Episode 16 - Dagon

"Dagon" by H.P. Lovecraft
A prisoner of war recounts his escape and descent into madness.

Author
H.P. Lovecraft - Wikipedia

Cast
D.E. Medus - david.medusmedia.com

Music
Into the Unknown by Oddsprite
Art
Art for this episode is a modified version of:
Photo by Alexander Andrews on Unsplash

Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Hello and welcome to meet uspod. I'm your host de Mitas. For
this episode, I'll be reading HPLovecraft Dagon. HP Lovecraft
was born in 1890 in RhodeIsland. He was friends with
Harry Houdini and he inspiredBatman Black Sabbath and more.

(00:24):
You can check out more about HPLovecraft on his Wikipedia page,
or you can go to hplovecraft.com links in the show
notes without further ado, daygone by HP Lovecraft.

(00:50):
I am writing this under anappreciable mental strain, since
by tonight, I shall be no morepenniless, and at the end of my
supply of the drug which alonemakes my life and durable, I can
bear the torture no longer. Ishall cast myself from this

(01:12):
Garret window into the squalidstreet below. Do not think from
my slavery to morphine, that Iam a weakling or a degenerate.
When you have read these hastilyscrawled pages you may guess,
though never fully realize whyit is that I must have

(01:34):
forgetfulness or death. It wasin one of the most open and
least frequented parts of thePacific that the packet of which
I was super cargo fell a victimto a German sea Raider. The

(01:55):
Great War was just then at itsvery beginning, and the enemy
Navy had not reached its degreeof ruthlessness so that our
vessel was made legitimateprize. Whilst we have her crew
were treated with all thefairness and consideration do us
as naval prisoners. So liberalindeed, was the discipline of

(02:18):
our captors. That five daysafter we were taken, I managed
to escape alone in a small boat,with water and provisions for a
good length of time. When Ifinally found myself adrift and
free, I had a little idea of mysurroundings. Never a competent

(02:38):
navigator. I could only guessvaguely by the sun and stars,
and I was somewhat south of theequator. Of the longitude I knew
nothing, and no Island orcoastline was in sight. The
weather kept fair, and foruncounted days, I drifted

(02:59):
aimlessly beneath the scorchingsun, waiting either for some
passing ship, or to be cast onthe shores of some habitable
land. But neither ship nor landappeared. And I began to despair
and my solitude upon the heavingvastness of unbroken blue. The

(03:22):
change happened whilst I slept.It's details I shall never know.
from my slumber, though troubledand dream invested, was
continuous. When at last Iawake, it was to discover myself

(03:44):
half sucked into a slimy expanseof hellish black mire, which
extended about me in amonotonous undulations as far as
I could see. And in which myboat Lake grounded some distance
away. The one might well imaginethat my first sensation would be

(04:06):
of wonder at so prodigious andunexpected a transformation of
scenery. I was in reality morehorrified than astonished, for
there was in the air, and in therotting soil a sinister quality
which chilled me to the verycore. The region was putrid with

(04:29):
the carcasses of decaying fish,and of other less describable
things which I saw recruitingfrom the nasty mud of the
unending plane. Perhaps I shouldnot hope to convey in mere words
the unutterable hideousness thatcan dwell in absolute silence

(04:50):
and barren immensity. There wasnothing within hearing and
nothing in sight. Save a vastreach of black sly And yet the
very completeness and thestillness and homogeneity of the
landscape impressed me with anauseating fear. The sun was

(05:13):
blazing down from the sky, whichseemed to me almost black, in
its cloudless cruelty, as thoughreflecting the inky Marsh
beneath my feet. As I crawledinto the stranded boat, I
realized that only one theorycould explain my position.

(05:33):
Through some unprecedentedvolcanic upheaval. A portion of
the ocean floor must have beenthrown to the surface, exposing
regions which for innumerablemillions of years, had lain
hidden under unfathomable waterydepths.
So great was the extent of thenew land which had risen beneath

(05:55):
me, that I could not detect thefaintest noise of the surging
ocean, strain my ears as Imight. Nor were there any sea
fowl to prey upon the deadthings. For several hours I sat
thinking or brooding in theboat, which lay up on its side

(06:16):
and afforded me a slight shadeas the sun moved across the
heavens. as the day progressed,the ground lost some of its
stickiness, and seemed likely todry sufficiently for traveling
purposes in a short time. Thatnight, I slept but little, and

(06:37):
the next day, I made myself abag containing food and water,
preparatory to the overlandjourney in search of the
vanished sea, and possiblerescue. On the third morning, I
found soil dry enough to walkupon with ease. The odor of the

(06:58):
fish was maddening. When I wastoo much concerned with graver
things to mind so slight andevil, and set out boldly for an
unknown goal. All day, I forgedsteadily westward, guided by a
faraway hammock, which had rosehigher than any other elevation

(07:19):
on the rolling desert. Thatnight, I kept an eye on the
following day, still travelledtowards the hammock. Though the
object seems scarcely nearerthan when I had first spotted.
By the fourth evening, Iattained to the base of the

(07:39):
mound, which turned out to bemuch higher than hitted appeared
from the distant and interveningValley, setting it out in
sharper relief and the generalsurface. To weary to ascend. I
slept in the shadow of the hill.I know not why my dreams were so

(08:01):
wild that night. But before thewaning and fantastically gibbous
moon had risen far above theEastern Blaine, I was awake, and
a cold perspiration. Determinedto Sleep No More. Such visions
as I have experienced were toomuch for me to endure again. And

(08:23):
in the glow of the moon, I sawhow unwise I had been to travel
by day. Without the glare of theparching sun, my journey would
have cost me less energy,indeed. I now felt quite able to
perform the ascent, which haddeterred me at sunset, picking

(08:46):
up my bag, I started for thecrest of the eminence. I have
said that the unbroken monotonyof the rolling plane was a
source of vague or to me. But Ithink my horror was greater when
I gained the summit of the moundand look down on the other side
into an immeasurable pit orCanyon, whose black recesses the

(09:11):
moon had not yet soared highenough to illumine I felt myself
on the edge of the world,peering over the rim into the
fathomless chaos of eternalnight. Though my terror ran
curious reminiscences ofParadise Lost, and of Satan's
hideous climb through theunfastened realms of darkness.

(09:35):
As the moon climbed higher inthe sky, I began to see the
slopes of the Valley were notquite as perpendicular as I had
imagined. The ledges andoutcroppings of rock afforded
fairly easy footholds for thedescent. Whilst after a drop of
a few 100 feet, the declivitybecame very gradual urged on by

(10:01):
an impulse which I cannotdefinitely analyze, I scrambled
with difficulty down the rocksand stood on a gentler slope
beneath, gazing into the stag indepths where no light had
penetrated. All at once myattention was captured by a vast
and singular object on theopposite slope, which rose

(10:24):
steeply about 100 yards ahead ofme, an object that claimed
widely in the newly bestowedrays of the ascending moon, that
it was merely a gigantic pieceof stone, I soon assured myself
but I was conscious of adistinct impression that its

(10:44):
contour and position are notaltogether a work of nature.
A closer scrutiny filled me withthe sensation I cannot express.
For despite its enormousmagnitude, and its location, and
an abyss which had yond at thebottom of the sea, since the

(11:05):
world was young, I perceivedbeyond a doubt that the strange
object was a well shapedmonolith was massive bulk had
known the workmanship, andperhaps the worship, of living
and thinking creatures, dazedand frightened. Yet not without

(11:29):
a certain thrill on thescientists or archaeologists
delight, I examined mysurrounding more closely. The
moon, now near the zenith, shownweirdly and vividly above the
towering steep that hemmed inthe chasm, and revealed the fact

(11:50):
that a far flung body of waterflowed at the bottom, winding
out of sight in both directions,and almost lapping my feet as I
stood on the slope. across thechasm, the wavelets washed the
base of the Cyclopean monolithon whose surface I could now

(12:12):
trace both inscriptions andcrude sculptures. The writing
was in a system of hieroglyphsunknown to me, and unlike
anything I had ever seen inbooks, consisting for the most
part of unconventional alizedaquatic symbols such as fishes,

(12:34):
eels, octopi, crustaceans,mollusks, whales, and the like.
Several characters obviouslyrepresented and marine things
which were unknown to the modernworld, but whose decomposing
forms I had observed on theocean risen plane. It was the
pictorial carving, however, thatdid most to hold me spellbound,

(12:57):
plainly visible across theintervening water, on account of
it their enormous size, were anarray of bass relief, whose
subjects would have excited theenvy of adore. I think that
these things were supposed todepict men, at least a certain

(13:18):
sort of men, though thecreatures were shown disporting
like fishes and waters of somemarine grotto, or paying homage
at some monolithic Shrine, whichappeared to be under the waves
as well. Of their faces andforms I dare not speak in
detail, for the mere remembranceof them makes me grow faint.

(13:42):
grotesque, beyond theimagination of a poem, or a
bulwark. They were damnablyhuman and general outline
despite webbed hands and feet,shocking, shockingly wide and
flabby lips, glassy, bulgingeyes, and other features less
pleasant to recall. Curiouslyenough, they seemed to have been

(14:08):
chiseled badly out of proportionwith the scenic background, for
one of the creatures was shownin the act of killing a whale
represented as but little largerthan himself. I remarked, as I
say, on their grotesqueness, andstrange size, but in a moment

(14:29):
decided that they were merelythe imaginary gods of some
primitive fishing more seafaringtribe, some tribe whose last
descendant had perished errorsbefore the first ancestor of the
Piltdown or Neanderthal man wasborn. awestruck at this

(14:50):
unexpected glimpse into the pastbeyond the conception of the
most daring anthropologist, Istood musing while the moon cast
Square reflections on the silentchannel before me. Then,
suddenly, I saw it. With only aslight churning to markets rise

(15:13):
to the surface. The thing slidinto view above the dark waters,
vast, poly famous like andloathsome, and darted like a
stupendous monster of nightmaresto the monolith. About what it's
flung it's gigantic scaly armsand while it bowed, its hideous

(15:35):
head and gave vent to a certainmeasured sound. I think I went
mad then
of my frantic ascent of theslope and Cliff, and my
delirious journey back to thestranded boat. I remember little

(16:00):
I believe I sang a great deal. Ilaughed oddly, when I was unable
to sing. I have indistinctrecollections of a great storm
sometime after I reached theboat. At any rate, I know that I

(16:22):
heard peals of thunder and othertowns, which nature others only
in her wildest moods. When Icame out of the shadows, and was
in a San Francisco hospital,brought together by the captain
of the American ship, which hadpicked up my boat in the mid

(16:44):
ocean. In my delirium, I hadsaid much, but found that my
words had been given scantattention. Of any land upheaval
in the Pacific, my rescuers knewnothing. Nor did I deem it
necessary to insist upon a thingthat I knew they could not

(17:04):
believe. Once I sought out acelebrated indologist and amused
him with a peculiar questionsregarding an ancient Philistine
Legend of Dagon, the fish Godbut soon perceiving that he was
hopelessly conventional, and didnot press my inquiries. It is at

(17:28):
night, especially when the moonis gibbous and waning, that I
see that thing. I triedmorphine, but the drug has given
me only transient searcys andhas drawn me into its clutches
as a hopeless slave. So now I'mgoing to end matters, having

(17:49):
written a full account of theinformation, or the contemptuous
amusement of my fellow man.Often, I asked myself, if it
could not have all been a purePhantasm a mere freak of fever
as I lay Sun stricken and ravingin the open boat after my escape
from the German man of war. ThisI asked myself, whatever does

(18:13):
there come before me hideous,vivid vision and reply. I cannot
think of a deep sea withoutshuttering at the nameless
things that may be at this verymoment. Crawling and floundering
and it slimy bed, worshippingtheir ancient stone idols and
carving their own detestablelikenesses on submarine obelisks

(18:35):
of water soaked granite. I dreamof the day when they rise above
the billows and drag down intheir wreaking talons the
remnants of puny, war exhaustedmankind. A day when the land
shall sink and the dark oceanfloor shall a sin amidst
universal pandemonium. The endis near. I hear the noise of the

(19:02):
door as of some immense slipperybody lumbering against it. It
shall not find me God that handthe window the window

(19:23):
thanks for listening to Dagon byHP Lovecraft our music is
brought to us by od Sprite. Youcan check out more at odd
sprite.com me just pause theproduction. Meet us media. All
rights reserved unless otherwisespecified. We'll see you next
time folks. Have a good one.