Three of Pentacles

Meaning: The coming together of different kinds of knowledge in order to build something together (Labyrinthos)

Depiction: Under a night sky, the three harpooners Tashtego, Daggoo and Queequeg are stoking the fires of the try-works while supervised by Stubb. In the background, at the helm of the ship, Ishmael has the tiller turned backwards (sternwards) as he gazes, mesmerized, at the flames. There is a doubloon figure  etched on each of the three try-pots.

Text: Chapter 96 - The Try-Works
Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship’s stokers. With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out of the doors to catch them by the feet.

***
Convulsively my hands grasped the tiller, but with the crazy conceit that the tiller was, somehow, in some enchanted way, inverted. My God! what is the matter with me? thought I. Lo! in my brief sleep I had turned myself about, and was fronting the ship’s stern, with my back to her prow and the compass. In an instant I faced back, just in time to prevent the vessel from flying up into the wind, and very probably capsizing her.

Comments: This is a good chapter for showcasing the different roles for the crew as they work together.  Except Ishmael, whose job is apparently losing himself in reveries, as usual.

Two of Pentacles

Meaning: Balance (Wikipedia)

Depiction: In his whaling boat, Flask stands balanced on Daggoo's shoulders, Daggoo bracing him with one arm, as he scans the sea. He holds an oversized doubloon in one hand, Daggoo holds the other in his free hand.

Text: Chapter 48- The First Lowering

“I can’t see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me on to that.”

Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady his way, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his lofty shoulders for a pedestal.

“Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount?”

“That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only I wish you fifty feet taller.”

Cirq' ulation Locale (Belgium)

Comments:  To modern eyes, this scene may give the appearance of  racial and rank-based domination, but reading this passage, I don’t get the sense that Daggoo is debasing himself to carry Flask on his shoulders; the text reinforces this ("The bearer looked nobler than the rider.").  Rather, it appears to be a sort of workplace parlor trick that the short guy and the big guy have discovered and revel in doing. It’s “their thing,” so to speak- their own personal spin on whale-hunting that they're known for among their shipmates. In the Starz Encore version of Moby Dick, it’s established at the beginning that Daggoo and Flask have had a long-term friendly working relationship, which seems consistent with how they are portrayed in the book.

Alternate Depiction: I've been reading  Raymond Weaver's Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic (1921),which includes a description of the crow's nest having two loops so that two sailors can watch from different sides. Instantly, what came to mind was Queequeg's resolution to "get into the same watch" with Ishmael back in Ch. 12, as well as the  fact that the two loops form the same infinity shape depicted on the card. So this card  could alternatively show Queequeg and Ishmael, those two opposites magnetically drawn to each other, standing on the crow's nest at opposite sides yet holding hands, a pentacle on each loop.

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.

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.

Two of Wands

  
Meaning: New plans, partnership and influence.

Depiction: The crew of the Pequod watches on the quarterdeck as Ahab nails the doubloon to the mast. The two representative harpoons are held by Daggoo and Tashtego.

Text: Chapter 36 - The Quarter-Deck
While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his vitality in him.

Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: “Whosoever of ye raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes punctured in his starboard fluke—look ye, whosoever of ye raises me that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!”

“Huzza! huzza!” cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast.

Could it be...Modern Ahab?

Comments: This choice of scene makes sense as it's the exact moment when Ahab sells the crew on his quest to kill Moby Dick, crystallizing his plan and the direction of the book.

XVIII. The Moon

Meaning: Illusion, dreams, and crisis.

Depiction: Daggoo, from the main-mast, spies what he believes to be a whale, but turns out to be a giant squid. We see the squid  swim on one side of the boat, and the tail of a whale on the other side (where Daggoo isn't looking). The moon is visible in the sky.

Text: Chapter 59 - The Squid
It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick? thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on re-appearing once more, with a stiletto-like cry that startled every man from his nod, the negro yelled out- “There! there again! there she breaches! right ahead! The White Whale, the White Whale!”

Comments: A little different from the book in that no actual whale appears in this scene, just the squid, and it takes place in morning, not evening. I included the whale as I wanted to parallel the two animals on the RWS card. No lobster, though.