Not P but Moby-Dick (11)

[Mark Kohut]

First, what does "To have been Belshazzar, King of Babylon" indicate? Is it
a wish, or something else entirely?

Mike, I think this can be best seen as the subjunctive case as you
translate.....

And, I think Yes those two lines beginning with "that man's"....are in
parallel....
Two aspects of presiding over one's own private table of invited guests....

Melville equalizing everyman vs a King........

On Mon, Sep 18, 2023 at 3:15 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The following excerpt is from Chapter 34:
>
> Wherefore this difference? A problem? Perhaps not. To have been Belshazzar,
> King of Babylon; and to have been Belshazzar, not haughtily but
> courteously, therein certainly must have been some touch of mundane
> grandeur. But he who in the rightly regal and intelligent spirit presides
> over his own private dinner-table of invited guests, that man’s
> unchallenged power and dominion of individual influence for the time; that
> man’s royalty of state transcends Belshazzar’s, for Belshazzar was not the
> greatest.
>
> First, what does "To have been Belshazzar, King of Babylon" indicate? Is it
> a wish, or something else entirely?
>
> Second, in the last sentence, are "that man’s unchallenged power and
> dominion of individual influence for the time" and "that man’s royalty of
> state" in parallel? Melville’s liberal use of the semicolon is confusing
> sometimes.
> --
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>