{"id":"01KF7FPTEXXG07STKX6P3EZT2N","cid":"bafkreifge7znskz2tnti6h4sh3ucb2e5chxg7i4onaotbqpl4jexgu3j2a","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":19065,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.450Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":18998,"text":"CHAPTER 116. The Dying Whale.\r\n\r\nNot seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune’s favourites\r\nsail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the\r\nrushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out. So seemed\r\nit with the Pequod. For next day after encountering the gay Bachelor,\r\nwhales were seen and four were slain; and one of them by Ahab.\r\n\r\nIt was far down the afternoon; and when all the spearings of the\r\ncrimson fight were done: and floating in the lovely sunset sea and sky,\r\nsun and whale both stilly died together; then, such a sweetness and\r\nsuch plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy\r\nair, that it almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent\r\nvalleys of the Manilla isles, the Spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned\r\nsailor, had gone to sea, freighted with these vesper hymns.\r\n\r\nSoothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who had sterned\r\noff from the whale, sat intently watching his final wanings from the\r\nnow tranquil boat. For that strange spectacle observable in all sperm\r\nwhales dying—the turning sunwards of the head, and so expiring—that\r\nstrange spectacle, beheld of such a placid evening, somehow to Ahab\r\nconveyed a wondrousness unknown before.\r\n\r\n“He turns and turns him to it,—how slowly, but how steadfastly, his\r\nhomage-rendering and invoking brow, with his last dying motions. He too\r\nworships fire; most faithful, broad, baronial vassal of the sun!—Oh\r\nthat these too-favouring eyes should see these too-favouring sights.\r\nLook! here, far water-locked; beyond all hum of human weal or woe; in\r\nthese most candid and impartial seas; where to traditions no rocks\r\nfurnish tablets; where for long Chinese ages, the billows have still\r\nrolled on speechless and unspoken to, as stars that shine upon the\r\nNiger’s unknown source; here, too, life dies sunwards full of faith;\r\nbut see! no sooner dead, than death whirls round the corpse, and it\r\nheads some other way.\r\n\r\n“Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who of drowned bones hast builded\r\nthy separate throne somewhere in the heart of these unverdured seas;\r\nthou art an infidel, thou queen, and too truly speakest to me in the\r\nwide-slaughtering Typhoon, and the hushed burial of its after calm. Nor\r\nhas this thy whale sunwards turned his dying head, and then gone round\r\nagain, without a lesson to me.\r\n\r\n“Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring,\r\nrainbowed jet!—that one strivest, this one jettest all in vain! In\r\nvain, oh whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening\r\nsun, that only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou,\r\ndarker half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith. All thy\r\nunnamable imminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of\r\nonce living things, exhaled as air, but water now.\r\n\r\n“Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the wild\r\nfowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea; though\r\nhill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!”\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 117. The Whale Watch.\r\n\r\nThe four whales slain that evening had died wide apart; one, far to\r\nwindward; one, less distant, to leeward; one ahead; one astern. These\r\nlast three were brought alongside ere nightfall; but the windward one\r\ncould not be reached till morning; and the boat that had killed it lay\r\nby its side all night; and that boat was Ahab’s.\r\n\r\nThe waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale’s spout-hole; and\r\nthe lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled flickering glare upon\r\nthe black, glossy back, and far out upon the midnight waves, which\r\ngently chafed the whale’s broad flank, like soft surf upon a beach.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPNYQYN41QBXE0AT0YYTT","peer_label":"Chapter 116","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPNYQYN41QBXE0AT0YYTT","peer_label":"Chapter 116","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KF7FPKDT5SHSH1ZQV6ABHQCA","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"book","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KESYJX0Z6XE0HWTS5N3SDG0B","peer_label":"The Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KF7FPTDWY0F7XFASN8C0PN17","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.970Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:28.942Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}