Moby Dick

Chapter 1

"Loomings"

"Call me Ishmael", the opening line, refers to the name of a Biblical character who was the son of Abraham and a slave woman, Hagar. This had been done with the consent of his wife, Sarah, but when Sarah had her own child by her husband, Ishmael was cast out. Thus, the name Ishmael is associated with the wanderer and outcast.
 Ishmael had just decided to go to sea, which is his way of staving off depression, his "substitute for pistol and ball". He describes at length the strange attraction people have for the sea, which has persisted from ancient history on to the Manhatto (Manhattan) of Melville's days in the 1850s.
 Ishmael is quick to point out to the reader that when he goes to sea, it is as a sailor. He says that he is accostomed to the low status of the sailor, and he cares little that he is ordered about. A most important point he makes is that the sailor gets paid, wheras the passenger must pay.
 On the instance described, he had decided to go on a whaling voyage for a change; one of his chief reasons being the mighty whale himself.

---
References:
Geographical:
'Its extreme downtown is the battery': Battery Park, at the southwest end of Long Island
'Corlears Hook to Coentie Slip'
'the valley of Saco'
'marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds': The Patagonians were the South Americans

Literary and Otherwise:
'hypos': is related to emotions, depressions.
'Cato throws himself upon his sword': Cato was the hero and title character in a 1713 play by J. Addison
'belted round by wharves': a wharf is a construction built for docking boats.
'the poor poet of Tennessee'
'the story of Narcissus'
'a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics': Decocting is boiling down something to strengthen the flavor. Seneca and the Stoics are philosophers.
'the two orchard thieves': Adam and Eve
'the Pythagorean maxim'
'and, mid most of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snowdrift in the air': This seems ambiguous to me, but it might refer to Moby Dick. It might be unrelated.