tick follows tock ... I've been meaning to find this out for years. Google gives the blurb from the agency responsible:
"
Set to techno-punk rhythms of Leftfield. Since the client felt the envelope could be pushed further, a new prose was created by a literary concoction of Moby Dick with influences from Coleridge's Rime Of The Ancient Mariner. The last line was inspired by James Joyce from his novel Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Man where he goes on to talk about how man must rid himself of social trappings before he can become a true artist.
"
So everyone is right
clicky
I've read that before in various forms, and yet I disagree. I've scoured all of
Moby Dick (how ironic) looking for any of the phrases from that advert, and they just aren't there. No-one can give a chapter reference, or anything more specific than the quote you posted above.
I think the truth of the matter is it was made up by an advertiser, who claimed that it is "based on" or "inspired by"
Moby Dick to try and make it sound deeper than it actually is.
Remember kids - just because it's on the internet doesn't make it true. I once did loads of research into Victorian Nipple Piercing, because "Everyone" said that Victorian ladies pierced their nipples, and they included citations to books to back up their claims. I wondered what said jewellery looked like, so I tracked down the books, tracked back loads of references, and eventually found that all the Victorian nipple-piercing tales originated with one book which was published in the 1960s. This book had no references to any of its sources, and also claimed that
Victorian ladies had ribs surgically removed to wear smaller corsets and that Roman Centurions wore heavy woollen cloaks which they held in place by attaching them to nipple piercings. In short, it was a crock of made-up nonsense, but because it was written down and referenced with proper citations, it was a Fact.