Moby Dick or The Whale / Моби Дик или Белый кит

“Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced to proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their ship upon them.” – Schouten’s Sixth Circumnavigation.

“We set sail from the Elbe, wind N.E. in the ship called The Jonas-in-the-Whale… Some say the whale can’t open his mouth, but that is a fable… They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they can see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains… I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel of herrings in his belly… One of our harpooneers told me that he caught once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white all over.

“Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife) Anno 1652, one eighty feet in length of the whale-bone kind came in, which (as I was informed), besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight of baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of Pitferren.

“Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness.” – Richard Strafford’s Letter from the Bermudas. Phil. Trans. A.D. 1668.

“Whales in the sea God’s voice obey.” – N. E. Primer.

“We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one; than we have to the northward of us.

“…and the breath of the whale is frequently attended with such an insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain.” – Ulloa’s South America.

“To fifty chosen sylphs of special note,

We trust the important charge, the petticoat.

Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail,

Tho’ stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale.

    – Rape of the Lock.

“If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude, with those that take up their abode in the deep, we shall find they will appear contemptible in the comparison. The whale is doubtless the largest animal in creation.” – Goldsmith, Nat. Hist.

“If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make them speak like great whales.” – Goldsmith to Johnson.