Chapter 89 - Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish Practice Quiz — Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
by Herman Melville — tap or click to flip
Practice Quiz: Chapter 89 - Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish
What are the two fundamental laws of whaling presented in Chapter 89?
I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it. II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.
What is a Fast-Fish in whaling law?
A whale connected to an occupied ship or boat by any controllable medium (mast, oar, cable, telegraph wire, or even cobweb), or one bearing a waif or other symbol of possession.
What is a Loose-Fish in whaling law?
A whale that is not attached to any ship or boat and bears no recognized symbol of possession—fair game for anyone who can catch it.
What is a waif-pole in whaling?
A pennoned pole inserted into a dead whale to mark ownership and signal prior possession.
What was the only formal whaling code ever authorized by legislation?
The code decreed by the States-General of Holland in 1695.
What does Ishmael compare the brevity of American whaling law to?
He says the laws might be engraved on a Queen Anne’s farthing or the barb of a harpoon and worn round the neck.
What does Ishmael call the informal dispute resolution among whalemen?
Hard words and harder knocks—the "Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist."
What court case does Ishmael describe in Chapter 89?
An English whale-trover case in which plaintiffs who harpooned a whale but abandoned it under peril sued to recover it from the crew that ultimately captured it.
Who was Mr. Erskine in the whale-trover case?
The defense counsel (Thomas Erskine, 1st Baron Erskine), a famous and witty British barrister.
What analogy did Erskine draw to defend his clients?
He compared the abandoned whale to an abandoned wife in a matrimonial case—both became Loose-Fish once forsaken by the original possessor.
Who was Lord Ellenborough?
The judge who presided over the whale-trover case and ruled in favor of the defendants regarding the whale.
How did Lord Ellenborough rule on the disputed property?
The boat was awarded to the plaintiffs (abandoned only to save their lives), but the whale, harpoons, and line went to the defendants (the whale was a Loose-Fish at capture).
What saying does Ishmael invoke about possession?
"Possession is half of the law"—and he argues that often possession is the whole of the law.
What examples does Ishmael give of Fast-Fish in human society?
Russian serfs, Republican slaves, a widow’s last mite, a villain’s marble mansion, Ireland to England, and Texas to the United States.
What examples does Ishmael give of Loose-Fish?
America in 1492, Poland to the Czar, Greece to the Turk, India to England, Mexico to the United States, and the Rights of Man.
Who is "John Bull" in the chapter?
A personification of England (and by extension the British Empire), described as a "redoubted harpooneer" who holds Ireland as a Fast-Fish.
Who is "Brother Jonathan" in the chapter?
A personification of the United States, described as an "apostolic lancer" who holds Texas as a Fast-Fish.
What does Ishmael say the Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish principles are?
The fundamentals of all human jurisprudence—the two props on which the Temple of the Law stands.
What does Ishmael compare the Temple of the Law to?
The Temple of the Philistines, which despite its complicated tracery of sculpture had but two props to stand on.
What question does the chapter end with?
"What are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?"—suggesting every person is both possessed and available.
What legal reference system does Ishmael compare American whaling law to?
Justinian’s Pandects (the Digest of Roman law) and the By-laws of the Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People’s Business.
What does Ishmael mean by calling the Archbishop of Savesoul’s income a Fast-Fish?
That the Archbishop’s 100,000-pound income, seized from the labor of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed workers, is a possession held by institutional power.
What does the phrase "crim. con. case" refer to in the chapter?
A "criminal conversation" case—a legal action for adultery, which Erskine used as an analogy for the whale dispute.