Abridged Text, followed by Abridger Notes, followed by multimedia, followed by Original Text with deletions.

 

Chapter 50 Ahab’s Boat and Crew. Fedallah

 

Among whale-wise people it has often been argued whether, considering the paramount importance of his life to the success of the voyage, it is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that life in the active perils of the chase. But with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect.

 

Ahab well knew that to have a boat apportioned to him as a regular headsman in the hunt—above all for Captain Ahab to be supplied with five extra men, as that same boat’s crew, he well knew that such generous conceits never entered the heads of the owners of the Pequod. Therefore he had not solicited a boat’s crew from them, nor had he in any way hinted his desires on that head. Nevertheless he had taken private measures of his own touching all that matter. Until Archy’s published discovery, the sailors had little foreseen it, though to be sure when, after being a little while out of port, all hands had concluded the customary business of fitting the whaleboats for service; when some time after this Ahab was found bestirring himself in the matter of making thole-pins with his own hands for what was thought to be one of the spare boats, and even solicitously cutting the small wooden skewers, it had awakened much interest and curiosity. But almost everybody supposed that this particular preparative heedfulness in Ahab must only be with a view to the ultimate chase of Moby Dick; for he had already revealed his intention to hunt that mortal monster in person. But such a supposition did by no means involve the remotest suspicion as to any boat’s crew being assigned to that boat.

 

Yet that hair-turbaned Fedallah remained a muffled mystery to the last. Whence he came in a mannerly world like this, by what sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be linked with Ahab’s peculiar fortunes; this none knew. He was such a creature as domestic people only see in their dreams, the like of whom still preserve much of the ghostly aboriginalness of earth’s primal generations, when the memory of the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his descendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and to what end; when though, according to Genesis, the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also.

 

Link to Chapter 51 The Spirit-Spout.

 

Abridger Notes

 

The latter part of the last paragraph of the abridged (and original) chapter is a favorite, starting with

 

“He was such a creature as civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their dreams,…”

 

An interesting tangent and revision occurred in the final review of this chapter. Reading my draft abridgement from a couple of months ago, I came cross an abbreviated  reference to

 

“Ahab was found bestirring himself in the matter of making thole-pins with his own hands…”

 

And I wondered whether this had been referenced earlier, just as Archy’s discovery had been. I had already verified that I had not deleted Archy’s name in the earlier description in Chapter 43 Hark!), but after that I reviewed to see if “Ahab … with his own hands” had been earlier described, and found nothing. I consulted the unabridged original of this Chapter, 50, and sure enough it went into greater detail on Ahab’s strange tinkering, supporting the absence of previous reference. Still, I asked ChatGPT about this, just curious about its analysis and what that would say about its retention of information.

 

Doug: In Chapter 50 of Moby Dick there is this passage: "after being a little while out of port, all hands had concluded the customary business of fitting the whaleboats for service; when some time after this Ahab was now and then found bestirring himself in the matter of making thole-pins with his own hands for what was thought to be one of the spare boats, and even solicitously cutting the small wooden skewers, which when the line is running out are pinned over the groove in the bow: when all this was observed in him, and particularly his solicitude in having an extra coat of sheathing in the bottom of the boat, ..." In any prior chapter is there any text mentioning Captain Ahab's custom fitting of the spare whaleboat?

ChatGPT 4o: No, prior to Chapter 50 ("Ahab’s Boat and Crew. Fedallah"), there is no direct mention of Ahab custom-fitting a spare whaleboat. However, earlier chapters foreshadow his secretive preparations and the presence of an unknown crew.

While this passage in Chapter 50 is the first explicit mention of Ahab personally modifying a whaleboat (making thole-pins, cutting wooden skewers, and adding extra sheathing), we do get subtle hints in earlier chapters that Ahab has something clandestine planned:

Earlier Foreshadowing of Ahab’s Secret Preparations

 

<foreshadowing highlights from Chapters 36, 41, 44, 48>

 

Conclusion: Chapter 50 as the First Mention

…

So while the text doesn’t directly reference Ahab’s modifications before Chapter 50, his secretive behavior throughout the novel strongly foreshadows it.

 

Overall, I was impressed by its answer, with a conclusion that I had already reached. In short, the result of all this was that I added more of the original Chapter 50 description of Ahab’s tinkering back into the abridgement.

 

 

Multimedia Chapter 50

 

Original Chapter 50 with Deletions

 

“Who would have thought it, Flask!” cried Stubb; “if I had but one leg you would not catch me in a boat, unless maybe to stop the plug-hole with my timber toe. Oh! he’s a wonderful old man!”

 

“I don’t think it so strange, after all, on that account,” said Flask. “If his leg were off at the hip, now, it would be a different thing. That would disable him; but he has one knee, and good part of the other left, you know.”

 

“I don’t know that, my little man; I never yet saw him kneel.”   

 

*          *          *          *          *          *

 

Among whale-wise people it has often been argued whether, considering the paramount importance of his life to the success of the voyage, it is right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that life in the active perils of the chase. So Tamerlane’s soldiers often argued with tears in their eyes, whether that invaluable life of his ought to be carried into the thickest of the fight.

 

But with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect. Considering that with two legs man is but a hobbling wight in all times of danger; considering that the pursuit of whales is always under great and extraordinary difficulties; that every individual moment, indeed, then comprises a peril; under these circumstances is it wise for any maimed man to enter a whale-boat in the hunt? As a general thing, the joint-owners of the Pequod must have plainly thought not.

 

Ahab well knew that although his friends at home would think little of his entering a boat in certain comparatively harmless vicissitudes of the chase, for the sake of being near the scene of action and giving his orders in person, yet for Captain Ahab to have a boat actually apportioned to him as a regular headsman in the hunt—above all for Captain Ahab to be supplied with five extra men, as that same boat’s crew, he well knew that such generous conceits never entered the heads of the owners of the Pequod. Therefore he had not solicited a boat’s crew from them, nor had he in any way hinted his desires on that head. Nevertheless he had taken private measures of his own touching all that matter. Until Archy’s published discovery, the sailors had little foreseen it, though to be sure when, after being a little while out of port, all hands had concluded the customary business of fitting the whaleboats for service; when some time after this Ahab was now and then found bestirring himself in the matter of making thole-pins with his own hands for what was thought to be one of the spare boats, and even solicitously cutting the small wooden skewers, which when the line is running out are pinned over the groove in the bow: when all this was observed in him, and particularly his solicitude in having an extra coat of sheathing in the bottom of the boat, as if to make it better withstand the pointed pressure of his ivory limb; and also the anxiety he evinced in exactly shaping the thigh board, or clumsy cleat, as it is sometimes called, the horizontal piece in the boat’s bow for bracing the knee against in darting or stabbing at the whale; when it was observed how often he stood up in that boat with his solitary knee fixed in the semi-circular depression in the cleat, and with the carpenter’s chisel gouged out a little here and straightened it a little there; all these things, I say, had awakened much interest and curiosity at the time. But almost everybody supposed that this particular preparative heedfulness in Ahab must only be with a view to the ultimate chase of Moby Dick; for he had already revealed his intention to hunt that mortal monster in person. But such a supposition did by no means involve the remotest suspicion as to any boat’s crew being assigned to that boat.

 

Now, with the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained soon waned away; for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now and then such unaccountable odds and ends of strange nations come up from the unknown nooks and ash-holes of the earth to man these floating outlaws of whalers; and the ships themselves often pick up such queer castaway creatures found tossing about the open sea on planks, bits of wreck, oars, whale-boats, canoes, blown-off Japanese junks, and what not; that Beelzebub himself might climb up the side and step down into the cabin to chat with the captain, and it would not create any unsubduable excitement in the forecastle.

 

But be all this as it may, certain it is that while the subordinate phantoms soon found their place among the crew, though still as it were somehow distinct from them, yet that hair-turbaned Fedallah remained a muffled mystery to the last. Whence he came in a mannerly world like this, by what sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be linked with Ahab’s peculiar fortunes; nay, so far as to have some sort of a half-hinted influence; Heaven knows, but it might have been even authority over him; all this none knew. But one cannot sustain an indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a creature as civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their dreams, and that but dimly; but the like of whom now and then glide among the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles to the east of the continent—those insulated, immemorial, unalterable countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the ghostly aboriginalness of earth’s primal generations, when the memory of the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his descendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created and to what end; when though, according to Genesis, the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of men, the devils also, add the uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in mundane amours.