The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
From Freepedia
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem written by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1797-1798 and published in the first edition of Lyrical Ballads (1798). It is the longest major poem that Coleridge wrote.
Written in language that imitates the Anglo-Scots border ballads (which had only recently been introduced to the greater English public), it relates the supernatural events experienced by a mariner on a long sea voyage. The ship is driven to Antarctica by a fierce storm. A good-luck omen, an albatross, appears and leads them out of the threatening land of ice; the albatross is later shot by the Mariner with his crossbow. This crime arouses the wrath of supernatural spirits who pursue the ship; an initially favorable south wind sends the ship into waters where it is becalmed.
- Day after day, day after day,
- We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
- As idle as a painted ship
- Upon a painted ocean.
- Water, water, everywhere,
- And all the boards did shrink;
- Water, water, everywhere,
- Nor any drop to drink.
Tormented by thirst, the other members of the crew hang the albatross around the mariner's neck as a sign of his guilt. Eventually, in an eerie passage, the ship encounters a ghostly vessel. Onboard are DEATH (a skeleton) and LIFE-IN-DEATH (a pale, deathly-fair woman), who are playing dice for the souls of the crew. DEATH wins them all except the Mariner. One by one the crew dies, but the Mariner lives on, seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the men who have died. Eventually, the Mariner's curse is lifted when he sees sea creatures swimming in the water and blesses them in his heart; the albatross falls off of his neck and his guilt is partially expiated. The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and steer the ship back home, where it sinks in a whirlpool, leaving only the Mariner behind. In penance for his deed, the Mariner is forced to wander the earth and tell his story, and teach a lesson to those he meets:
- He prayeth best, who loveth best
- All things both great and small;
- For the dear God who loveth us,
- He made and loveth all.
The poem may have been inspired by James Cook's second voyage of exploration (1772-1775) of the south seas and the Pacific Ocean; Coleridge's tutor William Wales was astronomer on the HMS Resolution, Cook's flagship, and had a strong relationship with Cook. On his second voyage Cook plunged repeatedly below the Antarctic circle to determine whether the fabled great southern continent existed.
When William Wordsworth and Coleridge planned the scheme for their joint collection Lyrical Ballads, it was agreed that Wordsworth would contribute poems describing common life and Coleridge would contribute poems on supernatural themes.
The poem received mixed reviews from the critics, and Coleridge was once told by the publisher that most of the book's sales were to sailors who thought it was a naval songbook. Coleridge made several modifications to the poem over the years. In the second edition of Lyrical Ballads (1800), he replaced many of the archaic words. In 1817, in the Sibylline Leaves, he added the marginal glosses.
Popular culture
- The poem features prominently in the plot of Douglas Adams's novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. It is also a large influence upon Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
- "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" is also the title of a song by Iron Maiden from their 1984 album Powerslave, a 14-minute heavy metal epic based on Coleridge's poem.
- The song "Good Morning Captain" by American underground rock band (see also "math-rock" and "post-rock") Slint from the album Spiderland is an adaptation of this poem.
- Baseball pitcher Diego Segui, who was pitching for the Seattle Mariners at the age of 40, was tagged by sportswriters as "The Ancient Mariner".
- In the BBC nautical adventure series Hornblower Captain Sir Edward Pellew quotes "As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean" when his own frigate is becalmed in the episode "The Frogs and the Lobsters".
- In The Wizard of Oz, the Wizard says to the Scarecrow, "Every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the earth or slinks through slimy seas has a brain!"
- Cecil F. Alexander wrote a hymn published in 1848 containing the following refrain which echoes the sentiment of the Ancient Mariner:
- All things bright and beautiful,
- All creatures great and small,
- All things wise and wonderful:
- The Lord God made them all.
- A portion of the poem was recited by Wonder Woman as the body and longship of the Viking Prince were sent into the Sun, during the Justice League Unlimited episode "To Another Shore".
- The major themes of this epic poem are weaved throughout the film Serenity (2005) by Joss Whedon. Although never mentioned by name, the significance of the albatross is described by the main character Malcolm Reynolds.
- Since 1978, the U.S. Coast Guard has recognized the active duty member with the most accumulated time aboard its ships and an exemplary character as the "Ancient Mariner", as noted in the list of USCG Medals and Awards (pdf).
- In the collectable/playable card game Magic: The Gathering, there is a card named and fashioned after the Will o' the Wisp described in the poem; the card even features flavor text with a pertinent excerpt from the poem:
- About, about in reel and rout,
- The death-fires danced at night;
- The water, like a witch's oils,
- Burnt green, and blue and white
- Another card from Magic: The Gathering called Scathe Zombies features another quote from the epic poem:
- They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
- Nor spake nor moved their eyes;
- It had been strange even in a dream,
- To have seen those dead men rise.
