Yesterday
in Janeites, Michael Chwe, author of a wonderful new book about Jane Austen
viewed through the lens of game theory, wrote in passing about Herman
Melville's novel White Jacket, and I responded to him drawing a parallel
between the use of color imagery in White Jacket and in Jane Austen's
Persuasion, and wondering if there might be a connection.
In
followup to that post, in which I also mentioned that I had noted a while ago
that Moby Dick contained a allusion to the Prince of Whales (with an
"H"), I followed up today to retrieve the reference, and I also
refreshed my memory that I had also learned that Melville had been particularly
interested in Charles Lamb's Triumph of the Whale, the satirical poem he
published anonymously in 1812, hence Melville's echoing Lamb's pun.
Those
who read along regularly in this blog know that Lamb's poem is one of the two
key sources for Jane Austen's "Prince of Whales" secret answer to the
second charade in Chapter 9 of Emma, as originally discovered by Colleen
Sheehan in 2006:
So,
with that as background, I reread the relevant passage in Moby Dick,
Chapter 82, for the first time in several years, and my eyes widened a bit as I
read the words I've capitalized from that passage, some of which I had not
noticed before. For my brief interpretation of same, be sure to read to the end
of this post:
The
gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman; and to the eternal
honour of our calling be it said, that the first whale attacked by our
brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent. Those were the KNIGHTLY days
of our profession, when we only bore arms to succor the distressed, and not to
fill men's lamp-feeders. Every one knows the fine story of Perseus and
Andromeda; how the lovely Andromeda, the daughter of a king, was tied to a rock
on the sea-coast, and as LEVIATHAN was in the very act of carrying her off,
Perseus, THE PRINCE OF WHALEMEN, intrepidly advancing, harpooned the monster,
and delivered and married the MAID. It was an admirable artistic exploit,
rarely achieved by the best harpooneers of the present day; inasmuch as this Leviathan
was slain at the very first dart. And let no man doubt this Arkite story; for
in the ancient Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Syrian coast, in one of the Pagan
temples, there stood for many ages the vast skeleton of a whale, which the
city's legends and all the inhabitants asserted to be the identical bones of
the monster that Perseus slew. When the Romans took Joppa, the same skeleton
was carried to Italy in triumph. What seems most singular and suggestively
important in this story, is this: it was from Joppa that Jonah set sail.
Akin
to the adventure of Perseus and Andromeda—indeed, by some supposed to be
indirectly derived from it—is that famous story of ST. GEORGE and the Dragon;
which dragon I maintain to have been a whale; for in many old chronicles whales
and dragons are strangely jumbled together, and often stand for each other.
"Thou art as a lion of the waters, and as a dragon of the sea," saith
Ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale; in truth, some versions of the Bible
use that word itself. Besides, it would much subtract from the glory of the
exploit had ST. GEORGES but encountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead
of doing battle with the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake,
but only a Perseus, a ST. GEORGE, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march
boldly up to a whale. Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us;
for though the creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of old is vaguely
represented of a griffin-like shape, and though the battle is depicted on land
and THE SAINT ON HORSEBACK, yet considering the great ignorance of those times,
when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists; and considering that as
in Perseus' case, ST. GEORGE' whale might have crawled up out of the sea on the
beach; and considering that the animal ridden by ST. GEORGES might have been
only a large seal, or sea-HORSE; bearing all this in mind, it will not appear
altogether incompatible with the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts of
the scene, to hold this so-called dragon no other than the great LEVIATHAN
himself. In fact, placed before the striand piercing truth, this whole story
will fare like that fish, flesh, and fowl idol of the Philistines, Dagon by
name; who being planted before the ark of Israel, his horse's head and both the
palms of his hands fell off from him, and only the stump or fishy part of him
remained. Thus, then, one of our own noble stamp, even a whaleman, is the
tutelary guardian of England; and by good rights, we harpooneers of Nantucket
should be enrolled in the most noble order of ST. GEORGES. And therefore let
not the KNIGHTS of that honourable company (none of whom, I venture to say,
have ever had to do with a whale like their great patron), let them never eye a
Nantucketer with disdain, since even in our woollen frocks and tarred trowsers
we are much better entitled to St. George's decoration than they."
END QUOTE
So,
is it just a coincidence that Melville, in this one short passage, not only
alludes in a variety of ways to Lamb's Triumph of the Whale, but also includes
other verbiage that seems to point to Mr. GEORGE Knightley as well?
The
most intriguing question is, did Melville discover that secret answer to the
second charade in Emma, and then embed his discovery in the above
passage, tagging it so that anyone else who also knew the whole context might
(as I just did) decode his correct answer to the Emma charade? Or are
all the echoes of Emma an artifact of Melville’s allusion to Lamb’s poem?
Food
for thought (or whales)!
Cheers,ARNIE
@JaneAustenCode
on Twitter
No comments:
Post a Comment