One day, a green as the hills Massachusetts guy named Ishmael decides he wants to be a sailor. He pals up with a heavily tattooed heathen harpooner named Queequeg and they both get hired to work on a ship called the Pequod. Rumor has it that the Pequod was originally named the Pequot until the Connecticut tribe threatened to sue Melville for Intellectual Property violation, so he changed the name of the ship to the Pequod and the Pequots had to settle for opening casinos instead.

The captain of the Pequod - not to be confused with a Peak Wad, a rolled upper after corner of a fore-and-aft sail which could be used as a pillow in a pinch - anyway, the captain’s name is Ahab.

He’s a spooky kind of a guy with a wooden leg who likes to have a Parsee with him wherever he goes - not to be confused with parsley, which is edible, or the Parcae (pronounced pahr-see), spelled p-a-r-c-a-e , who were The Fates in Roman mythology, or per se which is of, in or by itself or oneself.

Well, anyway, the long and short of it is that Ahab only wants to find the Great White Whale, Moby Dick, who ate his leg. He convinces the crew to let him do this and then the crew gets drunk and shouts and sings a bunch of sailor songs. Yaarrr!

So, they sail all over the place - the South Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and into the Japanese Sea. They meet another ship, the Enderby, whose captain has just lost an arm to Moby Dick. With Moby Dick up an arm and a leg in the game you'd think Ahab would give up. But Ahab gets all excited thinking he’s getting closer to Moby Dick and promptly sails to the Pacific Ocean.

The crew is getting a bit tired of this but Ahab apparently has the charisma to make them stay the course. Then a typhoon hits. We suspect this is just for dramatic effect. After the winds die down the Pequod meets a ship called the Rachel and a post-tempestuous relationship ensues with the captain of the Rachel leaving very disappointed in Ahab.

Moby Dick is sighted and hence the chase begins. And so we come to Moby Dick - The Chase - First Day.

If you do not see the Moby Dick - The Chase - First Day
(2.9 MB) mp3 controller below, you need to enable plugins.

Click here to continue with Moby Dick - The Chase - Second Day

You can also:

Read the script and Listen to the mp3 - or - Download the PDF

(Depending on your browser, you may need to:
Right Click or Control Click the DOWNLOAD link and save the Script PDF to your desktop in order to view it.)

return to top of page    

Privacy Policy - Terms of Use - Copyright