The Sailor’s True Binnacle

[Notation added 11/1/2021:  The Sailor’s True Binnacle is part of the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. ]

Moby Dick, or The Whale tells, among many other things, the story of Captain Ahab and his monomaniacal pursuit of a great white sperm whale named Moby Dick.  The whale chewed off his leg some years past, and he is going to get even or die trying.  Who was Ahab?  As with almost everything else in the book, there are biblical overtones, usually Old Testament ones.

The Reign of Ahab
Kings 1: 16

And in the thirty and eighth year of Asa king of Judah began Ahab the son of Omri to reign over Israel: and Ahab the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria twenty and two years.

And Ahab the son of Omri did evil in the sight of the LORD above all that were before him. And it came to pass, as if it had been a light thing for him to walk in the sins of Jerobo’am the son of Nebat, that he took to wife Jez’ebel the daughter of Ethba’al king of the Zido’ni-ans, and went and served Ba’al, and worshipped him.

And he reared up an altar for Ba’al in the house of Ba’al, which he had built in Samaria.

Ahab married Jezebel, a foxy pagan princess from one of the neighboring non-Hebrew tribes that the Jews were always slaying and feuding with, and he was seduced into her ungodly ways.  He listened to false prophets, and imprisoned or executed the true ones, largely at the urging of Jezebel. The Lord was not pleased, and he dealt harshly with Ahab, his sons, and Jezebel, who ended up being shredded and devoured by dogs as predicted by Elijah.  Naturally, the crew of Captain Ahab’s ship, the Pequod, regarded him a bit warily.  Is he mad?  Money talks in the end:  Ahab nails a Spanish coin to the mast and gives the men a pep talk.

Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke — look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!

Being many things, the book is a meditation on death, and life, and the relationship between the two.  The entire crew dies in the pursuit of Moby, who shatters the Pequod as the whalers pursue him at the end.  Only Ishmael survives to tell the tale, quoting the bible, in this case, Job:

… and they are dead; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

In the midst of calm and peace, Melville can find chaos and terror, as in this passage about standing watch in the crow’s nest, high above the vast sea…

There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!

… and amidst chaos and carnage, he can find peace and the still point at the center of the universe, as in this passage where Ishmael describes being in the midst of a enormous pod of whales which the men are busily slaughtering – the water is remarkably clear, and looking down into it, he sees whales copulating, being born, nursed…

And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yes, serenely revelled in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.

But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm. I like that line.  Amidst the torrent of events, there is a still center.  This leads us to today’s treat for you, oh reader!  A recovered fragment from the second known text, The Sailor’s True Binnacle, in the mostly lost series, The Wine of Life, authored by the unknown thinker, Lichanos, from whom I have taken my blog nom de plume.  [N.B:  The text is not to be confused with the “sweet tract” written by Becky Sharp’s relation in Vanity Fair by Thackeray.  That one is entirely fictitious!]

A binnacle is a casing for a navigation compass which is non-magnetic, and allows the compass to move freely and to point the way.  It is mounted on gimbals so that it can remain steady and horizontal despite the tossing and rolling of the ship, and always pointed to north.  Calm center, within the storm.

Pauvre reader!  O poor lecteur!

How our Souls are all pitched and tossed about like the frailest shallop or jerry-built wherry upon the boiling waves!  What Trials we have known struggling against current and headwind, seeking only to be Sturdy Helmsmen as we pass between the Devil and the deep blue sea!

The Sailor guiding his vessel is blessed with two articles with which he may ply his rudder:  his binnacle and his compass.

[text lost]…Yet still the Gnashing, the Lamentation:  “Where is our binnacle? Where is our compass? The Answer to these soulful queries has been the quest of many great men, both Good and Evil.

[text lost]… Bewilderment, begone! … [text lost]… The mystery of the True Binnacle stands revealed.  To the compass of our minds is the Body our Binnacle, standing in its organic fleshiness impervious to the Magnetism which seeks etermally to deflect our inner Director from its true course.  Be not skeptical nor materialist, for Mind/Body are one, and through our Binnacle/Bodies are we led and do lead.  Truth once again arises from out of unity of Mind/Body, so that pleasures owing to one are not denied to the other:  they work in tandem, a mighty engine of enlightenment propelling our dynamo sense onward to that final effulgent union with the ground of all …[text lost]

Hi-ho! me buck-o’s, through our skin we will absorb the World and revel in the Universe, sailing through the placid lake of the firmament to our own Safe Haven.  Our Compass shall rock on its Gimbals of Life, and we will drink, as sailors we all are and are all wont to do, aye! we will drink the Wine of Life.

-Lichanos