"As ashore, the ladies often cause the most terrible duels among their rival admirers; just so with the whales, who sometimes come to deadly battle, and all for love."

Ishmael discuses the differences between the sexes of the whales.

"Owing to the density of the crowd of reposing whales, more immediately surrounding the embayed axis of the herd, no possible chance of escape was at present afforded us. We must watch for a breach in the living wall that hemmed us in; the wall that had only admitted us in order to shut us up."

The Pequod discovers a pod of whales in the pacific and go on a long hunt. Cows & calfs.

"Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never will."

We're talking about the tail of the whale.

"And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor—as you will sometimes see it—glorified by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts."

Ishmael considers the spout of the whale and its larger meaning.

"The agonized whale goes into his flurry; the tow-line is slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds his hands, and mutely watches the monster die."

Description of another weapons used to kill whales.

"Possibly, too, Jonah might have ensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on second thoughts, the Right Whale is toothless."

We're still talking about Jonah.

"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method."

A literary comparison of whaling heroes and myths.

"For all his old age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate the solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all."

The Pequod meets a German ship at the same time a whale is spotted. A hunts ensues and the whales is killed but is too heavy and sinks. The whale is old and an easy target. Cruelty is on display.