August 5, 2019 - Chapters Ninety-seven and Ninety-eight


The first of these two chapters is a (very) short observation that whaling ships have lamps because they trade in lamp oil. The second chapter describes how the now barreled sperm oil is stowed, how the deck is cleaned, and how the whole process inevitably starts again.

Here, I wish only to reference the allusion to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – the companions of the prophet Daniel who appear in the biblical book of the same name. They are famous in Jewish lore for refusing to worship the gods of Babylon. Here, they correspond, respectively, to spermaceti, oil, and bone from the whales. Perhaps it is only the fire of the furnace (into which the three men are thrown in Daniel) and the fire of the try-works that links the two in Melville’s mind.

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