#father mapple

[woozapooza]

🐳 MOBY-DICK ON SCREEN THROUGH THE YEARS 🐳

~ 1956 film (dir. John Huston) ~ ~ 1998 miniseries (dir. Franc Roddam) ~ ~ 2011 miniseries (dir. Mike Barker) ~

[one-ishmael]

Chapter 9: The Sermon

And here we are, at the climax of the most overtly religious section of Moby-Dick; or, the Whale. Now that the church itself, the pulpit, and Father Mapple have all been introduced, it’s time for the main event!

SUMMARY: Father Mapple gives a sermon on the Book of Jonah.

This chapter starts off with a little taste of the way that Mapple is going to mix in colloquial salty, sailor-ish phrases into his serious religious teachings. He calls everyone from starboard and larboard to come midships, or to gather in the middle of the church, closer to the pulpit.

“Larboard?” you may be wondering, “I thought it was port and starboard”. You would be right, even at the time this book was written, but only just. It was starboard and larboard until the 1840s, when naval captains in Britain got tired of people mishearing and going to the wrong side of the ship. They changed larboard to port, to cut down on that confusion, and the American navy followed suit a few years later. This change was probably just filtering down to merchant ships around the time Melville was writing this book, so it’s hard to blame him.

And, anyway, this book is actually set in the past, having been written by a modern, older Ishmael, so it’s not a mistake even within the fiction!

Fun fact: “Port” isn’t actually much of a change in meaning from “larboard”. It comes from Old English meaning “load board”, or the side of the boat that you load things onto, from the port. “Starboard” comes from “steer board”, or the side you steer from, using an oar, before rudders were invented.

Let’s get into this sermon! It concerns, as you could probably guess, the story of Jonah, from the relatively short Book of Jonah, of the Old Testament of the Bible. The gist of it is that Jonah is ordered by God to go tell the city of Nineveh that they’re acting terribly and God is going to destroy them, but Jonah refuses because he is afraid of what the Ninevites will do it him.

Instead, he tries to run away. This part is wonderfully embellished by Mapple, who really brings life to the sailors and captain of the ship who Jonah books passage with. He emphasizes how guilty Jonah looks, but how he tries to act as though nothing is wrong. There’s a fun bit where the captain suspects him, and so charges him triple the usual rate, and has his suspicions confirmed when Jonah doesn’t even try to haggle. But hey, money is money, so off they go.

You know how this part goes, I’m sure. A storm appears, and will not relent. The sailors cast lots for who to throw overboard to appease the storm, and Jonah gets it. He confesses then and there that he is defying God. Interestingly, the sailors don’t throw him over immediately, but still try to make it through the storm, only finally tossing him as they are on the brink of destruction. Then, the storm goes away, instantly, and Jonah gets eaten by a whale.

In the original text, it actually only says “big fish”, but that came to mean the same thing as whale in Latin, so it’s a whale. We’ll get into some Discourse on whales w/r/t their status as fish or now at a later point.

Jonah finally asks for forgiveness from God, and is spat up on a beach, and goes off to prophesize against the Ninevites.

Mapple draws two lessons from this:

First: If you sin, you have to repent. You have to apologize, and ask for forgiveness, even knowing that some horrible fate may await you. This is one of the sins that Jonah commits, he defies God and then, on the ship in the storm, refuses to repent. That is why he’s swallowed up and taken to the depths of the ocean, until he does finally admit his wrongdoing. And then, even from those same abyssal depths, God hears his plea, and has mercy upon him.

Secondly: It is important to speak truth to falsehood, especially for those who know the truth. Mapple applies this lesson to himself, rather than the congregation. Jonah was told that he was to go tell the Ninevites that they were doing evil, and would be destroyed. But he feared their reaction, and so hid himself away. He was told the truth directly by God, but couldn’t bring himself to tell others. So, it is a great sin to hide your knowledge of the truth, especially as it pertains to God and sin.

Of course, this latter lesson is built on the notion that you know what the truth is, and a major theme of this book is that that’s kind of a questionable business. Ishmael is constantly doubting that anyone can ever know the truth about anything. So this seems like a bit of a moot point, but it applies more to Ishmael’s philosophical opposite, who we have not yet met.

The sermon ends with some bog standard stuff leading off of that, about speaking truth the power and how your reward will be eternal for following the will of God, and so on. Then Mapple simply kneels down in prayer, in the high, lonely fortress of a pulpit remember, and waits there silently until everyone has left.

Something that’s hard to get across with this chapter, and you may not notice even if you read it, is that it is definitely written to be an actual oratory, a speech that you give out loud. It simply flows better if spoken aloud, preferably in a loud voice, perhaps standing or sitting in a huge armchair next to a great roaring fire. Take this passage, and notice the rhythm of it, the ebb and flow, and try saying it aloud to yourself:

Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered, self-condemning is his look, that had there been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he’s a fugitive! no baggage, not a hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag,—no friends accompany him to the wharf with their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he finds the Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo; and as he steps on board to see its Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment desist from hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger’s evil eye.

It’s just great. Honestly, this chapter may be one of the most influential on my own style of writing. I try to simply write how I would speak, most of the time. It works pretty well, keeps the energy up, gives it more of an easy, readable flow.

Oratory was a much more important thing in the 19th century, and before. Many people made their livings going around giving speeches, especially authors. In the ages before mass communication through radio, being able to give a powerful, persuasive speech in person was a very valuable skill. This kind of sermon would be very common, and in fact they were often transcribed and sold later, in printed form.

There are many themes introduced here that will come back many times. The idea of a man struggling to comprehend the will of God is a big one. We see again an idea of disregarding petty physical things in favor of actually important spiritual concerns, although from a very different angle. Mapple says that you’ll have a true, better reward if you do the right thing, and that any physical torment you suffer will be worth it, as opposed to Ishmael thinking that none of this physical stuff even matters at all, as it’s only a small part of his true existence.

This is kind of the introduction, then, of another major theme: Destroying your body in service to another. In this case, it’s in service of God, telling Jonah to go do a thing that might get him hurt, but is scary. We’re going to get some stronger, more direct versions of this once we actually get on a whaling ship.

The style of this chapter is so strikingly different from all the others, it’s definitely one of my favorites. Melville is able to really show off his gift for writing prose here. Try not to skim over it, it’s worth it to take in all that good nautical language.

Ah, that was a fun one. Lots of stuff to talk about there, and I really only scratched the surface. We’re still planting the seeds for a lot of big themes that will only come into full bloom much later in the book.

The next chapter is A Bosom Friend, and is an interesting counterpoint to this one. A bit less on the overt religious themes, and a bit more down to earth and heartwarming.

Until next time, shipmates!

Image credits, in order:

Jonah and the giant fish (1400), Jami al-tawarikh, by Rashid-al-Din Hamadani.

Jonah and the Whale (1621), by Pieter Lastman.

Jonah Cast Forth By the Whale & Jonah Preaching to the Ninevites (1866), by Gustave Dore.

[xerox-candybar]

Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands press upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and still more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come down from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit, and listen as you listen, while some one of you reads me that other and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to me, as a pilot of the living God.

I’m certain that it is much more complicated than that, but my brain refuses to read this passage as anything but a humblebrag

[mobydickmusical]

Moby Dick musical lyrics: The Sermon

- These are not official lyrics, they’re transcribed by me.

- Notes on source novel quotes for the lyrics are under the cut.

THE SERMON

Track: Prologue i 

Character: Father Mapple (solo)

Range: F3-C5 (as performed by Dawn Troupe April 9 2018)

God spoke to Jonah in his head

God spoke to Jonah in his head

Filled his heart with words of dread

And Jonah believed every word he said

God spoke to Jonah in his head

God gave Jonah a hard command

God gave Jonah a hard command

To tell everybody 'bout the bones and blood 

Buried 'neath their feet

Tell 'em they had honey in their eyes

Honey warm and sweet

Jonah didn't like that none

So Jonah started to run

We are all in the belly of the whale

Hiding in the dark from the sins that tell our tale

And the darkness will take us down

‘Less we speak truth to power

Only then will we be free

You and me, hand in hand

On a coffin drifting on the sea

Jonah on the dock slouched with sin

Jonah on the dock slouched with sin

Looking for someone to take in him

Looking for a place that God hadn't been

Jonah on the dock slouched with sin

Stumbling to the ship like a drunk

Stumbling to the ship like a drunk

He sweats his way to his purgatory bed

As the shadows spin ‘round poor Jonah's head

Stumbling to the ship like a drunk

And in torment Jonah cries

Jonah wrestles and Jonah sighs

Until at last he drowns in sleep

Dreams of death on the water

But the sky grows black

The sea turns mean

The wail and roar of the wind and the sea

The storm tries to break the ship

The men cry out "where’s this fugitive beneath us?"

They stumble and thunder the planks above poor Jonah's bed

And then they cry out to the Lord

And then they throw Jonah overboard

And the sea grows calm

Yes, we are all in the belly of the whale

Hiding in the dark from the sins that tell our tale

And the darkness will take us down

‘Less we speak truth to power

Only then will we be free

You and me hand in hand

On a coffin drifting...

Like Jonah on the darkness of the sea

Jonah on the darkness of the sea

Jonah dreamed that he could be

Anything he wanted to if he was free

Jonah on the darkness of the sea

Jaws closed around Jonah's soul

Jaws closed around Jonah's soul

As he sinks down into the belly of the whale, of the whale

As he sinks down into the darkness of the whale

And he sinks down into the belly of the whale, of the whale

And he sinks down into the darkness of the whale

SOURCE QUOTES

As is pretty clear, this song’s lyrics are less directly adapted from the source novel than the other songs previewed so far, in order to use a more specific song structure and more actively make this song about a modern audience. However, the song’s basis and its title come from Ch 9, in which Ishmael attends a sermon on Jonah and the whale. 

So, some quotes, which mostly aren’t directly adapted in the song but are pretty similar:

“As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God—never mind now what that command was, or how conveyed—which he found a hard command.”

///

“With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men, will carry him into countries where God does not reign, but only the Captains of this earth.”

///

“See ye not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee world-wide from God? Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered, self-condemning is his look, that had there been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested ere he touched a deck. How plainly he's a fugitive!”

///

“Jonah throws himself into his berth, and finds the little state-room ceiling almost resting on his forehead. The air is close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in that contracted hole, sunk, too, beneath the ship's water-line, Jonah feels the heralding presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale shall hold him in the smallest of his bowel's wards.”

///

“... as lying in his berth his tormented eyes roll round the place, and this thus far successful fugitive finds no refuge for his restless glance.”

///

“...and at last amid the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught to staunch it; so, after sore wrestlings in his berth, Jonah's prodigy of ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep.”

///

“A dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like to break. But now when the boatswain calls all hands to lighten her; when boxes, bales, and jars are clattering overboard; when the wind is shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank thunders with trampling feet right over Jonah's head; in all this raging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea, feels not the reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far rush of the mighty whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving the seas after him.”

///

“And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea; when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and the sea is still, as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth water behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into the yawning jaws awaiting him...”

///

“Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a model for repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like Jonah.”

///

“God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along "into the midst of the seas," where the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms down, and "the weeds were wrapped about his head," and all the watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet—"out of the belly of hell"—when the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones, even then...”

Also small note that the “coffin drifting on the sea” is nowhere to be found in either the title chapter or the story of Jonah in general, but is a reference to the end of the novel. (To engage the audience with where we’re heading, to connect the Jonah story to the Pequod story to the audience etc...)

[callmemoby]

Page 50 – The Sermon

Last time on Call Me Moby:

Ishmael attends Sunday morning mass in the whaling town of New Bedford, listening as Father Mapple gives a sermon about the story of Jonah and the whale:

Jonah, having disobeyed God, tried to flee Him by sailing across the Mediterranean. But a storm came up, and Jonah was tossed overboard, and a great whale came and swallowed him whole. In the whale's belly, Jonah prayed a true and faithful prayer, and was eventually delivered from both the whale and the sea by God's grace.

Here Mapple pauses, preparing to wrap up his sermon ...

Chapter 9: The Sermon

Page 50

There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over the leaves of the Book once more; and, at last, standing motionless, with closed eyes, for the moment, seemed communing with God and himself.

But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head lowly, with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he spake these words:

"Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands press upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson that Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and still more to me, for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come down from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit, and listen as you listen, while some one of you reads me that other and more awful lesson which Jonah teaches to me, as a pilot of the living God. How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true things, and bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As we have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down to living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along 'into the midst of the seas,' where the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand fathoms down, and 'the weeds were wrapped about his head,' and all the watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the reach of any plummet—'out of the belly of hell'—when the whale grounded upon the ocean's utmost bones, even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the fish; and from the shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth; and 'vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;' when the word of the Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten—his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean—Jonah did the Almighty's bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!

"This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonour! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!"

He dropped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting his face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out with a heavenly enthusiasm,—"But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top of that delight, than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the main-truck higher than the kelson is low? Delight is to him—a far, far upward, and inward delight—who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,—top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake from this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousness will be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final breath—O Father!—chiefly known to me by Thy rod—mortal or immortal, here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world's, or mine own. Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man that he should live out the lifetime of his God?"

He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face with his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people had departed, and he was left alone in the place.

Mapple versus the World

At the end of Page 49, I said I'd discuss Mapple's interpretation of the Jonah story as compared against more "canonical" readings.

Little did I know what a stupid, stupid promise I was making. Oy.

What IS Mapple's interpretation, anyway?

For Mapple, Jonah is a didactic tale, plain and simple. He IDs two major lessons:

Y'all should look to Jonah as a model for repentance: i.e., don't be clamorous for pardon, rather be grateful for punishment. (Mapple talked this to death on the previous page.)

Y'all should also do the Lord's bidding by preaching the Truth to the face of Falsehood.

The final two paragraphs of his speech above are devoted to him hammering home that second lesson with everything he's got. It's to the point that he's literally left on his knees, face in his hands when he ends it.

The congregation, probably pretty weirded out, scatters.

Now, what about those "canonical" interpretations I was talking about before?

Well, first ...

A Caveat

This may surprise you, but it turns out there's a whole lot of baloney about the Bible on the Internet.

Here are a few examples of the kinds of URLS and page titles that come up after a simple web search for the phrase "interpretation of Jonah":

bible-truth.org

You'd think Biblical truth could at least nab a .com TLD.

"Jonah and the Whale Proves You Can't Run From God"

I don't think the word "prove" means what you think it means.

soldierofchrist.hubpages.com

At least it's not Geocities?

whatchristianswanttoknow.com

"What, Christi? A Swan-Ant? To K, Now!"

godvine.com

uggggh, just ugggghhhhh

"Jonah, the Whale, and Higher Consciousness"

Surprisingly, the word "zodiac" doesn't enter the discussion until paragraph nine! After which point we start getting gems like: "The solstice was a way that the ancients symbolically represented a higher state of consciousness where time and space cease to exist and all is realized to be ONE in the eternal NOW."

Anyway, I tried to find the best info I could. But I'm no theologian, so take what I say with a grain of salt. (As you probably should with everything I say on this dumb blog.)

What I could find that wasn't obviously terrible:

Honestly, not a lot. Here's an easily digestible article that didn't seem totally nutters.[1]

The problem with everything I found is that all the interpretations rely pretty heavily on the part of the Jonah story that Mapple conveniently left out: that is to say, the whole dang second half.

So go read the rest of Jonah, if you like. It ain't long.

If you do, as an added bonus you'll learn This One Weird Trick That Will Totally Get You Back Into God's Good Graces. (Hint: You better hope you look good in sackcloth.)

I dunno what else to say. I guess I can throw some more Jonah links your way? This page offers some explanations re: the confusing parts of the story (like why Jonah got all whiny when God decided not to mercilessly slaughter hundreds of thousands of repentant sinners). And here's a scholarly article about how the book of Jonah is actually a parody. Here's an article from some Catholic bishops about how Jonah was actually kind of a sucky prophet.

Which leaves us with Mapple, where we began

Which maybe isn't the worst place in the world to be?? Dude's pretty good at the rhetoric, at any rate.

Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonour! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!

It's not the worst advice. Yank it from its religious context and suddenly it has a ring of "to thine own self be true" to it. Shakespeare put those words in the mouth of his tedious old fool, after all. Maybe Melville decided to follow suit with an old fool of his own.

But perhaps he goes too far

For me, reading the end of Mapple's sermon was like when you listen to a song on the radio and begin to nod your head to it and tap along with your feet and gradually start thinking to yourself, "Hey, this is pretty catchy"---and then you find out it's by Justin Bieber.[2]

E.g.:

Delight is to him—a far, far upward, and inward delight—who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth his own inexorable self.

Yeah! Be yourself! Stand up to THE MAN!

Delight is to him whose strong arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gone down beneath him.

Love it! Like my buddy Stan Rogers said, Turn to and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain!

Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out from under the robes of Senators and Judges.

Yeah! ... Wait, what?

Delight,—top-gallant delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his God, and is only a patriot to heaven.

Now hold on a sec there, that sounds like something a crazy zealot would---

Delight is to him, whom all the waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake from this sure Keel of the Ages.

I'm not even sure what that means?

Look, all I'm saying is this:

All I'm saying is that Mapple seems like a bit of a crazy hard-liner.

Let's cheat a bit, and remember some of what we might have picked up about Moby-Dick from other sources. How, for example, might Mapple's finale here be thematically relevant to the rest of the book? In particular, I'm thinking about a certain character who hasn't yet appeared on the page. A character who has gained a degree of notoriety in the popular culture for his crazy singleminded pursuit of an unthinking beast.

I'm talking about Ahab. Captain Ahab.

It's funny. There's a part of me that totally buys into the snake-oil Mapple's peddling: the romantic notion of the heroic loner staying true to her ideals, even as the world rages inward and ravages her apart.

But it's a fine line between that and the sort of devotion that brings out fanatics of the worst kind: religious nutjobs, racist murderers, terrorists of all stripes.

And so, then, what are we left with? Nothing more than Mapple, face in his hands, abandoned by his congregation, kneeling alone in his chapel.

Word of the Day: multitudinously (which so happens to be the manner in which I strive always to comport myself)

Ishmael's Current Mood: pooped 😓

[1]: If you do click the link, pun-sensitive individuals should be warned that you'll end up on a site with a navigation tab labeled Jewniverse.

[2]: I have very cleverly engineered this post so as to antagonize two of the touchiest groups in the world: religious fanatics and Beliebers.

[callmemoby]

Page 49 – The Sermon

Last time on Call Me Moby:

Ishmael is with his newfound friend, Queequeg, attending Sunday morning mass in the whaling town of New Bedford. They listen on as Father Mapple gives a sermon about Jonah and the whale:

Jonah, having disobeyed the command of God, hopes to flee God's reign by setting sail on a ship. Except this is God we're talking about, and He's got Jonah right in his sights. A storm comes up, and the other sailors cast lots to see who's to blame. When Jonah's name comes up, everyone turns to ask him what's up. Jonah responds...

Chapter 9: The Sermon Page 49

"'I am a Hebrew,' he cries—and then—'I fear the Lord the God of Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land!' Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well mightest thou fear the Lord God then! Straightway, he now goes on to make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating God for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his deserts,—when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him forth into the sea, for he knew that for his sake this great tempest was upon them; they mercifully turn from him, and seek by other means to save the ship. But all in vain; the indignant gale howls louder; then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the other they not unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah.

"And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea; when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and the sea is still, as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth water behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into the yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all his ivory teeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord out of the fish's belly. But observe his prayer, and learn a weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail for direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is just. He leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with this, that spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards His holy temple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to God was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance of him from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a model for repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like Jonah."

While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking, slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher, who, when describing Jonah's sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself. His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed the warring elements at work; and the thunders that rolled away from off his swarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his simple hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them.

Time again to check in with the Bible:

It's been a couple of pages since we last checked in with Bible to see how fast and loose Mapple is playing with his source material, so let's do that now.

Mapple's version:

'I am a Hebrew,' he cries—and then—'I fear the Lord the God of Heaven who hath made the sea and the dry land!'

The KJV:

And he said unto them, I am an Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, which hath made the sea and the dry land.

Verdict:

Pretty much word-for-word there. So far, so good.

Mapple's version:

Straightway, he now goes on to make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating God for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his deserts,—when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him forth into the sea, for he knew that for his sake this great tempest was upon them;

The KJV:

Then were the men exceedingly afraid, and said unto him. Why hast thou done this? For the men knew that he fled from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them. Then said they unto him, What shall we do unto thee, that the sea may be calm unto us? for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous. And he said unto them, Take me up, and cast me forth into the sea; so shall the sea be calm unto you: for I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you.

Verdict:

Mapple's fudging this one, but I'll give it to him because the KJV is pulling some pretty sloppy storytelling here, in my humble opinion.[1] In particular, the Bible casually mentions that the sailors already knew Jonah was "fleeing from the presence of the Lord"?

Jeez, talk about burying the lede. When did Jonah tell anyone that? How does that even make sense? We're supposed to believe that when Jonah boarded the boat, he was all, "Hey guys, before we get going, I just want to be up front with y'all and let you know that I've sort of disobeyed the command of my God and now I'm fleeing him ... so there's, like, a super teeny tiny chance that he might find me and get angry and call up a big storm and kill us all. But seriously guys, it's probably not a big deal."

That's the Bible. Whereas Mapple just deletes this whole aside in his version of the tale.

Why? Because he's a canny storyteller.

Now I'm beginning to see why Mapple made all those changes to the beginning of the Jonah story. Remember how the Bible told us absolutely nothing about how Jonah boarded the ship? Whereas Mapple went into tremendous detail about how Jonah was acting all surreptitious and suspicious when he got on the boat? Turns out, Mapple's version makes for better story. It's got suspense! Tension! Stakes! Will Jonah be found out? What will the sailors do if they find out he's a liar?

The Biblical version's got none of that. And it can't, because apparently Jonah wasn't being secretive at all when he boarded the ship. For some reason.

All I can say is, Thank you, Herman Melville, for fixing the Bible.

Mapple's version:

they mercifully turn from him, and seek by other means to save the ship. But all in vain; the indignant gale howls louder; then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the other they not unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah. And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea; when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and the sea is still, as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth water behind.

The KJV:

Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased.” Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him.

Verdict:

I actually think that Mapple's version here is a bit shorter than the Bible's. Good work tightening it up, Mapple!

The main difference between versions is that Mapple focuses more on Jonah getting tossed into the sea, while the Bible takes painstaking care to make sure you know that the sailors on the ship did everything they could to not throw Jonah into the ocean, because they were super chill guys, really they were, don't even joke about it, and anyway they totally talked to God about it afterwards and double- and triple-checked just to make sure it was all totally kosher.

In fairness to the Bible, it really is important to know that the sailors were acting in accordance with His will, not just being jerks. Jonah's punishment is fair and just and levied by God Himself; throwing the sailors' interest in self-preservation into the mix makes this essentially didactic tale unnecessarily murky.

Mapple's version:

He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into the yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all his ivory teeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison.

The KJV:

Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

Verdict:

Mapple's back to his wordy ways. However, he did leave out the bit about Jonah being in the belly of the fish for three days and nights. Which is interesting. Because I seem to remember that there was some other Biblical figure who was also out of commission for three days and three nights ...

Aw jeez, who the heck was it? Christ, I can't believe I don't friggin' remember.

Well, let's crack open our New Testament to figure it out. Matthew 12:40 points out:

For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.

Ah, right: that Jesus guy.

If you approach the Book of Jonah as a text prophesying the coming of Christ, Father Mapple omitted what is perhaps its most important detail. But Mapple (a.k.a. Melville) isn't too interested in prophesying Christ.

He doesn't want the smooth, crisp taste of the New Testament; he wants the gnarly crunch of the Old one. He's talking about Retribution. He's talking about Supplication.

Let's finish up by talking about Jonah's prayer

The prayer that Mapple refers to here is actually the hymn we read at the beginning of this chapter. That one's a translation into meter, since it's a hymn being sung by the congregation. The KJV translation is more prosaic, literally.

**[Note: The above paragraph is totally a lie! I'm a big old liar! The hymn is adapted from a psalm, as explained in this Wikipedia article.]

Mapple editorializes a lot on Jonah's prayer here, giving us some insight into what he thinks the point of the story is. I'll save my own discussion on that for next time, when we wrap up Mapple's sermon, and see how his exegesis compares with more canonical readings of the Jonah story.

Wording of the Day: not unreluctantly (example: "I ate the gallon of ice cream not unreluctantly.")

Ishmael's Current Mood: Chewed up 🐋

[1]: OK, I'm pretty sure that casually tossing off a storytelling critique of the Bible is basically the opposite of a humble opinion, but whatever.

[callmemoby]

Page 48 – The Sermon

Hey folks! I'm trying out a new thing for the blog. I'll still start each post with a summary of what's been happening in the book so far, but now I'm going to follow that up with the full text of the page I'll be analyzing for that day.

My hope is that you'll be able to enjoy Melville's prose all on your own, before getting bombarded with my gadfly commentary. This format will, I hope, allow my posts to be a little more free-wheeling, a little less confined by the strictures of line-by-line commentary.

Last time, on Moby-Dick Z:

Ishmael is with his newfound friend, Queequeg, attending Sunday morning mass in the whaling town of New Bedford. They listen on as Father Mapple gives a sermon about Jonah and the whale:

Jonah, having disobeyed the command of God, sets sail on a ship heading to the city of Tarshish in the western Mediterranean, where he hopes to flee God's reign. Despite Jonah's suspicious demeanor, the ship's captain allows him on board. Jonah, haunted by presentiments of disaster, falls into a tumultuous sleep. Finally, the ship sets sail...

Chapter 9: The Sermon Page 48

"And now the time of tide has come; the ship casts off her cables; and from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all careening, glides to sea. That ship, my friends, was the first of recorded smugglers! the contraband was Jonah. But the sea rebels; he will not bear the wicked burden. A dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like to break. But now when the boatswain calls all hands to lighten her; when boxes, bales, and jars are clattering overboard; when the wind is shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank thunders with trampling feet right over Jonah's head; in all this raging tumult, Jonah sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea, feels not the reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far rush of the mighty whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving the seas after him. Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship—a berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast asleep. But the frightened master comes to him, and shrieks in his dead ear, 'What meanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!' Startled from his lethargy by that direful cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, and stumbling to the deck, grasps a shroud, to look out upon the sea. But at that moment he is sprung upon by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after wave thus leaps into the ship, and finding no speedy vent runs roaring fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning while yet afloat. And ever, as the white moon shows her affrighted face from the steep gullies in the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing bowsprit pointing high upward, but soon beat downward again towards the tormented deep.

"Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his cringing attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The sailors mark him; more and more certain grow their suspicions of him, and at last, fully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to high Heaven, they fall to casting lots, to see for whose cause this great tempest was upon them. The lot is Jonah's; that discovered, then how furiously they mob him with their questions. 'What is thine occupation? Whence comest thou? Thy country? What people?' But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior of poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is, and where from; whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions, but likewise another answer to a question not put by them, but the unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God that is upon him.

In case you didn't catch what was happening: Greg's Version

There was a big storm. It didn't wake Jonah up. So the captain came down and literally shrieked in his ear. Well, that woke the sucker up.

Jonah went up top, where the storm was raging. It was super bad, you guys! We're talking yelling sailors, clattering boxes, and water billowing over the bulwarks in the manner of panthers.

Panthers!

Imagine getting attacked by a panther. Now imagine you're getting attacked by a panther on a boat, and the panther is made of water---a water panther! Now multiply the number of water panthers by, like, a hundred. (I'm guessing here.) That's a lot of water panthers.

So: there's a literally Biblical storm raging all around. And what does the crew do? They draw lots to see whose dang fault this storm is.

Let's step back and consider this for a second.

These sailors are in a storm. They're literally drowning in all the water that's coming overboard. There's an angry whale out there that, although they don't explicitly know about it, is being aggressively foreshadowed. And their number one priority is to smash open the case labeled EMERGENCY STRAWS and start drawing lots?

Is this really standard maritime procedure?

What's extra infuriating here is that God totally plays along with their stupid, petty game. What the heck, God? Sure, teach Jonah his lesson---he totally deserves to get dumped on, why not?---while totally ignoring these sailors who are so petty that they'd rather play the blame game than save their own friggin' ship.

Anyway

They cast the lots, and God's not being coy about his intentions this time. This is the Old Testament, my friends; none of this "mysterious ways" baloney. God points the finger squarely at Jonah's quavering, besoaked head.

The sailors, convinced that the stereotypically stochastic process of drawing lots has in this particular scenario revealed heretofore recondite information as to the cause of the present raging storm, square themselves up against Jonah, and, in dread profile against Zeus's flashing anger, drenched by feline waves, they screaming over the howling winds:

"What friggin' gives, man?"

And Jonah, he opens his mouth and says ...

He says ...

Well, we'll find out what he says next time.

Incidentally

Check out this punctuational innovation:

That ship, my friends, was the first of recorded smugglers! the contraband was Jonah.

The "the" after the exclamation point isn't capitalized. Is that a typo, or what? The exclamation point could be functioning as a kind of exclamatory semicolon. That would be cool. We could call it an exclamacolon!

Wakey wakey, eggs and bakey

Next time I need to wake someone up, I'm definitely going with:

"What meanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!"

It beats collecting an octet of legendary weapons and playing them atop a mountain.

Word of the Day: God-fugitive. Try using this one next time you find yourself in a rap battle, maybe.

Ishmael's Current Mood: Sturm und Drang 🌊

[callmemoby]

A Recap

Hello, folks! It's been a while, but now that it's summer and my schooly obligations are ostensibly fewer in number (if not scope), I'm able once more to sail with you and Ishmael and Queequeg to explore the watery part of the---

What's that? We haven't gotten to the sailing part yet?

Well, I'm sure once we get ourselves settled again in our cabins aboard the Pequod, we'll be ready to continue on our adven---

We haven't seen the Pequod. Really?

OK, but I'm sure Captain Ahab will get---

We're FORTY-SEVEN PAGES into this stupid thing. That's, like, 10% of the FRIGGIN' BOOK. You're telling me that we still haven't met CAPTAIN FREAKING AHAB?

*sigh*

OK, so here's what we got so far---

Ishmael:

is a dude.

may be kind of crazy, whatever.

wants to go out and kill some whales cuz why not???

knows Nantucket's definitely the place to go if you want to kill some whales.

goes to New Bedford (which isn't Nantucket).

Ishmael gets a room at the Spouter-Inn, where he ends up rooming with ...

Queequeg:

is also dude.

is from the South Pacific.

keeps getting called a "savage" and "cannibal" by Ishmael, which is super duper racist and terrible but I guess we're going to not say anything because it's happening in ye olde times???

has a lot of tattoos and a nifty tomahawk/pipe thing and a small idol he carries around all the time and SHAVES WITH HIS HARPOON.

is super duper cool and everyone wants to be like him.

A boat's coming tomorrow to take these gues to Nantucket, where they can finally get started on this dang adventure.

But before any of that can happen, we have to deal with the fact that today is Sunday, which means we're at boring church. Fortunately, Father Mapple is a hoot, preaching fire and brimstone and a whole lot of other surely-not-at-all-thematically-resonant stuff.

We left off in the middle of Father Mapple telling us the biblical story of Jonah. Which, what thematic relevance that could have in a novel about a whale, I have no idea.

See you next week, when we finally get on with this adventure.