Quote 19
If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the Pagan’s breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, and left us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country’s phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should be. (10.7)
This is a cute little "lost in translation" moment. If someone clasps you to them and declares that you’re married, you usually don’t interpret that as meaning "best pals." So we’re forced to wonder whether Ishmael is correct, or telling the truth, when he says that "bosom friends" are all they are. It’s possible, of course, that that’s the real version of the story. It’s possible that Ishmael thinks that and Queequeg intends something else. And it’s possible that, well, they really are married—at least according to Queequeg’s customs.
Quote 20
It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both ends; fast to Queequeg’s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me down to his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed. (72.3)
Once again Ishmael and Queequeg are shown united, this time literally by a rope around both their waists! As in previous passages that tried symbolically to describe their relationship, there’s a conflation between characteristics of marriage—"for better or for worse" they are "wedded"—and characteristics of fraternity—"Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother."
Quote 21
Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say, – Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness. (94.5)
In this passage, the crude jokes about sperm give way to an actual moment of transcendence, in which Ishmael feels himself united with all the men around him in an erotic brotherhood. Dang.