Iceland Sailor
I don’t like your floor, maty; it’s too springy to my taste. I’m used to ice-floors. I’m sorry to throw cold water on the subje; but excuse me.
Maltese Sailor
Me too; where’s your girls? Who but a fool would take his left hand by his right, and say to himself, how d’ye do? Partners! I must have partners!
Sicilian Sailor
Aye; girls and a green!—then I’ll hop with ye; yea, turn grasshopper!
Long-Island Sailor
Well, well, ye sulkies, there’s plenty more of us. Hoe corn when you may, I say. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here comes the music; now for it!
Azore Sailor Ascending, and pitching the tambourine up the scuttle Here you are, Pip; and there’s the windlass-bitts; up you mount!
Now, boys!
e half of them dance to the tambourine; some go below; some sleep or lie among the coils of rigging. Oaths a- plenty Azore Sailor Dancing Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig it, stig it, quig it, bell-boy; Make fire-flies; break the jinglers!
Pip
Jinglers, you say?—there goes another, dropped off; I pound it so.
China Sailor
Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away; make a pagoda of thyself.
French Sailor
Merry-mad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through it! split jibs!
tear yourselves!
Tashtego Quietly smoking
at’s a white man; he calls that fun: humph! I save my sweat.
Old Manx Sailor
I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what they are dancing over. I’ll dance over your grave, I will—that’s the bitterest threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds round corners.
O Christ! to think of the green navies and the green-skulled crews! Well, well; belike the whole world’s a ball, as you scholars have it; and so ’tis right to make one ballroom of it. Dance on, lads, you’re young; I was once.
rd Nantucket Sailor
Spell oh!—whew! this is worse than pulling after whales in a calm—give us a whiff, Tash.
ey cease dancing, and gather in clusters. Meantime the sky darkens—the wind rises
Lascar Sailor
By Brahma! boys, it’ll be douse sail soon. e sky-born, high-tide Ganges turned to wind! ou showest thy black brow, Seeva!
Maltese Sailor Reclining and shaking his cap
It’s the waves—the snow’s caps turn to jig it now. ey’ll shake their tassels soon. Now would all the waves were women, then I’d go drown, and chassee with them evermore! ere’s naught so sweet on earth—heaven may not match it!—as those swift glances of warm, wild bosoms in the dance, when the over-arboring arms hide such ripe, bursting grapes.
Sicilian Sailor Reclining
Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad—fleet interlacings of the limbs—lithe swayings—coyings—flutterings! lip! heart! hip! all graze: unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye, else come satiety.
Eh, Pagan? (Nudging.)
Tahitan Sailor Reclining on a mat
Hail, holy nakedness of our dancing girls!—the Heeva-Heeva! Ah!
low veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I still rest me on thy mat, but the soft soil has slid! I saw thee woven in the wood, my mat!
green the first day i brought ye thence; now worn and wilted quite. Ah me!—not thou nor I can bear the change! How then, if so be transplanted to yon sky? Hear I the roaring streams from Pirohitee’s peak of spears, when they leap down the crags and drown the villages?—e blast! the blast! Up, spine, and meet it!
(Leaps to his feet.)
