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

 

Chapter 114 The Gilder

 

Penetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese cruising ground, the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery. Often, in mild, pleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty hours on the stretch, they were engaged in the boats, steadily pulling, or sailing, or paddling after the whales, or for an interlude of sixty or seventy minutes calmly awaiting their uprising.

 

These are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it. These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover feels a filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie.

 

Nor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at least as temporary an effect on Ahab.

 

“Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm. Through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless faith, adolescence’ doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.”

Link to Chapter 115 The Pequod Meets the Bachelor.

Abridger Notes

 

This may be the calm before the final storm. Its a pleasant descriptive text in any case. I deleted the final contributions of Starburk and Stubb, which would have made the parallel to The Doubloon more explicit perhaps, but I recall I left them out of that abridgment too. The Gilder appears to represent one of two things, perhaps both – (1) a golden sheen over a torrid core, or (2) a Dutch Gilder, a metaphor, for (1). In any case, when I asked ChatGPT 4o for its commentary, it did something interesting – it made up two (lovely) quotes, then pulled a quote from chapter 132.

 

·      The chapter opens with the Pequod sailing through waters that are miraculously serene, reflecting golden sunlight in a way that makes the sea itself seem radiant:

“But now, this serene and golden weather has arrived; it must have been meant for some soul made glad thereby.”

·      This moment of peace and beauty is rare in the novel and feels almost like a dream—a glimpse of a world that is untouched by suffering and destruction.

 

and

 

·      Good and evil, joy and suffering, all blend together in the same way that golden light gilds the world:

“Would to God these golden days might not end! And we might sail on in this quiet, all our lives; but it is not so.”

·      This is a moment of fleeting transcendence—the Pequod’s crew is still doomed, but for now, they exist in a golden world.

 

And from chapter 132

 

·      Even Ahab, usually consumed by vengeance, is briefly affected by the golden light.

·      Starbuck notices Ahab's sudden, rare moment of peace, and says:

“Oh, my Captain! My Captain! Noble soul! Grand old heart, after all! Why should anyone give chase to that hated fish!”

·      Starbuck sees a version of Ahab that could have been different, had he not been obsessed with vengeance.

·      Ahab, for once, is humanized—but his moment of peace does not last.

 

It explains the hallucinated lines as just something poetic it likes to do when talking about Moby Dick when I followed up J

 

 

Multimedia Chapter 114 The Gilder

 

Original Chapter 114 The Gilder with Deletions

 

Penetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese cruising ground, the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery. Often, in mild, pleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty hours on the stretch, they were engaged in the boats, steadily pulling, or sailing, or paddling after the whales, or for an interlude of sixty or seventy minutes calmly awaiting their uprising; though with but small success for their pains.

 

At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone cats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean’s skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a remorseless fang.

 

These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when the western emigrants’ horses only show their erected ears, while their hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure.

 

The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when the flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this mixes with your most mystic mood; so that fact and fancy, half-way meeting, interpenetrate, and form one seamless whole.

 

Nor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at least as temporary an effect on Ahab. But if these secret golden keys did seem to open in him his own secret golden treasuries, yet did his breath upon them prove but tarnishing.

 

Oh, grassy glades! oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in ye,—though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy life,—in ye, men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them. Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause:—through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless faith, adolescence’ doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will never weary? Where is the foundling’s father hidden? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.

 

And that same day, too, gazing far down from his boat’s side into that same golden sea, Starbuck lowly murmured:—

“Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride’s eye!—Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.”

 

And Stubb, fish-like, with sparkling scales, leaped up in that same golden light:—

“I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes oaths that he has always been jolly!”