The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick? Who does not feel the irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow of a seventy-four can stand still?"

what the White Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon of the seas of life,--all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go.

"As the world of Rome’s educated elite fell apart, many writers and works of literature passed out of human memory — either to be lost forever or to be rediscovered hundreds of years later in the Renaissance."

"It last snapped during the collapse of the Western Roman Empire as the barbarian tides beat against the frontier, cities shrank and libraries burned or decayed."

It's quite obvious that he is waiting for something. his image falls by the wayside as the focus shifts to the painting of prometheus getting his eyes plucked out by a disinterested vulture.