Not P but Moby-Dick (62)

[Ian Livingston]

What exactly does "Oh! that unfulfilments should follow the prophets." mean
here? What would be a more explicit paraphrase?

If their prophecies of Leviathan go unfulfilled, the prophets are then
false.

On Mon, Jan 29, 2024 at 6:14 PM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> From Chapter 81:
>
> Is this the creature of whom it was once so triumphantly said—“Canst thou
> fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish-spears? The sword of
> him that layeth at him cannot hold, the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon:
> he esteemeth iron as straw; the arrow cannot make him flee; darts are
> counted as stubble; he laugheth at the shaking of a spear!” This the
> creature? this he? Oh! that unfulfilments should follow the prophets. For
> with the strength of a thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his
> head under the mountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod’s
> fish-spears!
>
> What exactly does "Oh! that unfulfilments should follow the prophets." mean
> here? What would be a more explicit paraphrase?
> --
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>