SPEAKER_02 0:07

Sacred to the memory of John Talbot, who at the age of 18 was lost overboard near the Isle of Desolation off Patagonia on November 1st, 1836. This tablet is erected to his memory by a sister.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Sacred to the memory of Robert Long, Willis Ellery, Nathan Coleman, Walter Canney, Seth Macy, and Samuel Gleag, forming one of the boat's crews of the ship Eliza, who were towed out of sight by a whale on the offshore ground in the Pacific, December 31, 1839. This marble is here placed by their surviving shipmates.

SPEAKER_01 1:00

This tablet is erected to his memory by his widow.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Today we're talking about the chapel, and rereading this, this is a gorgeous chapter. The prose is gorgeous, it's a fascinating chapter, it's a very deep chapter, and we're very excited to talk about it. And Meg, do you mind giving us a brief uh what's going on here? Like uh not that much is going on here, but what's happening in this chapter?

SPEAKER_00 1:40

We're in a we're in a slew of not much going on, and yet there's so much happening, you know? So in this chapter, um Ishmael is walking out of a cold rain into the local chapel, just getting ready for service. Um I'm not sure which flavor of Protestant everyone is. Uh, we can look that up later, uh, but they certainly are. Uh the walls are lined in um cenotaphs for some local lost whalers. Um these are like, they're like grave markers. They have the same information of like the name and and the the date death, but they do not mark actual grave sites. They don't actually mark that the remains are here, they're just like a memorial. They're for people whose bodies were not recovered. Um Ishmael reflects that you're lucky uh if your grave contains your body, that that's sort of a luxury not afforded by everyone. But he also thinks about kind of the flawed way that people might think about their souls, or to sort of think about um your true self while on earth, and that the body is not the true self, and this thought kind of cheers him or the present him at least to think that death in this context is sort of a promotion.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

There's a lot to talk about here. One, um, Herman Melville himself visited like the chapel that this is based on. So there's a in New Bedford, there's the Siemens Bethel, um, which is like a real structure you can visit today. Um, you can get married there, which is uh such a pleasant thought in my mind. Uh, although I'm already married, uh, but maybe one of neither you are married. That I I'm assuming. No, yeah. Uh opportunity for a venue if the the occasion ever presents itself.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Um write in at pquadpod at gmail.com if you have been married at the Siemens Bethel Church.

SPEAKER_02 3:44

Yeah. Um but yeah, so uh this is a real place that uh Herman Melville went to and prayed to before or like prayed in, uh like attended the service in uh before going on his whaling voyage on the akushnet. Um and so like this is like a real place that's like in uh in his mind as he's writing this chapter. Um Johnny, what are some of the things you find interesting about this chapter?

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Something that Meg's wonderful uh summary uh gives a real strong sense of is the way in which this chapter thematizes absence, which is something that has been on my mind an awful lot since talking to Steve Mentz recently and his book Sailing Without Ahab. The fact that he chooses to place a huge monumental, no pan intended, absence right at the centre of his book. And that's something that uh Melville is placing front and centre here. It's a chapter that is in many, many ways about memorial practices, but also what happens when wrinkles in the commemorative process occur. I'm thinking mostly of the fact uh of well what happens when a a dead body is absent. How do we commemorate? Um you absolutely have uh uh make pointed out that what we're looking at in this chapter are cenotaphs. Cenotaph, which comes from the uh the ancient Greek kenos meaning empty, uh and taphos meaning tomb. So we're looking at a chapter that is that is exploring emptiness in several different ways. Uh uh. Um empty tombs, um, but also kind of the emptinesses, the voids that are opened up uh potentially within the people who are in the space, potentially also Ishmael. So I think the way in which this chapter, and I don't mean this to sound litice contrarian, is is talking about what's not there. I think is really, really interesting. And I think the way that the writing takes a really fascinating shift is very, very reflective of that over the course of the chapter, and I'm sure we'll get on to talking about several different examples of that.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yes, it's interesting how it ends. I don't want to say, sorry, in um an optimistic tone. This is another place where we can clearly see the present, the storytelling Ishmael, different from past Ishmael, who's walking into the chapel out of the cold and into this, like again, very funereal um space. He's saying like people still, you know, one would imagine if this is they go here every Sunday, they would perhaps not every time feel the same amount of despair. Um, but in any case, Melville has Ishmael say that the place feels sad. So presumably that Ishmael is in a somber mood, even though he does notice that Kuiqueg, his best friend, gives him like a thumbs up and like come sit by me. Um still that Ishmael is sort of like somberly noting and and gives his best recollection of what the cenotaphs say. But then present Ishmael goes on this sort of three-paragraph thing at the end where he's talking about, but do we need to be sad if we can't find the body, if the body wasn't the point this whole time? So it's interesting that we start with such um such a sure sense of place that we're getting at least his best recollection of what the cenotaph said, but we end in such a like philosophical um talking about you know spirits and souls as as the um the direction of the chapter is kind of strange, although it fits a pattern that we have been trained to expect and we'll certainly see more.

SPEAKER_02 7:28

Yeah, yeah, no, so you you bring up an interesting point. I think it's very interesting that Kuiqueg is present, and like I'm almost like so much of this for me reads like you're totally right. There's kind of like a mixing of uh at the time Ishmael and present-day Ishmael. And like uh, I feel like uh, you know, like the Ishmael that's telling the story, like is such an important presence in this chapter in like thinking about everything that happens following this, and like thinking about spoiler alert here, there's gonna be spoilers in this episode because there's not really any way to talk about this without like uh giving that sort of proviso, but like thinking about how uh present day so like either the Ishmael that's telling the story is like thinking about all the people that are in this story with him who are going to die and be like lost to the sea, especially Kuiqueg. And I'm almost like uh I'm curious if like Quequeg's actually there in like the Ishmael that this is happening to, or Ishmael that is recounting this is like kind of placing him in this chapel as he's thinking about like the fact that he has no way like he has like a in my mind, Quequeg is like the big person who has like suffers this fate, right? And like is the the most important person in Ishmael's life to be lost in the sea forever to Ishmael.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

And like that's a really interesting thought. So the what the idea being that he's kind of written Quequeg into his memory of this moment.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Yeah, and I think like otherwise, like really That's fascinating. I would say there's no it doesn't make a ton of sense to me for Quequeg to be there except for like Melville, like writing this to juxtapose him as a character with like uh this uh philosophic like a philosophizing about absence and death, and like especially death when you have no like I to me when Ishmael is saying, Oh, ye who's dead lie buried beneath the green grass, who's standing among flowers can say, Here, here lies my beloved. Ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. He's saying bosoms like these, but I think he's really meaning like bosoms like my bosom, right? Yeah. And having lost Quequeg to this exact I think that's why there's that that this charge to this chapter.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

I think you're right. I mean, it is a very curious choice to place him there, and it also feels very, very strange that he makes this bizarre assumption about why Quequeg spots him coming in. So if I quote the moment where he clocks Quequeg, this savage was the only person present who seemed to notice my entrance, because he was the only one who could not read, and therefore was not reading those frigid inscriptions on the wall. That's a really strange assumption to make. Surely he notices Ishmael's entrance, more likely because they spent the night spooning. And oh, it's that guy who I slept next to last night. Not oh, I can't read what else is there to do. I'll look at who's coming in and who's going. And so it does make that presence really, really conspicuous. There doesn't seem to be any reason for realistic reason for Kuiqueg to be there, certainly that Ishmael can spot.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

We do, um, in a couple chapters, we will see contrasting with the sermon we're gonna read in a few pages. We go back to the inn and Ishmael is gonna watch Kuiqueg's what he calls his Ramadan. So we might also be setting up a moment where Kuiqueg was watching the Christian service, maybe knowing that he's about to go do his own and just wants to sit in on it. Maybe he hasn't seen it.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Yeah. Yeah. In the same way that yeah, you're right, Megan, the same way that Ishmael does in a couple of changes.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Because he doesn't understand what's going on there, but he still like witnesses it quasi respectfully. Yeah. And Kuiquag, I think, leaves early. I could be we're getting a little ahead of ourselves. But um I think what we're what we will see over the course of like the next 30 pages or whatever is Quequeg is sitting in on some of this service, and then Ishmael is gonna sit in on his service later.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

So we're getting kind of a that's a lovely parallel to spot. Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Starting from the beginning, right? So um we we get this uh uh first two sentences. So in the same New Bedford, there stands a whaleman's chapel, and few are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I did not. Do y'all clock like uh a passing allusion to our uh other most important character?

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Moody Ahab.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Yeah, Moody, yeah, our Moody fisherman Ahab uh is one of those few who does not attend the service.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

Um Moby Dick is also not there.

SPEAKER_02 12:20

That's true.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Be it noted. Yes, I think Ahab, um, much like myself and many other people who were ferried to church um on every one of their two days off, knew you can buy a couple more hours of sleep if you just skip church. And church is the same. So do you really need to always go? I think, you know, maybe there's not much more to it than that. But yes, I agree that we are. He's saying almost never, almost nobody skips it, but um, yeah, we're we're setting up someone who absolutely did skip it.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Yeah, okay. Um so and then we have uh each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable. Um this the chaplain had not yet arrived, and there these silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets uh with black borders masoned into the wall on either side of the pulpit. Um I think this like idea of like grief as this incommunicable thing is like an interesting thing for uh like to be kind of set up in this chapter, and for like the the these people who basically have like experienced the same sort of thing to exhibit. What do you all think about uh that aspect of uh this congregation?

SPEAKER_01 13:37

I think it's a very audible silence, and I think it's one that does invite that kind of interpretation, Tristan. I think it's very, very interesting also that they're described as silent islands of men and women, connecting us back to this idea that humans are inherently landbound creatures. Um, potentially also a link to this idea that no man is an island. Yeah, yeah. Um we might want to connect that to the idea of okay, well, humans are also they're they're landbound creatures, they're also presume I I would think in Melville's understanding, though we think about it rather differently now, creatures to whom mourning practices are unique. Though I'd be interested to see to know whether Melville had sort of how sort of much currency the idea of sort of other mammal mourning practices like among apes and among elephants were that during during Melville's life, I would imagine not very prevalent.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

Possibly elephants. I feel like the idea of the elephant graveyard is one that like possibly has like a longer history. But I don't know. I'll do some degree.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

I do think also the um silent, incommunicable people sitting around um also harkens back to the silent incommunicable breakfast, where Shmaya thought it was strange that they weren't talking to each other. So it could just be that people in New Bedford at the time were just kind of of a of this sort where we didn't really talk to each other. I think they must be Presbyterians. I don't know much about that lifestyle, but maybe they're a maybe they're a quiet people.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

They keep their business to themselves.

SPEAKER_02 15:13

So I don't I'm trying to see about the specific uh uh New Bedford Siemens Bethel. So there's a a couple of things, and we'll get to this more in our following episode episode on the pulpit. Um, but a lot of times these like Siemens Bethel seem to have been like kind of multi-demominational projects. At least the one in Boston wasn't specifically of a specific denomination. And the one in Boston's also relevant for because they have a lot of Quakers too.

SPEAKER_00 15:40

I think Ishmael at some point says that he's Presbyterian, but I think it yeah, it would make sense if to be kind of just non-denominational Christian. But everyone sort of is working out of the same holy text and kind of were brought up more or less the same. Um so at the one hand it's universal, but it's it's also not universal, as we know, because Quequeg is there. But yeah, I think, yeah, I think for me, the idea that they are sitting there not talking to each other is almost less that they're in a church. Although I again I I understand that that's what we're supposed to be thinking about as we immediately go into the CNA task, but I think it just seems to be like that. These are a people who at certain times of day the etiquette is to be quiet.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

Yeah. Um one of our really great interviews that will be coming out in a couple uh weeks' time from this one, we did with uh uh Dr. Jonathan Cook, who wrote Inscrutable Malice. And like one of the things we'll talk about there is like uh the how important the book of Job is to Moby Dick as a project. And like it's just now occurring to me as we were talking about like the silence of this grief. Um, so uh I've I pulled it up in the King James Version of the Bible. So Job chapter 20, or excuse me, Job chapter 2, verse 13. So this is after uh all of uh Job's family, besides his wife, are kind of killed uh in this uh wager between God and the uh Satan. Um and his uh friends come to like comfort him. And so it says, so they sat down with him upon the ground seven days and seven nights, and none spake a word unto him, for they saw that his grief was very great, uh, which I think is like uh is interesting, like uh um with Job being such an important presence here, and then like its relationship to like what one does when one is like comforting somebody in grief. In this case, it's just to kind of sit in silence with the person, and like uh really like when it comes to those friends of his that like come and visit him, uh it seems like uh one of whom is Bill Dad, by the way, uh who we'll uh meet in Moby Dick later. Um, like when they actually start opening their mouths and talking to Job, uh it's not great, it's not that helpful. It seems like the most useful thing that they did was just kind of sit with him in silence. Yeah, so we get that, and then we get to these uh cenotaphs. Um, and we read them for our dramatic reading in the beginning, but um, they're also very interesting, and uh I think it's interesting that um they're given to us with the the preceding sentence. Three of them ran something like the following, but I do not pretend to quote, but then we get like kind of very specific language used, and like uh it seems like this is like uh quoted material, and I think the ambiguity there is interesting. Do you have thoughts on the scene of tasks, Johnny?

SPEAKER_01 18:29

I certainly do. Uh yes, I'm really, really interested in the way that what you've just quoted there, Tristan, fits into what we've been saying about okay, he's claim in certain instances he's claiming authority uh and he's underscoring the veracity of what he's writing. But then he will in the next breath he will he will undermine that slightly and kind of what that does to our relationship with the truth values of the text of Moby Dick, and sometimes we're expected to take it as historical fact and immutable truth, and other times we're supposed to almost think of it as the complete opposite of that. Um because yeah, then we get into these very, very specific accounts of three different deaths. I think certainly something that interests me, bearing in mind what we've been saying about the way that these cenotaphs challenge the process of mourning and they problematize the kind of commemorative um practices of what we might think of a more of a more conventional burial, at the very least in the Christian sense, is the fact that two out of three of them actually don't even confirm that the people have died. Uh we get John Tolbert, who at the age of 18 was lost overboard, and then we get uh Long, Ellery Coleman, Canny, Macy, and Cli and Gleague, uh who were towed out of sight by a whale, and then we get Hardy, who was killed by a sperm whale. So not only in two out of three cases do we not get the closure of the return of a body, we don't even get the cause of death directly confirmed. We must that they are missing presumed dead. Right. But they do the the people who are mourning this this this roster of people don't even have the the closure of knowing the actual cause of death, or indeed if there even was one.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Again, we're into it that we're we're into one of those wonderful kind of Melville liminal spaces where, well, it's almost sort of Schrdinger's semen. These people could be alive, they could be dead.

SPEAKER_02 20:25

Yeah, and especially at this point in time, how are you supposed to know? Like, how do you know if they're not like uh just off on some island or something now or just having a lot of things? Precisely. What what about you, Meg? What do you get? Uh what's what's your interpretation of these scenotaps?

SPEAKER_00 20:38

What new to say uh after I yeah, I love what what everything that Johnny said. The only thing I could say um is that the the combined, presumably causes of death um of of these of these three clusters, um all within uh decent um years of each other. Presumably they might have known each other. Uh that the cluster causes of death are very interesting foreshadow, foreshadowing, I don't know, sparks of light perhaps to keep in mind as the novel unfolds. Yeah. Certainly. Um I I I appreciate that they seem incredibly um I I buy that all of these things could happen. Like they don't seem to be spectacular in the sense that they need to be commemorated because it was something like none of them were like like a mutiny death or or like disease that they're all by the act the activities of of whaling. Um but also, yeah, what is it? Uh lost overboard, towed out of sight, and straight up killed by a whale, which I guess means some they literally saw it happen, which sounds gory. Um but yeah, I think those are things to keep pinned on your corkboard as events unfold.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Yeah, yep, yep. Um I kind of like the idea of uh turning some of these into some like headstones. Uh to decorate my yard with uh for Halloween as it approaches. Uh they kind of have like a haunted mansion quality to them. I like uh uh so John Talbot uh lost overboard near the Isle of Desolation is an interesting detail.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Um incidentally, which which Herschel Parker's notes tell me is an uninhabited Chilean island off the tip of South America. It's interesting in a in a uh chapter that actually uses the word placelessly. We are looking at a uh we we get a mention of a place that is uninhabited, that is unpeopled. Again, in the and in the even wider context of a chapter that is about the loss of human individuals. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yeah, they do their best on the offshore ground in the Pacific. It's sort of it's you know, it's well it is what it is, which is that it's sad, but that you know their shipmates did their best to record this was the day, fix our place in space, presumably finished their job and then for a very long time had to come back and then and then put their money together to put the marble up.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

Yeah. Um so I I'm taking a look into like what significance like specifically the ship being Eliza might be. So Elisa is related to Elisha in the Bible, and apparently there was a miracle done at the gr like uh the the grave of Elisha, where uh a body was placed in Elisha's grave, and as soon as the body touched Elisha's remains, the man revived and stood up on his feet. So that possibly might be why we get the specific uh ship name.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah, especially all the given the the various different sort of forms of and we we this was mentioned in the in the interview with Steve, the kind of resurrectional qualities that are that are ascribed to the practice of whaling, actually, in in many, many chapters time. Um so if if this is a really early indication of actress, and I think that's amazing. Yeah, that's a really, really good spot.

SPEAKER_02 23:58

Yeah. Okay, so we got Isle of Desolation, we've got uh the ship Eliza, and then we get the the coast of Japan, which I think is our like the most uh on maybe maybe on the nose, a little bit like uh a bit of foreshadowing for the rest of the book. Um and yeah, so we we talked a second ago about like uh like burial as like a um uh a funereal practice, and I think it's like a very interesting one to think about in the context of whaling in the context of this specific chapter. Um so what do y'all like know about burial? Or like what do y'all uh uh find interesting about it if you find anything interesting.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

What do I know about burial? I do it every day. I don't know. I don't know. What do you mean why do we know about burial?

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Make doesn't have free time, it's our own business. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:46

I'm movies. There's a pretty decent uh like craft brewery in North Carolina called Burial that uh back in the day was uh had had my favorite IPA back when people drank IPAs. Uh but maybe like a separate question. Like, do y'all want to be buried? Does that sound uh appealing to y'all? Have y'all thought about uh your own funereal practice of uh choice? To me, like burial sounds I I there's like a loathing to it. Uh I think like uh uh I hope none of my worst enemies listen to this podcast. Because like I would say the idea of being buried alive is like the most frightening thing I can think of.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

Um, it's it's a really, really horrible one.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Um when uh so yeah, like to me, like I don't think I can think of like a worse way to die than that one. Like, so if any of my enemies are listening, that's number one. I prefer not uh that one. When I was uh in uh Michoacan, Mexico, back when I was in grad school, um, I actually so like Michoacan, a very beautiful uh part of Mexico. Um, but like it's definitely a place that you should be very careful like when you're visiting, because like there's a lot of cartel activity. And I actually uh uh had a uh a very uh ominous interaction with kind of like a two-bit cartel guy um who uh like uh to sort of kind of obliquely threaten me and like kind of obliquely intimidate me had mentioned that uh he and his buddies had buried somebody alive that week. And that like was just a uh like a very chilling interaction. Um so like to me, like burial sounds absolutely horrible, and like I I would prefer like pretty much any of the other options for like uh the disposal of my mortal remains than that one. Um but it's it's it's like a absolutely crucial and like also kind of distinctive to Christianity, um in a way that I think is interesting. Um yeah, you have a thought. It it sounds like Johnny.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Well, I I know I I I share your anxieties about that, I think, Tristan. Um yeah, I d I don't know. I sort of maybe I'm in a minority. I sort of think being buried at sea wouldn't be too bad. I'd like I like the idea of my body going back into an ecosystem more quickly rather than uh being put in a box for ages and ages and ages and then and then only eventually. Um or or you know, turned into sort of something that will nourish a tree or something like that. I like the idea of going sort of be being sort of um placed back into nature in the most direct way possible and the most helpful way possible, whatever that might be.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

Yeah, I agree. I think bury that sea doesn't like bury that sea is much better in my mind than being buried like uh six feet under the ground. Do you have thoughts on this, Meg?

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Do you have a uh preferred the ground needs things too? There are critters in there. You can also um donate your body to science, and they could put you in like a forensic field so they can learn about how what happens to bodies under certain circumstances, you could be of use that way.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

Oh yes. What would I what would I want to help testing? What do I want to do?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

Who do you want to help in the next thing? I think um I'm certainly an organ donor, and I don't mind the idea of um decaying. I would definitely not want to be embalmed, I don't see much point in that. Uh some sort of wooden box that would sort of quickly return to the earth sounds sounds fine with me. Okay. I think it's interesting that you are still, Tristan, that in so so close to the the front of your mind is the fear of being buried alive. That that sounds like of such a past time. I don't know if you could really be um I I don't know how what's what's the word for like a fear when it's unfounded? Unreasonable unreasonable? There's a phrase that is escapes me at the moment, but I I I don't know if in the present time, unless as you are saying, there's like criminal activity involved, that you could really be buried alive. Although it was a huge, of course, as we know, a a huge fear and especially amongst um the Victorians, etc., to the extent that they made those wonderful, like they'd have like bells you could pull inside the crypts just in case it happened to you. Um we all watched um whatever Ryan Johnson's last movie was. Yeah, so uh certainly a a thematic, a thematic fear to have, a very literary fear to have. Yeah. Maybe more so than something that's actually gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 29:18

I think it's like in part like a claustrophobia. Like I also don't like uh kind of like crawling through caves very much. Um you can you can be buried alive if there's like a uh if you're like in a cave or like a mine shaft, definitely. That's still like a way that you can do that. And then too, yeah, like I think like uh specifically like having it brought up to me that somebody I'm interacting with apparently buried somebody alive.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Uh made it kind of a more although I think if you are like a spelunker, you you make peace with that possibility before you ever go out.

SPEAKER_02 29:49

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

I'm and I'm not a spelunker. So you should already have them.

SPEAKER_02 29:53

Yeah. Um, so like thinking about like uh burial as a Christian practice, like it kind of in my mind, uh uh you start with like Jesus himself, right? So like one of the things that's like kind of odd about the story of Jesus, in my opinion, and in a lot of other people's opinions, um, is the fact that he like so for the story to make sense, he has to have like a tomb of some kind. There has to be an empty tomb from which, like, as like a point of evidence, uh, he's raised from, right? Which is actually contrary to like what was common with crucifixion. I don't know how familiar y'all are with crucifixion, but like part of the thing that's was supposed to be so horrible.

SPEAKER_00 30:33

As familiar as I am with regular burial.

SPEAKER_02 30:35

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

You're only bringing up things that I know about. Well, the Jewish faith famously, don't you need to you have to get buried. Christians weren't the first people to bury people. Yes, you're right. I think Christ was buried because he was he was well again, I guess this would be he was maybe a crucifixion victim first. Uh he was executed more. But I think and I think if you're Jewish, don't you need to be buried post-haste?

SPEAKER_02 30:58

Yeah, so it is uh it is a Jewish tradition as well. So as in part like where uh Christianity is getting it from. But like typically, like uh like the role for a Roman crucifixion, you're like part of the the punishment is like the fact that your body's like on the cross and gets eaten by like uh carrion birds and stuff. Like you're not part of it is denying somebody with like a a decent like uh uh funeral practice. And so like um from like a historical perspective, like it's kind of a a doubtful idea that like he would have gotten a decent burial after his crucifixion, because that's not like what would have been normal at all for like uh enemies of this state who uh get crucified. And so like it's important in early Christianity to though like posit, yes, uh, we know he was raised because like he was buried and then uh like in this uh cave with a rock rolled over it, and then that was empty. And I think like the the emptiness of that tomb and the emptiness of these tombs in this chapter, like is kind of a rhyme that I think is intentional. Um, but it uh and then specifically too, the idea in uh Christianity is that you're raised like at the wreck resurrection in your body, and so like knowing where your body is kind of becomes like a uh an important like kind of an anxiety uh uh for Christians like uh throughout history, even though like I don't know, you you assume that like God could raise you even if you weren't like uh have your like a dead body intact.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

Well, there's stories told by people, so people want to know where it is. But uh yeah, well, we should talk about the end of the chapter before we're gonna have time, which is when he sort of present-day Ishmael starts to kind of vibe on like, should you even care where the body is, or whatever you guys think is going on in that last paragraph, where we get some like really where we start to get metaphysical. Yes. He says, All these things are not without their meeting, their meanings. Um he says, you know, of course, this it may be sad to be sitting here amongst these things, and then one day um if I'm signing up for a whaling ship, this might happen to me. He says, but somehow I grew merry again. He talks about, you know, um, there is death in this business of whaling, and it could be fast and really horrible. But then what happens? Um, and he sort of goes through this lovely, these sort of three methinks sentences, three or four of them. At the end, he says, in fact, take my body who will, take it, I say, it is not me. So on the one hand, for the survivors, it's sad that the bodies aren't there for everything that we've been talking about, sort of the the closure, and you know, your widow would like to know that where your body is, and those things that make sense socially, but he's saying spiritually to not be in the body anymore of what of it.

SPEAKER_02 33:37

Yeah, the the that delightful inducements to uh embark, find chance for promotion, it seems, uh it to me is like such a kind of like a funny uh line. Like, oh look, uh all these people are uh being killed in this practice. It means uh uh likely chance I might get promoted because if somebody else dies. Uh I am curious, uh so I I think you're absolutely right. We should cover the section. I I uh did you uh Johnny? I feel like you probably couldn't have read this chapter without uh spotting uh this uh uh Hamlet reference, a few uh paragraphs prior to the yes, where we get the yes, the trappings in the suits of woe, yes.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Um but so many of the unrecorded accidents in the fishery, and so plainly did several women present wear the countenance, if not the trappings, of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here before me were assembled those in whose unhealing hearts the sight of those bleak tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed afresh. Yes, absolutely. What does it mean to sort of uh be in the uh in in in sort of mourning attire, and uh is that is that sufficient, or should you, again to quote Hamlet, have that with within the passive show? Um it's also not the only um Shakespearean intertext going on in this chapter. Um there's a really, really strong resonance with the sonnets that come up uh at actually in the concluding section of the chapter that we were just talking about. Um and it's a section of the sonnets, uh it comes from Sonnet 74, which is a run of sonnets which are very, very closely bound up with the idea of the death of the poet and what it means for the poet's love for the young uh for the for the fair young man to whom these sonnets are addressed. And also um yes, precisely where human worth is. Um and if you'll indulge me, because we get um where was it? Um yes, and and it may be that there's an earlier source for this, potentially even a biblical one, Tristan, which you'll be able to um identify for us. But we get that in at the end of that run of methinks, we get methinks my body is but the lease of my better being. Uh and Sonnet seventy-four we get um the earth can have but earth which is his due, my spirit is thine, the better part of me. So then thou hast but lost the dregs of life, the prey of worms, my body being dead, the coward conquest of a wretch's knife too base of thee to be remembered, and then the final couplet resonates, I think, just as strongly. The worth of that is that which it contains, and that is this, and this with thee remains. So there's there's some kind of metaphysical, or at the very least, non-physical, non-human uh value to be found within the practice of writing for Shakespeare, uh, potentially within uh sort of wailing for Melville.

SPEAKER_02 36:35

Very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

I should have read the whole sonnet. I basically just read the whole thing about the first four lines, but never mind.

SPEAKER_02 36:41

Yeah, that's okay. I don't feel like Ishmael feels like that confident in like that interpretation of the afterlife, though. Like we we get like where this builds to, but it's like preceded by uh this paragraph here, in what census of living creatures the dead of mankind are included, why it is that a universal proverb says of them that they tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin sands, how it is that to his name, who yesterday departed for the other world we prefix so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth, why the life insurance companies pay death forfeitures upon immortals, and what eternal unstirring paralysis and deadly hopeless trance yet lies antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago, how it is that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss, why all the living so strive to hush all the dead, wherefore but the rumour of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings. Um do we get the sense here that this is Ishmael sort of pointing out like the lack of faith of people, or do we like get the sense that this is like also an anxiety, uh Ishmael sharing, even though it's like counterposed with like this much more hopeful idea that uh the spirit is like uh the better part of his being that is like even uh what even uh Jove himself cannot stave it?

SPEAKER_00 38:09

I think he might be saying something about oh yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 38:12

No, no, no, you you you go ahead, Meg.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

All I was gonna say is the very next line, but faith like a jackal feeks feeds among the tombs, uh sort of it might be sort of something where he's um he's saying like the trappings of faith, which is to say like the burials and the life insurance companies and the church need us to feel anxiety about this. Whereas without those things, sort of the social, um, the culture, socio-cultural um, you know, the world of burial and the fear of the dead, etc., were it not for those things, we would maybe not have so much angst about this, perhaps. But of course, it's hard to live in a society and not put the trappings of death on this thing that's inevitably going to happen. Perhaps which is why it's followed by this paragraph about like, well, in the true state of things, sort of like Rousseau-esque, if we were all out in a field, we would feel like, oh, good that we're dying because we're moving on to like, like you were saying, um, the truer place where human worth is.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah, and it's a it's a chapter, like so many of the others, that is really grappling with meaning and where we find and ascribe meaning. I mean, we get that we at the end of that paragraph that we've just been talking about. All these things are not without their meanings. Well, that sounds slightly more confident in tone, doesn't it, than chapter one. Surely all this is not without meaning. But I mean, to come back to Hamlet, I've got a sense here that Ishmael protests a bit too much.

SPEAKER_02 39:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

And actually, he is fundamentally unsure and anxious about these things. That's why I think I lean much closer to that latter interpretation that you proposed, Tristan.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

Yeah, yeah. No, I can't.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

Also, because you can you can you can also sort of you can scratch away at some of the things that are listed in that uh Sentence of Living Creatures paragraph quite easily. Um, even that very first one. Uh, in what Sentence of Living Creatures, the Dead of Mankind are included, why it is that a universal proverb says of them that they tell no tales. Well, in a sense they do, and this chapter proves that. What are these cenotaphs if not a series of dead men actually having their tales told? The agency is is different, but the effect is surely the same. Uh, the kind of the narrative power of the dead. Uh maybe that's another reason why Quequeg is present here again, sort of against border alert sort of the for the rest of the novel. Maybe may not be a coincidence as well that Quequeg is there whose body we've already talked about as being a form of text.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

That's good.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

So there's something wonderfully metaliterary about that, but also it's kind of it's it's roughening the surface of, well, okay, does that proverb actually hold? And then by extension, do these other things hold true as well?

SPEAKER_02 40:56

Yeah, it's interesting to get that uh proverb put there when like you like you've been saying, uh like we've been saying that uh like Hamlet is such an important like uh intertextual or like it is very important to this chapter, in which like the the driving plot of Hamlet is the fact that a dead man does tell a tale.

SPEAKER_01 41:16

Yeah, well, what's fine Hamlet's final injunction to Horatio is tell my story. And and then his final his final words to bring us full circle on one of the first things that we spoke about in this episode, his final words are of course the rest is silence. And no thinking person will say that that's a silence that's devoid of meaning. In the same way that we absolutely can't say it of the of the silences at the beginning of this chapter.

SPEAKER_02 41:40

It's it's a fascinating chapter. Uh, one of the things I I think would be remiss, uh like one of the lines that jumps out to me is like such a like well put together line, or like a very interesting line, um, is uh yes, there is death in this business of wailing, a speechlessly quick, chaotic bundling of a man into eternity. Which what a what a description of death. Uh what an interesting way of putting that.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

My my another the only annotation I've managed to put on that sentence which I've underlined is it just two exclamation marks. I was just absolutely bowled over by it.

SPEAKER_02 42:14

Yeah. Do y'all think that way about death? Uh, maybe like we uh as we like uh move towards the death of this episode um and moving on to the next one we need to record.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

Do y'all have a resurrection in the next chapter?

SPEAKER_02 42:26

And a resurrection in the next chapter. Do y'all have any thoughts uh that you want to share on the podcast about uh death as we uh wrap up this very morbid chapter?

SPEAKER_01 42:34

The the idea of whatever it may be, the idea of its being chaotic does something really interesting if we're thinking about the the teleology, that's to say the end point of this text, which is fixed and which has been given really strong foreshadowing in this chapter and other chapters. The sense that it can be chaotic and therefore in some way random is really, really interesting. All narratives are very, very carefully plotted out. Um, unlike life, it's one of the ways in which texts like this fundamentally don't reflect the actual nature of of living, assuming that one doesn't believe in free well you can get into the the business of whether or not we have free will. But uh so yeah, the uh the idea uh especially in this chapter which is so interested in endpoints and the uncertainty of endpoints, but also so invested in foreshadowing the very, very definite endpoint of Moby Dick. Uh bringing chaos in here is something that I find really really fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 43:32

And yet it can be wrapped up in a crisp sentence, towed out of sight by a whale.

SPEAKER_01 43:38

Yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

Yeah. Yeah. I like the the idea of so like in this sentence, um bundling of a man into eternity as as like a being an interesting, like kind of like a it feels like a positive in some respects, like uh way of looking at life, or looking at death rather, as like uh um being stripped of like one's individuality and like returning to like a state of like oneness with uh the infinite. It's kind of like a I don't know, but it it it sounds very violent, like though, the way that uh sentence is put, especially like death and wailing, but like there's sort of a a hopefulness in it in my mind that like uh you you see continue with like the way this chapter wraps up. Um and like kind of makes sense with within the romantic milieu of like this particular uh work.

SPEAKER_01 44:31

That's lovely.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Maybe because the prose is so lovely, do you want to uh Johnny uh take the last bit of this and we'll uh we'll end this uh end this episode on some of this delightful prose?

SPEAKER_01 44:44

I'll give it an honest crack. Yes, there is death in this business of wailing. A speechlessly quick, chaotic bundling of a man into eternity. But what then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of life and death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lease of my better being. In fact, take my body who will. Take it, I say, it is not me. And therefore, three cheers for Nantucket, and come a stove body when they will, for stave my soul. Jove himself cannot.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

So cool.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

You've been listening to the Pequot Pot with Tristan Babel Marquise, Meg Fansher, and Johnny Wiles. Our music is by Lost in the Loop with sound engineering by Lauren Aiton. The show's artwork is by Delaney Garrett, and Tristan is on The Synths. We want to say a big thank you to all of our supporters on Patreon. You can join them over at patreon.com forward slash pequodpod for bonus content and for opportunities to help us keep the show running in ship-shaped condition. Ratings and reviews also really help us out, so if you enjoy the show, please do express your thoughts and metaphysical yearnings in the review section wherever you're listening to the show. Tell your friends, tell your foes, tell the white whale on whom you're monomaniacally urged to be revenged. It all helps. Thanks for listening, and until next time, call us the Pequon Podcast.