Tripping line.
A line used for tripping a topgallant or royal yard in sending it down.
Truck.
A circular piece of wood, placed at the head of the highest mast on a ship. It has small holes or sheaves in it for signal halyards to be rove through. Also, the wheel of a gun-carriage.
Truss.
The rope by which the centre of a lower yard is kept in toward the mast.
Trysail.
A fore-and-aft sail, set with a boom and gaff, and hoisting on a small mast abaft the lower mast, called a
trysail-mast.
This name is generally confined to the sail so carried at the mainmast of a full-rigged brig; those carried at the foremast and at the mainmast of a ship or bark being called
spencers
and those that are at the mizzenmast of a ship or bark,
spankers
.
Turn.
Passing a rope once or twice round a pin or kevel, to keep it fast. Also, two crosses in a cable.
To turn in
or
turn out
, nautical terms for going to rest in a berth or hammock, and getting up from them.
Turn up!
The order given to send the men up from between decks.
Tye.
A rope connected with a yard, to the other end of which a tackle is attached for hoisting.
Unbend.
To cast off or untie. (See
Bend
.)
Union.
The upper inner corner of an ensign. The rest of the flag is called the
fly
.
The
union
of the U.S. ensign is a blue field with white stars, and the
fly
is composed of alternate white and red stripes.
Union-down.
The situation of a flag when it is hoisted upside down, bringing the union down instead of up. Used as a signal of distress.
Union-jack.
A small flag, containing only the union, without the fly, usually hoisted at the bowsprit-cap.
Vane.
A fly worn at the mast-head, made of feathers or buntine, traversing on a spindle, to show the direction of the wind.
Vang.
A rope leading from the peak of the gaff of a fore-and-aft sail to the rail on each side, and used for steadying the gaff.
Veer.
Said of the wind when it changes. Also, to slack a cable and let it run out.
To veer and haul
, is to haul and slack alternately on a rope, as in warping, until the vessel or boat gets headway.
Waif.
A pennoned pole, carried by a whale-boat, inserted upright into the floating body of a dead whale; both to mark its place on the sea, and as a token of prior possession to boats from other ships that may come near.
Waist.
That part of the upper deck between the quarter-deck and forecastle.
Wake.
The track or path a ship leaves behind her in the water.
Wales.
Strong planks in a vessel’s sides, running her whole length fore and aft.
Wall.
A knot put on the end of a rope.
Wall-sided.
A vessel is
wall-sided
when her sides run up perpendicularly from the bends. In opposition to
tumbling home
or
flaring out
.
Ward-room.
The room in a vessel of war in which the commissioned officers live.
Ware, or Wear.
To turn a vessel round, so that, from having the wind on one side, you bring it upon the other, carrying her stern round by the wind. In
tacking
, the same result is produced by carrying a vessel’s head round by the wind.
Warp.
To move a vessel from one place to another by means of a rope made fast to some fixed object, or to a kedge.
A warp
is a rope used for warping. If the warp is bent to a kedge which is let go, and the vessel is hove ahead by the capstan or windlass, it would be called
kedging
.
Watch.
A division of time on board ship. There are seven watches in a day, reckoning from 12 M. round through the 24 hours, five of them being of four hours each, and the two others, called
dog watches
, of two hours each, viz., from 4 to 6, and from 6 to 8 P.M. (See
Dog watch.
) Also, a certain portion of a ship’s company, appointed to stand a given length of time. In the merchant service all hands are divided into two watches, larboard and starboard, with a mate to command each.
A
buoy
is said to
watch
when it floats on the surface.
Watch-and-watch.
The arrangement by which the watches are alternated every other four hours. In distinction from keeping all hands during one or more watches.
Anchor watch
, a small watch of one or two men, kept while in port.
Watch ho! Watch!
The cry of the man that heaves the deep-sea-lead.
Watch-tackle.
A small luff purchase with a short fall, the double block having a tail to it, and the single one a hook. Used for various purposes about decks.
Weather.
In the direction from which the wind blows.
A ship carries a
weather helm
when she tends to come up into the wind, requiring you to put the helm up.
Weather gage.
A vessel has the
weather gage
of another when she is to windward of her.
A weatherly ship
, is one that works well to windward, making but little leeway.
Weigh.
To lift up; as, to weigh an anchor or a mast.
Wheel.
The instrument by which a ship is steered; being a barrel, (round which the tiller-ropes go,) and a wheel with spokes.
Winch.
A purchase formed by a horizontal spindle or shaft with a wheel or crank at the end. A small one with a wheel is used for making ropes or spunyarn.
Windlass.
The machine used in merchant vessels to weigh the anchor by.
Wind-rode.
The situation of a vessel at anchor when she swings and rides by the force of the wind, instead of the tide or current. (See
Tide-rode
.)
Wing-and-wing.
The situation of a fore-and-aft vessel when she is going dead before the wind, with her foresail hauled over on one side and her mainsail on the other.
Withe, or Wythe.
An iron instrument fitted on the end of a boom or mast, with a ring to it, through which another boom or mast is rigged out and secured.
Worm.
To fill up between the lays of a rope with small stuff wound round spirally. Stuff so wound round is called
worming.
Yacht.
A vessel of pleasure or state.
Yard.
A long piece of timber, tapering slightly toward the ends, and hung by the centre to a mast, to spread the square sails upon.
Yard-arm.
The extremities of a yard.
Yard-arm and yard-arm.
The situation of two vessels, lying alongside one another, so near that their yard-arms cross or touch.
Yaw.
The motion of a vessel when she goes off from her course.
Yoke.
A piece of wood placed across the head of a boat’s rudder, with a rope attached to each end, by which the boat is steered.
INSPIRED BY
MOBY-DICK
The great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last.
—
Moby-Dick
Visual Art
Melville’s boast that
Moby-Dick
couldn’t be painted has been challenged many times. Painters Jerry Beck, Richard Ellis, Sam Francis, Mark Milloff, Jackson Pollock, Theodore Roszak, Frank Stella, and Gilbert Wilson, among many others, have chosen the whale, as well as Ahab or Queequeg or the
Pequod
, as their subject. Elizabeth A. Schultz, in her book
Unpainted to the Last: Moby-Dick and Twentieth-Century American Art
(University Press of Kansas, 1995), traces the whale’s appearance in art during the last century. She considers not just paintings but works in media as various as sculpture, architecture, mixed media, and comic books, and offers an exhaustive study of the way in which the image of the whale has insinuated itself into the modern consciousness.
Moby-Dick
is arguably the most frequently illustrated American novel. Illustrators as diverse as Barry Moser, Garrick Palmer, Boardman Robinson, and Bill Sienkiewicz have tried their hands at rendering the great Leviathan. Pop artist LeRoy Neiman collaborated with marine biologist Jacques Cousteau on a collector’s edition of
Moby-Dick
published in 1975. Rockwell Kent’s classic
Moby-Dick
illustrations—280 images first published in 1930 in a three-volume limited edition from the Chicago Lakeside Press and a one-volume edition from Random House—were celebrated with the 2001 release of a U.S. Postal Service stamp on which the whale’s tail flings a whaleboat and its crew into the air.
Film Adaptations
John Huston’s
Moby Dick
of 1956 is the best-known film adaptation to date. Huston, legendary director of
The Maltese Falcon
and
The African Queen
, wrote the screenplay with Ray Bradbury, the prolific author of
The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man,
and
Fahrenheit 451
. The film version of
Moby Dick
establishes itself quickly—New England, 1841, a slew of convincing sailors. Gregory Peck, perhaps too handsome for the part, is cast as the obsessed, peg-legged Ahab. Frederick Ledebur (the German Leader in
Slaughterhouse-Five
) excels in his performance as the tattooed “cannibal prince” Queequeg. Reasonable Starbuck, played by Leo Genn, is given an expanded role—he nearly assassinates Ahab in one tense scene. Huston focuses the narrative on Ahab’s quest but allows for traditional Hollywood action in whaling scenes enhanced by impressive special effects and elegantly edited. Philip Sainton’s rich score, at some points thunderous and at others restless, includes a choral version of the hymn—beginning “The ribs and terrors in the whale”—that precedes the Sunday sermon delivered by Father Mapple (Orson Welles). Shot in Ireland and off the coast of Portugal, Huston’s
Moby Dick
offers stunning and memorable images strengthened by a color scheme that imparts a quality of old illustrations to the frames. When it was first released, Huston’s adaptation—like Melville’s novel—garnered neither critical acclaim nor commercial success, but it has since come to be regarded as a classic.
A two-and-a-half-hour epic production of
Moby-Dick
, directed by Franc Roddam, appeared on television in 1998. Patrick Stewart glowers as a menacing Ahab, silencing rowdy sailors under the deck with the thudding of his deliberate gait. Henry Thomas (of
E.T.
fame) is cast as the narrator Ishmael, and first mate Starbuck is played by Ted Levine (who was in
Silence of the Lambs
). In an interesting allusion to Huston’s film, Gregory Peck plays the role of the intense Father Mapple, who booms the sermon about Jonah and the whale. In one memorable scene, Stewart, who does not appear in the first forty-five minutes of the film, seduces a hypnotized crew into taking a blood oath, a pledge to find the whale. The whaling scenes dazzle; the white whale itself is made believable and scary with the help of well-done computer graphics.
Moby-Dick
is beautifully photographed; executive producer Francis Ford Coppola delivered a production comparable to most films released in theaters.
Literature
In the world of letters, Moby Dick has come to stand for a great many things: for some, man’s ferocious battle with nature; for others, the bestiality of human nature throbbing beneath our “civilized” skin. D. H. Lawrence and Toni Morrison have both pointed to the whale as a symbol of the white race. Most broadly, the shadow of Melville’s whale looms over every attempt in literature to tackle the subject of the sea, be it Joseph Conrad’s ambiguous adventure tales, Ernest Hemingway’s
The Old Man and the Sea
, or the more modern novels of Peter Benchley.
American poet Hart Crane shared Melville’s sense of the grand. He is best known for
The Bridge
(1930), an attempt to create a modern American epic centered around a technology-inspired metaphor. Crane was fascinated by the advances of the subway, the airplane, and especially ships. In 1932, at age thirty-two, he leapt from the
S.S. Orizaba
and drowned, somewhere off the Florida coast. The poem below—from Crane’s first collection,
White Buildings
(1926)—is reproduced here courtesy of Liveright Press.
At Melville’s Tomb
by Hart Crane
Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.
And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death’s bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.
Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.
Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides . . . High in the azure steeps,
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous shadow only the sea keeps.
COMMENTS & QUESTIONS
In this section, we aim to provide the reader with an array of perspectives on the text, as well as questions that challenge those perspectives. The commentary has been culled from sources as diverse as reviews contemporaneous with the work, letters written by the author, literary criticism of later generations, and appreciations written throughout the history of the book. Following the commentary, a series of questions seeks to filter Herman Melville’s
Moby-Dick
through a variety of points of view and bring about a richer understanding of this enduring work.