Chapter 39.00: CHAPTER 37. Sunset.

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CHAPTER 37. Sunset.
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_The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out_.

I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where’er I
sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but
first I pass.

Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet’s rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The
gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun—slow dived from noon—goes
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. ’Tis iron—that I know—not
gold. ’Tis split, too—that 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 ne’er 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 night—good night!
(_waving his hand, he moves from the window_.)

’Twas 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 I’ve dared, I’ve willed; and what I’ve
willed, I’ll do! They think me mad—Starbuck does; but I’m demoniac,
I am madness maddened! That wild madness that’s only calm to comprehend
itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and—Aye! I
lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now,
then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That’s 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
bullies—Take some one of your own size; don’t pommel me! No, ye’ve
knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth
from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab’s
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 torrents’ beds, unerringly I rush! Naught’s an obstacle,
naught’s an angle to the iron way!