Dolphins

Dolphins are marine mammals that are closely related to whales and porpoises.

Though pleased to see the dolphins play,
I mind my compass and my way.

Quotes

• [O]n the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons.
  • Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979), Chapter 23.

• No more exulting o'er the buoyant sea
  High shall I raise my head in gambols free;
  Nor by some gallant ship breathe out the air,
  Pleas'd with my own bright image figur'd there.
  The storm's black mist has forc'd me to the land,
  And laid me lifeless on this couch of sand.
  • Attributed to Anyte in the Anthologia Palatina, vii, 215, as translated by Francis Hodgson, "On a Dolphin cast ashore", in Collections from the Greek Anthology (1813), p. 117

• Round thee sport in joyous rout
    Lightly leaping, gleaming, glancing,
    Tossing in their finny dancing
  Bristly mane and flattened snout,
  Dolphins, whom the Muse enthrals—
    Playmates ’neath the briny waters
    Chasing Amphitrite’s daughters
      In the Nereids’ halls.
  • Arion, as translated by Herbert Kynaston, in E. D. Stone, ed. A Short Memoir, &c. (1912), p. 13

• Dolphins are not automatic air-breathers like we are. Every breath is a conscious effort. If life becomes too unbearable, the dolphins just take a breath and they sink to the bottom. They don't take the next breath.
  • Ric O'Barry, quoted in Christopher Riley, "The Dolphin Who Loved Me", The Guardian (8 June 2014)

• I, I wish you could swim
  Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim
  Though nothing, nothing will keep us together
  We can beat them, forever and ever
  Oh, we can be heroes just for one day.
  • David Bowie and Brian Eno, "Heroes" (1977), used as the "Tunnel song" of the film The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)

• And yet I swear by the sacred name of my creator that it was true. It was true sunshine; the true music; the true splash of the fountains from the mouth of stone dolphins.
  • Ford Madox Ford, The Good Soldier (1915), Part One, Ch. I (p. 7).

• Though pleased to see the dolphins play,
  I mind my compass and my way.
  • Matthew Green, The Spleen (1973)

• Then, cleaving the grass, gazelles appear
  (The gentler dolphins of kindlier waves).
  • Thomas Sturge Moore, "The Gazelles", line 13; from The Centaur's Booty (London: Duckworth, 1903) p. ix.

• Write by WASTE. The government will open it if you use the other. The dolphins will be mad. Love the dolphins.
  • Thomas Pynchon, The Crying of Lot 49 (1966)

• Once I sat upon a promontory,
  And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
  Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
  That the rude sea grew civil at her song.
  • William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream (c. 1595), Oberon, Act 2, scene i.

• Where, like Arion on the dolphin’s back,
  I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves
  So long as I could see.
  • William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act 1, scene i.

• I saw the porpus how he bounced and tumbled... They say they’re half fish, half flesh.
  • William Shakespeare, Pericles, Prince of Tyre (c. 1607–8), Act 2, scene i.

• When you drove the course for Divodāsa and for Bharadvāja, Aśvins, urging your steeds onward, your accompanying chariot conveyed wealth. A bull and a river dolphin were yoked to it.
  Conveying wealth with good rule and a full lifetime with good descendants and good men, Nāsatyas, you two of one mind journeyed here with the prizes of victory to the wife of Jahnu, who was setting your portion three times a day.
  • Rigveda, I, 116, 18–19, as translated by Stephanie W. Jamison and Joel P. Brereton, The Rigveda: The Earliest Poetry of India, Vol. 1 (Oxford UP, 2014), p. 270
  • Variant: Ashwins, when you came speeding on your course to Divodasa-Bharadvaja, holding you, your splendid vehicle traveled, yoked by a bull and a dolphin. Carrying wealth, dominion, progeny, life and vigor, accordant you came to the Jahnavi with strength, where your offering is made three times a day.