the coming onset from the whale’s sidelong vision. But ere that close limit was gained, and while yet all three boats were plain as the ship’s three masts to his eye; the White Whale churning himself into furious speed, almost in an instant as it were, rushing among the boats with open jaws, and a lashing tail, offered appalling battle on every side; and heedless of the irons darted at him from every boat, seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank of which those boats were made. But skilfully manœuvred, incessantly wheeling like trained chargers in the field; the boats for a while eluded him; though, at times, but by a plank’s breadth; while all the time, Ahab’s unearthly slogan tore every other cry but his to shreds.

The swarming populace the chief detains, And leads amidst a wide extent of plains; There placed them round: then from the ships proceeds A train of oxen, mules, and stately steeds, Vases and tripods (for the funeral games), Resplendent brass, and more resplendent dames. First stood the prizes to reward the force Of rapid racers in the dusty course: A woman for the first, in beauty’s bloom, Skill’d in the needle, and the labouring loom; And a large vase, where two bright handles rise, Of twenty measures its capacious size. The second victor claims a mare unbroke, Big with a mule, unknowing of the yoke: The third, a charger yet untouch’d by flame; Four ample measures held the shining frame: Two golden talents for the fourth were placed: An ample double bowl contents the last. These in fair order ranged upon the plain, The hero, rising, thus address’d the train:

Thus it appears that the sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well. In the morning I bathe my intellect in the stupendous and cosmogonal philosophy of the Bhagvat Geeta, since whose composition years of the gods have elapsed, and in comparison with which our modern world and its literature seem puny and trivial; and I doubt if that philosophy is not to be referred to a previous state of existence, so remote is its sublimity from our conceptions. I lay down the book and go to my well for water, and lo! there I meet the servant of the Bramin, priest of Brahma and Vishnu and Indra, who still sits in his temple on the Ganges reading the Vedas, or dwells at the root of a tree with his crust and water jug. I meet his servant come to draw water for his master, and our buckets as it were grate together in the same well. The pure Walden water is mingled with the sacred water of the Ganges. With favoring winds it is wafted past the site of the fabulous islands of Atlantis and the Hesperides, makes the periplus of Hanno, and, floating by Ternate and Tidore and the mouth of the Persian Gulf, melts in the tropic gales of the Indian seas, and is landed in ports of which Alexander only heard the names.

“Ye kings and princes of the Achaian name! First let us quench the yet remaining flame With sable wine; then, as the rites direct, The hero’s bones with careful view select: (Apart, and easy to be known they lie Amidst the heap, and obvious to the eye: The rest around the margin will be seen Promiscuous, steeds and immolated men:) These wrapp’d in double cauls of fat, prepare; And in the golden vase dispose with care; There let them rest with decent honour laid, Till I shall follow to the infernal shade. Meantime erect the tomb with pious hands, A common structure on the humble sands: Hereafter Greece some nobler work may raise, And late posterity record our praise!”