Guh, my friends, the heat has come to torment me once more.

I do so despise the summer. I picked this week for my vacation thinking it would still be nice and mild, like it was last year, but I was wrong! It’s always nice to have a break from work, but in the future I may elect to take more time in the fall or spring, rather than the doldrums of summer.

Summary

Old Ishmael describes how he intends to give as thorough a survey of the every aspect of the whale as is humanly possible. He explains that he must use only the grandest and largest possible terms when dealing with whales, because they are such large and majestic creatures.

Then, Ishamel describes the most recently discovered fossils of whales, found in Europe and the United States. These ancient skeletal remains indicate that the whale pre-exists all human civilization, and indeed it is found inscribed on ancient Egyptian tombs and in old Barbary tales of the desert.

Analysis

This chapter is just really fun. If ever there was one that should be read aloud, as dramatically as possible, this is it. There’s some really funny bits in the opening paragraphs, I’m constantly thinking of this one:

Applied to any other creature than the Leviathan—to an ant or a flea—such portly terms might justly be deemed unwarrantably grandiloquent. But when Leviathan is the text, the case is altered. Fain am I to stagger to this emprise under the weightiest words of the dictionary.

That’s just good stuff. It’s always fun when he pre-emptively reacts to criticism, and in such a gradiose way like this. Of course you need to bust out the ten dollar words! These are big, important animals we’re talking about!

Beyond Mythology

The main thrust of this chapter, thematically speaking, is much the same as the last one. Further work being done by Ishmael to establish the mythological bona fides of the whale. In this case, he uses the device of religious mythology to help us understand just how majestic these creatures are.

Notably, Ishmael uses a lot of biblical terms, and then shifts to using Greek mythology-related terms to described the world that whales existed in before man. They are “antediluvian”, meaning they existed before the flood which Noah famously survived in the book of Genesis. They are even pre-adamite, existing before humans ever did!

Essentially taking the stance that the full or even partial chronology of whales extends beyond the imaginings of man.

I am, by a flood, borne back to that wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; for time began with man. Here Saturn’s grey chaos rolls over me, and I obtain dim, shuddering glimpses into those Polar eternities; when wedged bastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics;

Whales are likened to a sort of Platonic idea, something that exists outside of existence. I suppose this goes to a similar line of thinking as Ahab’s, taking the whale as a thing he can strike at in order to strike at the mysterious forces of fate that exist beyond mortal comprehension.

So, yes! This is more grist for the ol’ “whales as cosmic horror” mill as well. They are beyond God’s judgment, having escaped the flood, they are revered by the oldest known human civilization (at the time, Egyptian). They represent a glimpse of a world that nobody alive can even conceive of!

Ahab’s harpoon had shed older blood than the Pharaoh’s. Methuselah seems a school-boy.

And of course this circles back around to aggrandizing whalers as well, why not.

I am horror-struck at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the unspeakable terrors of the whale, which, having been before all time, must needs exist after all humane ages are over.

Look, this line may as well be right out of a Lovecraft story! There’s no way that guy didn’t read this book, and take inspiration of nameless and ancient beings that exist in environments beyond human comprehension.

The Modern Truth

In this day and age, we know more about whales and their ancestors, and what we know is… interesting.

They evolved from land mammals, as all sea-dwelling mammals do. Starting as a kind of pig-like beast, roaming the plains, before taking to the waters and supping on the plentiful sealife of those ancient ages. Slowly over time, evolution did its trick and changed them into the vast leviathanic monsters we know to this very day!

So, they are not quite the epochal beasts that Ishmael imagined, sadly. Not that I think that reduces their majesty at all, really. They exist as one of the few surviving megafauna, having outlasted their land-based relatives because, well, it’s a lot more difficult to hunt on the open ocean than on the open plain.

But still, they pale in comparison to truly ancient beings like ginkgo trees or crocodiles or tree shrews.

Yes, I said tree shrews! These little fellows have changed little since the days of the dinosaurs, and may be the common ancestor of all living mammals! Sometimes, nature simply finds a plan for life that works, and if it ain’t broke there’s no need to fix it.

The Constant

But, that’s just me quibbling over the details, really. The fact remains that whales pre-exist all human civilization by an amount of time that would boggle anyone’s mind, and that’s what Ishmael is really driving at here.

The idea that things change over time… human civilizations and modes of understanding the world rise and fall… empires sweep across the world and change lives forever. But the whale is eterenal. They’re just out there, doing their own thing.

The vast sweep of our mundane history is nothing compared to the constancy of the whale. Perhaps it exposes the vanity and heresy of Ahab in a new light, that he would seek to injure such a creature out of his meagre, passing pains.

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Ahhhh, writing this helped me cool myself down a bit, I think. Perhaps let off some excess heat from the brain. I can only hope this infernal heat abates soon, I can’t stand much more of it. Perhaps I shall avail myself of a local mall tomorrow, for some relief.

Until next time, shipmates!