Zaharcu Emma, italiana-engleza, gr.

1, seria 1, an 3

Moby Dick by Herman Melville Excer ts 1. Call me Ishmael. Some years ago - never mind how long precisely - having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth whenever it is a damp, dri!!ly "ovember in my soul whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it re#uires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically $noc$ing people%s hats off - then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.& '. (()ow it is I $now not but there is no place li$e a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. *an and wife, they say, there open the very bottom of their souls to each other and some old couples often lie and chat over old times till nearly morning. +hus, then, in our hearts( honeymoon, lay I and ,uee#ueg-a cosy, loving pair.(( .. ((Come, /hab(s compliments to ye come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me0 ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves1 man has ye there. Swerve me0 +he path to my fi2ed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. 3ver unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents( beds, unerringly I rush1 "aught(s an obstacle, naught(s an angle to the iron way1(( 4. ((/ll that most maddens and torments all that stirs up the lees of things all truth with malice in it all that crac$s the sinews and ca$es the brain all the subtle demonisms of life and thought all evil, to cra!y /hab, were visibly personified, and made practically assailable in *oby 5ic$. )e piled upon the whale(s white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from /dam down and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart(s shell upon it.(( 6. ((+here is a wisdom that is woe but there is a woe that is madness. /nd there is a Cats$ill eagle in some souls that can ali$e dive down into the blac$est gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. /nd even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.(( 7. ((+owards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but uncon#uering whale to the last I grapple with thee from hell(s heart I stab at thee for hate(s sa$e I spit my last breath at thee. Sin$ all coffins and all hearses to one common pool1 and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale1 +hus, I give up the spear1(( 8. ((/gain, I always go to see as a sailor, because they ma$e a point of paying me for my trouble, wheras they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of. 3n the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. /nd there is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. the act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. 9ut being paid,- what will compare with it0 +he urbane activity with 1

which a man recieves money is really marvelous, considering that we so earnestly believe moneu to be the root of earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. /h1 how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition1:. ;. :+he /lbino is as well made as other men - has not substantive deformity - and yet this mere aspect of all-prevading whiteness ma$es him more strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. Why should this be so0:

<. ((It cannot well be doubted, that the one visible #uality in the aspect of the dead which most appals the ga!er, is the marble pallor lingering there...+herefore, in his other moods symboli!e whatever grand or gracious thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its profoundest ideali!ed significance it calls up a peculiar apparition to the soul.: 1=. (( 9ut now that he had apparently made every preparation for death now that his coffin was proved a good fit, ,uee#ueg suddenly rallied soon there seemed no need of the carpenter%s bo2 and thereupon, when some e2pressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the cause of his sudden convalescence was this - at a critical moment, he had >ust recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone and therefore had changed his mind about dying? he could not die yet, he averred. +hey as$ed him, then, whether to live or die was a matter of his own sovereign will and pleasure. )e answered, certainly. In a word, it was ,uee#ueg%s conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sic$ness could not $ill him? nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort.(( !"E#$%&'# 1. Who is the narrator0 '. What $ind of relationship do ,uee#ueg and Ishmael share0 Is their friendship representative for the bound each sailor shares with his mate0 .. )ow does /hab persuade his people in his #uest for vengeance0 4. Why do the sailors aboard the @e#uod tell legends about malevolent whales0 What does the captain believe about the White Whale0 6. Is this paragraph a warning0 Aven if /hab seems insane, does his destruction seem far important than the ((soar((BingC e2istence of banal individuals0 7. 5oes /hab fail to accomplish his aim in the end0 Is vengeance meaningless0 8. What do you thin$ about Ishmael(s opinion that ((money the root to all earthly things((0 Comment on his personality. ;. Is ((*oby 5ic$(( a boo$ that promotes tolerance as a virtue0 <. What $ind of connection does Ishmael ma$e0 1=. Is the coffin an important symbol of the novel0 Why0