Three of Swords

Meaning: Sorrow, heartbreak, and pain

Depiction: Ahab at home having suffered a fall, lying on the floor, his ivory leg detached and piercing his groin. Three crossed lances are propped against the wall in the background.

Text: Chapter 106 - Ahab's Leg
For it had not been very long prior to the Pequod’s sailing from Nantucket, that he had been found one night lying prone upon the ground, and insensible; by some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his ivory limb having been so violently displaced, that it had stake-wise smitten, and all but pierced his groin; nor was it without extreme difficulty that the agonizing wound was entirely cured.

Comments: The miniseries with William Hurt actually shows this accident happening (minus the dramatic addition of detached leg piercing groin). It reminds us of how his injury physically affects him every day.

Two of Swords

Meaning: Thinking before making a decision

Depiction: Aboard the Samuel Enderby, Ahab crosses his ivory leg with Captain Boomer's ivory arm in greeting.

Text: Chapter 100, Leg and Arm
With his ivory arm frankly thrust forth in welcome, the other captain advanced, and Ahab, putting out his ivory leg, and crossing the ivory arm (like two sword-fish blades) cried out in his walrus way, “Aye, aye, hearty! let us shake bones together!—an arm and a leg!—an arm that never can shrink, d’ye see; and a leg that never can run."

Comments: The crossed arms of the RWS card made me immediately think of the two captains crossing their ivory appendages (like blades, as Melville says). The choice here is either Captain Boomer's decision to move on after his injury, or Ahab's decision to obsessively pursue the cause of his.

Ace of Swords

Meaning: Success, decisions, and beginnings (The Ultimate Tarot); clarity, focus, vision (Labyrinthos)

Depiction: Queequeg embarks on his whaling career by climbing aboard a ship and not letting go. He clings to the ring bolt on the deck while the captain brandishes a whaling lance over him.

Text: Chapter 12 - Biographical
Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and when the ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her side; with one backward dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe; climbed up the chains; and throwing himself at full length upon the deck, grappled a ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces.

In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended a cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, and Queequeg budged not.

And also:  They had made a harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now.

Comments: Yes, I said the captain holds a lance when it's clear from the text it was actually a cutlass: a little poetic license on my part to make sure the lance makes it into this card. The Ace of Swords seems appropriate for Queequeg- the crown symbolizing his royalty, and the weapon as his scepter.

King of Cups

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Meaning: Wisdom, control, and emotional balance. (Labyrinthos)

Depiction: The old Manxman- "the oldest mariner of all" (Ch. 126), sitting in the stern of a whaling boat, holding a cup.

Text: Chapter 128- Ahab

Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially negatived, by what a grey Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man, who, having never before sailed out of Nantucket, had never ere this laid eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless, the old sea-traditions, the immemorial credulities, popularly invested this old Manxman with preternatural powers of discernment. 

Comments: I have selected the Manxman for this card as the king of the sea, as he presumably is the most experienced sailor aboard the Pequod, and not for any personal attributes, as he is only mentioned a few times in Moby Dick.

Two suits down, two to go! On to Swords next time...

Queen of Cups

Meaning: Compassion, kindness, warmth (Labyrinthos); a virtuous woman or model of virtue (The Ultimate Tarot)

Depiction: Huzzah! It's Mrs. Hosea Hussey of the Try-Pots! She has no first name! But that's okay - no one on the Pequod has more than one name either! She is standing, bearing a bowl of fine chowder in each hand. As described in the book, she is blonde and wears a yellow dress, as well as "a polished necklace of cod vertebrae."

Text: Chapter 15 - Chowder

Upon making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing further scolding for the present, ushered us into a little room, and seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently concluded repast, turned round to us and said—“Clam or Cod?”

Comments: I have no idea whether Mrs. Hussey is virtuous or compassionate. But I am going with the idea of the Queen of Cups being queen of the water element (as cups are associated with water), and therefore being the queen of chowder as well.

Knight of Cups

Meaning: A love prospect, and even a proposal.

Depiction: Just as described in the book, Queequeg presses his forehead to Ishmael's and embraces him. They stand behind a table with one cup on it.

Text: Chapter 10- A Bosom Friend
He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married; meaning, in his country’s phrase, that we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should be.

Crude 5-minute sketch that I am sure I will regret sharing; it gives the general idea.

And here's Matt Kish's version of this scene, from Moby Dick in Pictures (2011). A little different than the way I imagined it, as Queequeg and Ishmael are at arm's length. 

Comments: I have a lot to say about this one.  Some critics have expressed incredulity that Melville openly included a homoerotic friendship  in Moby Dick at a time when homosexual identity was not recognized, and homosexual behavior was subject to criminal penalties.  Yet he found a way to do it.  He wrote long passages demonstrating how Queequeg is completely alien in all ways to Ishmael: from the other side of the world, from a different culture and race, of an unfamiliar pagan religion, of what seem to him outlandish and peculiar habits (freezing in prayer for long periods, shaving with his harpoon, hiding under the bed to put his shoes on, etc). Queequeg's easy physical intimacy with Ishmael is passed off to the mainstream Victorian reader as just part and parcel of his "odd" foreign ways. Indeed, Ishmael admits that he would be wary of such advances from a fellow white Christian American, say, Bulkington:

In a countryman, this sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too premature, a thing to be much distrusted; but in this simple savage those old rules would not apply. (Ch. 10)

I credit this perspective to my reading of Emma Rantatolo's masters thesis:  "A Cosy, loving pair"?- The Elusion of Definitions of Queequeg and Ishmael's Relationship in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (2018).

Page of Cups

Meaning: The unexpected inspiration that comes to us from the unconscious. (Labyrinthos)

Image: Ishmael stands among crowds of people in the "insular city of the Manhattoes" (Manhattan) at the edge of the wharf, looking out at the water. He holds a cup in his hand and carries his carpet bag in the other.

Text: Chapter 1- Loomings
Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster—tied to counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What do they here?

But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in.

Comments: Not an important part of the book, but this passage is the first confirmation that the sea is Ishmael's chief source of inspiration and motivation.

Ten of Cups

Meaning: Prosperity, joy, family, and contentment

Depiction: The blacksmith, in the glad days before his alcoholic ruin, shows off the ten cups he made to his loving wife and three children. The cups are lined up on a shelf before him: he and his family have their backs to the viewer, as in the original card.

Text: Chapter 112- The Blacksmith
He had been an artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to do; owned a house and garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three blithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church, planted in a grove.

Comments: I knew I'd get the blacksmith in here somehow. Isn't it funny how most of the happier scenes in Moby Dick happen before anyone sets foot on the Pequod?

Nine of Cups

Meaning: Happiness
Depiction: Queequeg and Ishmael sit on a bench before a table at the Spouter Inn, a fire burning in the fireplace behind them. Queequeg has been turning the pages of a book but looks quizzically over at Ishmael, who sits near him, his arms wrapped around his knees.  Ishmael looks back at Queequeg, smiling. Nine cups are lined up on the mantel above the fireplace.

Text:  Chapter 10, A Bosom Friend

As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, in that mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it then only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms gathering round the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary twain; the storm booming without in solemn swells; I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. 

Comments: I really try to vary these cards in terms of chapters and characters... but when these satisfaction and happiness cards come up, I return to the early days of Ishmael and Queequeg, who have the most positive mutual relationship of any characters in the book. Stubb claims to take everything as a joke, but there's a maliciousness to him which makes his humor seem rather passive-aggressive rather than borne from happiness and contentment.

Eight of Cups

Meaning: time for change or transition, by means of walking away from something (Labyrinthos)
Depiction:  Rear view of Ahab, sitting on his ivory stool, tossing his pipe into the evening sea. Eight  cups are balanced on the quarterdeck behind him.

Text: Chapter 30 - The Pipe

He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks.

Comments:  Ahab realizes a change has come over him as the pipe's smoke "no longer soothes." He has to walk away from everything that might detract from his monomaniacal quest.

Seven of Cups

Meaning: Choices, opportunities

Depiction:  Down in Nantucket harbor, Ishmael chooses a ship to sign on with. Just like in the RWS card, he has his back to the viewer. Seven ships are before him in the harbor, each with a cup lashed to its side. The Pequod is in the center, with a glowing aura around it.

Text: Chapter 16- The Ship
After much prolonged sauntering and many random inquiries, I learnt that there were three ships up for three-years’ voyages—The Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the Pequod. Devil-Dam, I do not know the origin of; Tit-bit is obvious; Pequod, you will no doubt remember, was the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts Indians; now extinct as the ancient Medes. I peered and pryed about the Devil-dam; from her, hopped over to the Tit-bit; and finally, going on board the Pequod, looked around her for a moment, and then decided that this was the very ship for us.

Comments: The only other scene that would be a match for this card is that in Chapter 99, in which Stubb and Flask talk about what they'd do with the gold. But this one is really a better fit because a real choice is actually made.

Six of Cups

:

Meaning: Happy memories and a time to recall nostalgia.

Depiction:  A close-up of Starbuck''s eye; we see Ahab reflected with his wife and child.  The six cups of the suit are lined up at the bottom of the card.

Text: Chapter 132: The Symphony
Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. By the green land; by the bright hearth-stone! this is the magic glass, man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. 

Comments: This is the chapter in which we find out that Ahab, "the old man," is only 58. Until then I had imagined he was well into his 70's.

Five of Cups

Meaning: Loss, leaving, and sorrow.

Depiction: After the wreck and disappearance of the Pequod, a  bereft Ishmael floats in the sea, clinging to Queequeg's coffin.  Three cups float on the waves, two are balanced on the coffin.. In the distance, behind Ishmael, we see the approaching Rachel.

Text: Epilogue
Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. 

Stephen Costello as Greenhorn (Ishmael) in the SF Opera's production of Moby Dick

Comments: The epilogue is remarkably terse and abrupt compared to all the prose that has gone before it. Perhaps Ishmael (or Melville) was too exhausted for his usual lengthy speculation. I liked the closure provided at the end of Jake Heggie's opera Moby-Dick, in which Captain Gardiner asks Ishmael, "Is Ahab dead?" and Ishmael replies, "Ahab is dead. And Starbuck. And Stubb. And Flask....and Queequeg." I am not sure if the pause at the end is a correct memory, but it is sung with such intense feeling.

A version of the Epilogue from American Renaissance Tarot, with shards of the wrecked  Pequod  serving as pips.

Four of Cups

Meaning: Contemplation, looking inward (Biddy Tarot); inability to see what is in front of you (Labyrinthos).

Depiction: Ishmael  carefully observes the murky nautical painting  in the entryway at the Spouter-Inn, attempting to decipher it.  Behind him, the three pewter cups of the suit hang on the wall; a fourth cup is visible in the painting if you look carefully.

Text: Chapter 3- The Spouter-Inn.
But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting meant. 

Whalers 1 by J. M. Turner (1884)

Comments: In the book, the wall behind Ishmael is "hung all over with a heathenish array of monstrous clubs and spears;" I'm taking some artistic liberties by putting some cups there instead.

Three of Cups

Meaning: Groups coming together to focus on a common emotional goal. (Wikipedia)

Depiction: The three harpooneers Tashtego, Daggoo and Queequeg drinking a measure of grog out of the "goblet end" of their harpoon barbs, as an oath to kill Moby Dick.

Text: Chapter 36 - The Quarter-Deck

Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held, barbs up, before him.

“Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over! know ye not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye cup-bearers, advance. The irons! take them; hold them while I fill!” Forthwith, slowly going from one officer to the other, he brimmed the harpoon sockets with the fiery waters from the pewter.

“Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Bestow them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league. Ha! Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit upon it. Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful whaleboat’s bow—Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt Moby Dick to his death!” The long, barbed steel goblets were lifted; and to cries and maledictions against the white whale, the spirits were simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss.

Comments:  Another scene that goes so  wonderfully well with this card meaning. As described in the book, the three harpooneers are flanked by the three mates and ringed by the other sailors; Ahab is near them pouring their drinks. However, this card will show only the three harpooneers for the sake of clarity, though it can show the anonymous backs of other sailors facing them.

Two of Cups

Meaning: Close bond between two people, equal partnership (Labryrinthos)

Depiction:  As part of the whale-processing scheme, Ishmael on the ship is tethered to Queequeg who is in the ocean on the back of a dead whale, holding on to a hook in the whale which is chained to the ship. There is a cup balanced on the bulwark next to Ishmael, and one on top of the whale next to Queequeg.

Text: Chapter 72 - The Monkey-Rope

Being the savage’s bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar in his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead whale’s back. You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by a long cord. Just so, from the ship’s steep side, did I hold Queequeg down there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery a monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his waist.

It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at both ends; fast to Queequeg’s broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, were wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage and honor demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us. Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed.

Comments:  In the book scene, we also have Daggoo and Tashtego hanging off the side of the ship, keeping the sharks away from Queequeg and the dead whale  with their spades. I am omitting them from this card to keep the emphasis on the dyad of Queequeg and Ishmael. Queequeg is also described as wearing "the Highland costume- a shirt and socks." (And apparently he wore it well, as an admiring Ishmael makes sure to note, "in which to my eyes at least, he appeared to uncommon advantage.") This is how he should be depicted, though socks would surely become soaked and abrasive to one standing on the back of a slippery whale.

Ace of Cups

Meaning: The awakening of new feelings (Labyrinthos); deep feelings and intimacy (Learn Tarot).

Depiction: Instead of one hand holding the cup, we see a number of hands reaching into the cup and two in the center (from Queequeg and Ishmael) grasping each other. The hands are a variety of skin tones representing the ethnic diversity of the Pequod crew.   As with the RWS card, there are five streams of liquid pouring out of the sides of the cup. These are said to represent the five senses. (Wikipedia)

Text: Chapter 94 - A Squeeze of the Hand
Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.

Another take on this scene, from the American Renaissance Tarot.

Comments: This scene was an obvious choice for this card, given the feeling of universal love that envelops  Ishmael when engaged in this task. In the unlikely event that anyone who is reading this  hasn't read Moby Dick,  the "sperm" referred to here is spermaceti from the head of the sperm whale, though no doubt Melville intended the double meaning.

Video: A Squeeze of the Hand by Dave Malloy from the play Moby Dick: A Musical Reckoning

Moby Dick on Film

I have now watched  three of the most recent film versions of Moby Dick. Instead of  giving them proper reviews, I'm going to describe them with my own awards.

For those who care: SPOILERS AHEAD!  You have been forewarned.

Moby Dick  (1956)


Best Sea Shanties
The singing throughout the film gives it a timeless feeling of an old legend retold.

Best-Looking Ahab
Subjective, I know, but in my view, Gregory Peck definitely wins here.

Most Caucasian Queequeg
Inexplicably played by German actor  Friedrich von Ledebur.

Least Credited Pip
No credit, and only one line for this actor!

Best Delivery of From Hell's Heart I Stab at Thee Speech
No one's done it better than Peck.

Best Queequeg Signature
I love that his mark here is both the shape of a whale and an infinity sign.

Moby Dick (1998) USA Network miniseries


Most Theatrical Ahab
Patrick Stewart wins here, hands down, giving it the old Shakespearean tragedy treatment.

Most Realistically Traumatized Pip
This production does a really good job of showing how Pip was affected by his near drowning, and how he lost the joy for things he once loved. I also like how he dresses like a mini-Ahab complete with peg leg, and Ahab is totally charmed by it.

Longest-Haired Queequeg
For some reason, the actor who plays Queequeg has a full head of hair here. I guess he really didn't want to shave his head.

Only Film in Which Queequeg is Actually Played by a Maori Actor
And his name is Piripi Waretini.

Least Canonical Queequeg
It really bothers me how in this film, during the lightning scene (Ch.119 - The Candles) Queequeg genuflects in awe before Ahab. Melville would not approve! Remember, Queequeg "looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor." (Ch. 10- A Bosom Friend).

Special Award for an Appearance by Bulkington
Bulkington appears here as a man who abandons ship in a whale boat midway through the voyage, thus fictionally becoming a second possible survivor (and he says, "I always liked thee, Starbuck!") He does not appear in any of the other films.

Special Award for an Appearance by Fedallah and Crew
This is the only appearance by Fedallah in any of the films. Possibly the  other filmmakers thought one prophecy (from Elijah) was enough.

Moby Dick (2011) Starz-Encore miniseries


Most Realistic and Yet Least Canonical Ahab
I really love William Hurt's performance here. He plays Ahab as an actual real-life person rather than a legend or symbol. However, this comes at a price. I was shocked watching him assure his wife (who appears at the start of the film), "It's just a whale." I don't think Ahab would ever, ever say that about Moby Dick, even if trying to convince himself. He's also a loving father, which is really inconsistent with the book in which he's hardly aware he has a son.

Most Disgusted Starbuck Who Can't Even With All of Ahab's Nonsense
Ethan Hawke's expressions vacillate between horror and absolute repulsion. I wish I had a screencap of this.

Best Starbuck-Pip Relationship
The two end up forging a really sweet father-son bond when they realize they will die together. Starbuck tells Pip, "You are the bravest cabin boy I ever knew."

Special Award for Gratuitous and Non-Canonical Racist Steelkilt

This is the only film in which Steelkilt appears, and he's on the crew of the Pequod, not the Town-Ho. His beef is also with Stubb instead of Radney. His primary role appears to be making racist jabs at Dagoo. I am not sure if this adds anything to the plot. This film's Starbuck (award for Most Inclusive Starbuck) makes sure Steelkilt knows that kind of foolishness will not be tolerated on this very democratic ship, period.

Most Anachronistic Language

"Hey Queequeg, are you all right?"

Most Devoted Ishmael and Queequeg
They share a strong bond in all the film versions, but this version is a little extra despite the fact it never shows them sleeping together.  Queequeg tenderly applies salve to Ishmael's face after  Ishmael is assaulted by Ahab  (yes, two events that never happen in the book). They even share a special one-on-one goodbye before the last lowering.

Which film is your favorite? What awards would you give?

King of Wands

 

Meaning: Leadership, vision, taking control (Labyrinthos); as well as fireproof (The Ultimate Guide to Tarot).

Depiction: Ahab brandishing his flaming lightning-struck harpoon on a stormy night, reaffirming his vow to hunt Moby Dick.

Text: Chapter 119- The Candles
But dashing the rattling lightning links to the deck, and snatching the burning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torch among them; swearing to transfix with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope’s end. Petrified by his aspect, and still more shrinking from the fiery dart that he held, the men fell back in dismay, and Ahab again spoke:—

“All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine; and heart, soul, and body, lungs and life, old Ahab is bound. And that ye may know to what tune this heart beats; look ye here; thus I blow out the last fear!” And with one blast of his breath he extinguished the flame.

Comments: Like many of the Minor Arcana, this card tends to have some differing meanings depending on source. The booklet that came with my RWS deck says, "Dark man, friendly, countryman, generally married, honest and conscientious." But I prefer the Labyrinthos meaning of taking control, as well as the aspect of  being fireproof symbolized by the salamanders (real and textile) on the original card, since this captures the image of Ahab's fiery oath.

That's a wrap for Wands... now on to Cups!

Queen of Wands

 

Meaning: Person of extreme focus and fiery passion.

Depiction: Father Mapple, just having ascended to his ship's bow pulpit and beginning his sermon. He holds a harpoon in one hand.

Text: Chapter 8 - The Pulpit
Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen, among whom he was a very great favourite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in his youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the ministry. At the time I now write of, 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 all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom—the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow. No one having previously heard his history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life he had led.

The Seamen's Bethel in New Bedford, featuring the famous pulpit that was built in 1961.

Comments: This kind of took me by surprise, but Father Mapple is right for this card. He's passionate, intense, tough and independent,  and the congregation hangs on his every word.

Knight of Wands

 

Meaning: Passion, desire, ambition. The call to action that began with the Page of Wands goes further to implementation with this card.

Depiction: Embarking on the first stage of his  seaward journey, Ishmael with Queequeg is now aboard the Moss, bound from New Bedford to Nantucket via the Acushnet River. as described in the text below. Queequeg holds his harpoon. (In terms of the original RWS card, the knight's horse is the ship).

Text: Chapter 13 - Wheelbarrow
At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the start; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.

View of New Bedford from the Acushnet River

Comments: Ishmael and Queequeg are turning up a lot in this suit, as they will in the suit of Cups.

Page of Wands

 

Meaning: Curiosity and excitement- a trigger to make discoveries or advance in life. (Labyrinthos)

Depiction: In a scene that is only implied in Moby Dick, Ishmael as schoolteacher walks decisively out of his empty classroom, carpet bag in hand. There is a framed photo of a harpoon on the wall.

Text: Chapter 1- Loomings
The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time.

Comments: This card reminded me so much of Ishmael, yet it would have to be an Ishmael before he became the Fool setting off on his journey to the sea. It would be right when he realizes his hypos are getting the upper hand and it's high time to go to sea.

I swear, whenever I read that first paragraph I think of Harold and Maude.

Ten of Wands

 

Meaning: Responsibilities, and a burden.

Depiction: Dough-Boy, the steward, hands piled high with dishes,  nervously serves the three harpooneers (Daggoo, Tashtego, and Queequeg) as they regard him laughingly. The ten harpoons of the suit lean against the wall behind the table.

Text: Chapter 34- The Cabin Table.
Such portentous appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out the vacancies made by the previous repast, often the pale Dough-Boy was fain to bring on a great baron of salt-junk, seemingly quarried out of the solid ox. And if he were not lively about it, if he did not go with a nimble hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an ungentlemanly way of accelerating him by darting a fork at his back, harpoon-wise.

Comments: My first thought was that this card would depict Fleece the cook, as he's a tired old man with bad knees, unappreciated by the crew and mocked by Stubb. But again, the visual presentation issue crops up - the scene of Doughboy actually serving the table and putting up with sailors who give him a hard time creates a more graphic idea of a burden.

Nine of Wands

 

Meaning: Weary from battle, but prepared to fight on. (Wikipedia)

Depiction: Ahab  seated in his cabin, being fitted  by the carpenter for a new whalebone leg after damaging it in the process of returning from the Samuel Enderby. Eight harpoons are propped against the wall behind him: he holds one for support.

Text: Chapter 108- Ahab and the Carpenter

Yes, I have heard something curious on that score, sir; how that a dismasted man never entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir?

It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the soul. Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to a hair, do I. Is’t a riddle?

Comments: Ahab persists like the man shown on the RWS card. He doesn't let a fractured leg hold him back from the relentless quest for the white whale.

Note: With this entry I have started to cite other sources for tarot meanings apart from The Ultimate Guide to Tarot, to get a more rounded perspective on the cards. I have noted my sources above.