Knight of Swords

Meaning: Blindly charging forth without regard to consequences. (Labyrinthos)

Depiction: Ahab stands in a en garde position, his ivory leg stuck in the auger hole by the bulwarks, whaling lance in his hand. He is facing off with a floating mask of the head of Moby Dick.

Text: Chapter 36- The Quarter-Deck
All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ’tis enough.

Comments: This is one of my favorite passages in Moby Dick. The idea that our perception can mask reality and is not itself actual reality was not a new idea at the time, but showing that Ahab's cause is  to break through this illusion adds significant depth to what was never a simple man vs. whale story.