Moby Dick Pod
Episodes
Chapter 98 - Stowing Down and Clearing Up
09 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"I sailed with thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage—and, foolish as I am, taught thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope!"We l...
Chapter 97 - The Lamp
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Had you descended from the Pequod's try-works to the Pequod's forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single momen...
Chapter 96 - The Try-Works
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first hint...
Chapter 95 - The Cassock
29 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"Immemorial to all his order, this investiture alone will adequately protect him, while employed in the peculiar functions of his office."Th...
Chapter 94 - A Squeeze of the Hand
07 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti."Squeezing sperm...
Chapter 93 - The Castaway
10 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad."Pip falls overboard, is resc...
Chapter 92 - Ambergris
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above water dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a warm p...
Chapter 91 - The Pequod Meets the Rose-Bud
07 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"His boat's crew were all in high excitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking as anxious as gold-hunters."They meet another sh...
Chapter 90 - Heads or Tails
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"But why should the King have the head, and the Queen the tail? A reason for that, ye lawyers!"In England, royalty would literally steal you...
Chapter 89 - Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish
03 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
"What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?"Fisherman's rights t...
Chapter 88 - Schools and Schoolmasters
03 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"As ashore, the ladies often cause the most terrible duels among their rival admirers; just so with the whales, who sometimes come to deadly batt...
Chapter 87 - The Grand Armada
20 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"Owing to the density of the crowd of reposing whales, more immediately surrounding the embayed axis of the herd, no possible chance of escape wa...
Chapter 86 - The Tail
30 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
"Dissect him how I may, then, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never will." We're talking about the tail of the whale.Â
Chapter 85 - The Fountain
02 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild hea...
Chapter 84 - Pitchpoling
21 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"The agonized whale goes into his flurry; the tow-line is slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds his hands, and mutely watches the ...
Chapter 83 - Jonah Historically Regarded
29 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Possibly, too, Jonah might have ensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on second thoughts, the Right Whale is toothless."We're stil...
Chapter 82 - The Honor and Glory of Whaling
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method."A literary comparison of whaling heroes and myths.Â
Chapter 81 - The Pequod Meets the Virgin
14 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"For all his old age, and his one arm, and his blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the gay bridals and other mer...
Chapter 80 - The Nut
09 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul."Ishmael ta...
Chapter 79 - The Prairie
10 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"As on your physiognomical voyage you sail round his vast head in your jolly-boat, your noble conceptions of him are never insulted by the reflec...
Chapter 78 - Cistern and Buckets
30 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"...smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber and sanctum san...
Chapter 77 - The Great Heidelburgh Tun
04 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
"Attend now, I pray you, to that marvellous and—in this particular instance—almost fatal operation whereby the Sperm Whale's great Heide...
Chapter 76 - The Battering-Ram
30 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"But clear Truth is a thing for salamander giants only to encounter; how small the chances for the provincials then?"Not gonna lie, I have n...
Chapter 75 - The Right Whale's Head—Contrasted View
27 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death."We're still talking abo...
Chapter 74 - The Sperm Whale's Head—Contrasted View
16 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited; out of sorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his jaw have relaxed.&quo...
Chapter 73 - Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk Over Him
16 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"And so flinging off its drippings, that the drops fell like bits of broken glass on the water, while the whale beyond also rose to sight, and on...
Chapter 72 - The Monkey Rope
30 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"That unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life; those sharks, your foes; those spades, your friends; and what between sharks and spades you are in a ...
Chapter 71 - The Jeroboam's Story
31 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"lo! a broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its quick, fanning motion, temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies of the oarsmen."T...
Chapter 70 - The Sphinx
27 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved amid this world's foundations."The Whale is beheaded and Ahab asks the whale ...
Chapter 69 - The Funeral
13 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Thus, while in life the great whale's body may have been a real terror to his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a w...
Chapter 68 - The Blanket
11 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be...
Chapter 67 - Cutting In
04 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"The ivory Pequod was turned into what seemed a shamble; every sailor a butcher. You would have thought we were offering up ten thousand red oxen...
Chapter 66 - The Shark Massacre
04 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"These two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up an incessant murdering of the sharks*, by striking the keen steel deep into their...
Chapter 65 - The Whale as a Dish
30 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Who is not a cannibal?"Stubb eats whale. Which may or may not be civilized. And why do we eat the things we do? And who's to say?Â
Chapter 64 - Stubb's Supper
26 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"If you have never seen that sight, then suspend your decision about the propriety of devil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil...
Chapter 63 - The Crotch
19 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in productive subjects, grow the chapters."We learn about a tool used by w...
Chapter 62 - The Dart
15 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"The vast majority of failures in the fishery, it has not by any means been so much the speed of the whale as the before described exhaustion of ...
Chapter 61 - Stubb Kills a Whale
05 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Whole Atlantics and Pacifics seemed passed as they shot on their way, till at length the whale somewhat slackened his flight."The title say...
Weekend Wrap Up #2 (Chapters 24-60)
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
What is this book anyway?Â
Chapter 60 - The Line
18 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of deat...
Chapter 59 - Squid
17 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to have seen thee, thou white ghost!"A squid is mistaken for Moby Dick.Â
Chapter 58 - Brit (feat. LaNora Hayden)
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a s...
Chapter 57 - Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in Stone; in Mountains; in Stars
15 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Thus at the North have I chased Leviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright points that first defined him to me.Ishmael talk...
Chapter 56 - Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True Pictures of Whaling Scenes
14 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
From the ship, the smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke over a village of smithies.Ishmael reviews different art and ...
Chapter 55 - Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales
11 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Wherefore, it seems to me you had best not be too fastidious in your curiosity touching this Leviathan."Ishmael tells us how everyone does ...
Chapter 54 - The Town-Ho Story (As told at the Golden Inn)
11 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"The next instant the lower jaw of the mate was stove in his head; he fell on the hatch spouting blood like a whale."In which Herman Melvill...
Chapter 53 - The Gam
08 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"In the case of pirates, say, I should like to know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory about it. It sometimes ends in uncom...
Chapter 52 - The Albatross
07 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Ahoy there! This is the Pequod, bound round the world! Tell them to address all future letters to the Pacific Ocean!"The Pequod passes anot...
Chapter 51 - The Spirit-Spout
04 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Beneath all its blue blandness, some thought there lurked a devilish charm."The crew all witness a whale spout and there's the feeling...
Chapter 50 - Ahab's Boat and Crew; Fedallah
03 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"And all men his descendants, unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of the sun and the moon why they were created...
Chapter 49 - The Hyena
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical ...
Chapter 48 - The First Lowering
02 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Devils are good fellows enough."They hunt the a pod of whales in the middle of a squall, Ahab has a secret whale-boat crew unbeknownst to t...
Chapter 47 - The Mat Maker
31 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!"The Pequod spots a whale.Â
Chapter 46 - Surmises
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools used in the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order."Ahab w...
Chapter 45 - The Affidavit
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was spilled for...
Chapter 44 - The Chart
27 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"And when, as was sometimes the case, these spiritual throes in him heaved his being up from its base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from wh...
Chapter 43 - Hark!
25 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"There is somebody down in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck"There's a mysterious noise.Â
Chapter 42 - The Whiteness of the Whale
24 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"What the White Whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he was to me, as yet remains unsaid."Ishmael talks about all things whit...
Chapter 41 - Moby Dick
21 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing."We learn of the sailor's lore surrounding Moby Dick and also of how Ahab ...
Chapter 40 - Midnight, Forcastle
20 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig it, stig it, quig it, bell-boy"The crew starts dancing, drinking, getting horny, and starting a ...
Chapter 39 - First Night Watch
18 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!"Stubb's thoughts. A true Melville-needed-an-editor chapter.
Chapter 38 - Dusk
17 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"And with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed ...
Chapter 37 - Sunset
14 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them...
Chapter 36 - The Quarter-Deck
13 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he shouted out: "Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the hor...
Chapter 35 - The Mast-head
12 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"At last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind a...
Chapter 34 - The Cabin-Table
11 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Not by beef or by bread, are giants made or nourished."The crew eats and Ishmael observes how the old seafaring traditions and power struct...
Chapter 33 - Specksnyder
10 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and featured in the unbodied air!&...
Chapter 32 - Cetology (with a brief announcement from Josh)
07 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"For we are all killers, on land and on sea; Bonapartes and Sharks included."Ishmael (or Melville) describes all the different types of whal...
Chapter 31 - Queen Mab
06 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Now, what do you think of that dream, Flask?I don't know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho'."Stubb recounts his dream to Fla...
Chapter 30 - The Pipe
05 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"How could one look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without bethinking him of the royalty it symbolized?"After discovering he ...
Chapter 29 - Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb
04 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"A hot old man! I guess he's got what some folks ashore call a conscience."Ishmael witnesses an altercation between Captain Ahab and th...
Chapter 28 - Ahab (feat. Jess Maynard)
29 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the livid brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly noted ...
Chapter 27 - Knights and Squires
28 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"They were nearly all Islanders in the Pequod, Isolatoes too, I call such, not acknowledging the common continent of men, but each Isolato living...
Chapter 26 - Knights and Squires
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"I will have no man in my boat," said Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale... an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrad...
Chapter 25 - Postscript
27 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"We whalemen supply your kings and queens with coronation stuff!"Ishmael forgot to include this chapter in the last.Â
Chapter 24 - The Advocate
26 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"But this is not the half; look again."Ishmael extolls the virtues of the whaling profession, whalers, and the wonders of far off places.Â
Weekend Wrap Up #1 (Chapters 1-23)
24 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
On our first weekend wrap up, I'll be talking about our weird, sometimes relatable narrator Ishmael. What do we know about this guy? Who is he? W...
Chapter 23 - The Lee Shore
23 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs."Ishmael is the ship, the ship is Ishmael.Â
Chapter 22 - Merry Christmas
22 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear, and turning round, was horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in the act of withdrawing his leg fro...
Chapter 21 - Going Abroad
21 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"It was nearly six o'clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn, when we drew nigh the wharf."Ishmael and Queequeg are accosted by Elija...
Chapter 20 - All Astir
20 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"If I had been downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so ...
Chapter 19 - The Prophet
19 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Morning to ye, shipmates, morning."Some old sailor on the street starts ranting about Ahab and gives Ishmael the heebie-jeebies.Â
Chapter 18 - His Mark
16 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers—it takes the shark out of 'em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who ain't pretty sharkish.&...
Chapter 17 - The Ramadan
15 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling."Ishmael returns to the inn and freaks out because he's neurotic. After tel...
Chapter 16 - The Ship
14 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Aye, I know that he was never very jolly; and I know that on the passage home, he was a little out of his mind for a spell; but it was the sharp...
Chapter 15 - Chowder
13 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"A Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones staring at me in the whalemen's chapel; and here a gallows!"Th...
Chapter 14 - Nantucket
12 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires..."Ishmael talks about Nantucket.Â
Chapter 13 - Wheelbarrow
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"That common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will per...
Chapter 12 - Biographical
09 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"It is not down in any map; true places never are."Queequeg tells Ishmael how he came to be a whaler and both promise to stick together and ...
Chapter 11 - Nightgown
07 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal."Ishmael talks about being cozy. Queequeg begins to tell the h...
Chapter 10 - A Bosom Friend
06 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world."Ishmael and Queequeg beome besties.Â
Chapter 9 - The Sermon
05 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all fronti...
Chapter 8 - The Pulpit
02 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for among al...
Chapter 7 - The Chapel
01 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope."Ishmael wanders into a ch...
Chapter 6 - The Street
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"Still New Bedford is a queer place."Ishmael tells of the strange people of New Bedford, a cross roads of the world. A rest stop of the high...
Introduction to Moby Dick Pod
31 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Who am I? Who do I think I am? What's the big idea? I can explain. Â
Chapter 5 - Breakfast
30 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing."Ishmael goes to breakfast and is fascinated by the sailors, oddly ...
Chapter 4 - The Couterpane
30 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition state—neither caterpillar nor butterfly."Ishmael wakes up and tells of a stran...
Chapter 3 - The Spouter Inn
25 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"When it comes to sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections in...
Chapter 2 - The Carpet-Bag
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
"My mind was made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a fine, boisterous something about everything connected with t...