Depths and Heights

I had the good fortune of free time today, and from there a well spent moment was pleasantly passed within the pages of Moby Dick, which I’m slowly reading through. The thing about a great work of literature, it is not to be taken flippantly: the words are potent and dangerous, magical. Upon finishing a chapter, I excitedly called to anyone near me, and began to read aloud key passages of that overwhelming narrative I had just read.

It’s no secret how much I love the book of Ecclesiastes. This chapter is all about it. For those unfamiliar with this sometimes disparaged portion of the Bible, Ecclesiastes opens with some of the most moving poetry in history expressing to perfection the problem of meaninglessness in life.

The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.

“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher;
“Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

What profit has a man from all his labor

In which he toils under the sun?
One generation passes away, and another generation comes;
But the earth abides forever.
The sun also rises, and the sun goes down,
And hastens to the place where it arose.
The wind goes toward the south,
And turns around to the north;
The wind whirls about continually,
And comes again on its circuit.
All the rivers run into the sea,
Yet the sea is not full;
To the place from which the rivers come,
There they return again.
All things are full of labor;
Man cannot express it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
Nor the ear filled with hearing.

That which has been is what will be,
That which is done is what will be done,
And there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there anything of which it may be said,
“See, this is new”?
It has already been in ancient times before us.
There is no remembrance of former things,
Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come
By those who will come after.

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11

Melville takes that deep richness Solomon inscribed, condensing it into a wonderfully expressed conclusion.

But even Solomon, he says, “the man that wandereth out of the way of understanding shall remain” (i.e. even while living) “in the congregation of the dead.” Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And 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.

Moby Dick, Ch. 96: The Try-Works