- description
- # Ahab's interpretation
## Overview
This is a section titled "Ahab's interpretation" extracted from the plain text file [moby_dick.txt](arke:01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6). It is part of Chapter 99, "The Doubloon" ([01KG8AMA8Z935HRK7VVGR9ARH4]) of Herman Melville's *Moby Dick*. The section contains lines 16685-16701 of the source text.
## Context
This section is part of the [Melville Complete Works](arke:01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW) collection. It follows the introduction to Chapter 99 ([01KG8ANJN3424J161FT8HE63CT]) and precedes the section titled "Starbuck's interpretation" ([01KG8ANJN9KV2XSKPQ6HCZ4KYQ]). The chapter explores the different interpretations of a gold coin, a doubloon, nailed to the ship's mast.
## Contents
This section contains Ahab's soliloquy regarding the doubloon. He sees himself reflected in the coin's imagery, identifying with the mountain tops, towers, volcanoes, and courageous fowl depicted on it. He interprets the coin as a mirror reflecting each man's mysterious self and connects the sun's entry into the equinox with a life of pain and suffering.
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- Ahab's interpretation
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- 16701
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- 16685
- text
- Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now
pausing.
“There’s something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and
all other grand and lofty things; look here,—three peaks as proud as
Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the
courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all
are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe,
which, like a magician’s glass, to each and every man in turn but
mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small gains for
those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve itself. Methinks
now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye, he enters the
sign of storms, the equinox! and but six months before he wheeled out
of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born
in throes, ’tis fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So
be it, then! Here’s stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then.”
- title
- Ahab's interpretation