Herman Melville quote about king from Moby-Dick - a king's head is solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad.
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a king's head is solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad.
 Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851). copy citation

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Author Herman Melville
Source Moby-Dick
Topic king coronation
Date 1851
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm

Context

“It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so called, and there may be a castor of state. How they use the salt, precisely—who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king's head is solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it be, though, that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run well, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here, concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing.” source

Meaning and analysis

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