Chapter 39
First Night-Watch
Stubb works aloft and laughs off the unease below, insisting that whatever happens is already fated.
Why it mattersThis chapter gives Stubb his defining tone: comic fatalism. It also shows how the crew absorbs Ahab's growing menace in small, ordinary moments.
Foretop.
Stubb solus, and mending a bracenauticalA rope used to swing a yard; also a verb for making ready or tightening..
Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!—I’ve been thinking over it ever since, and that ha, ha’s the final consequence. Why so? Because a laugh’s the wisest, easiest answer to all that’s queer; and come what will, one comfort’s always left—that unfailing comfort is, it’s all predestinated. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck; but to my poor eye Starbuck then looked something as I the other evening felt. Be sure the old Mogul has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew it; had had the gift, might readily have prophesied it—for when I clapped my eye upon his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb, wise Stubb—that’s my title—well, Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here’s a carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra, skirra! What’s my juicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes out?—Giving a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as a frigate’s pennant, and so am I—fa, la! lirra, skirra! Oh—
We’ll drink tonight with hearts as light,
To love, as gay and fleeting
As bubbles that swim, on the beaker’s brim,
And break on the lips while meeting.
A brave stave that—who calls? Mr. Starbuck? Aye, aye, sir— Aside he’s my superior, he has his too, if I’m not mistaken.—Aye, aye, sir, just through with this JobbiblicalA biblical sufferer whose book includes Leviathan and language of unanswerable power.—coming.