Chapter 96 - The Try-Works

"yes, caught me just here, I say, and bore me down to Hell's flames, I was thinking; when, when, all of a sudden, thank the good God, the barb ript its way along the flesh—clear along the whole length of my arm"Ahab meets another captain who also lost a limb by Moby Dick, except he's super well adjusted. 

"Book! you lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places."A bunch of astrology bitches sit around trying to make sense of a doubloon Ahab keeps. It could also be sold for cigars.  

"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 like a tidy ship and then we goon on each other. 

"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 of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its redness makes all things look ghastly."We learn of the fire and the pots that burn whale blubber and how they open up a gate to hell and madness. 

"Had you descended from the Pequod's try-works to the Pequod's forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single moment you would have almost thought you were standing in some illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors. There they lay in their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness; a score of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes."We sleep in the dark. 

"Immemorial to all his order, this investiture alone will adequately protect him, while employed in the peculiar functions of his office."The clothes of the butcher of whale blubber. A clergyman of and by the sailors. 

"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 oil, detailing parts of the whale. Stop laughing you pervert.

"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 rescued, but sees god underwater, and goes mad. 

"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 parlor."Stop saying Whalers (and Whales) are smelly. Also, where do you think this stuff comes from? Someone has to dig it out of a dead whale carcass. 

"His boat's crew were all in high excitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking as anxious as gold-hunters."They meet another ship, play a little trick on the other captain, and get some precious, precious ambergris.