The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834). It’s a very long poem, so it’s split into seven parts. The spelling of its name varies; sometimes “Rime” is spelt “Rhyme”, and sometimes “Ancient Mariner” is spelt “Ancyent Marinere”. There is a lot of archaic English throughout the poem, but you can still easily understand the overall meaning, and on a second reading you can decipher just about everything. I’ve included commentary and analysis for each of the seven parts, which will further aid you in understanding what the passages mean.
The poem opens at a wedding-feast. Three wedding-guests are stopped by a mysterious old seaman. Two of them escape, but the third is compelled to listen to his amazing story…
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Navigate to Part: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
PART I
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
`By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?
The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
Mayst hear the merry din.’
He holds him with his skinny hand,
“There was a ship,” quoth he.
`Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’
Eftsoons his hand dropped he.
He holds him with his glittering eye -
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The Mariner hath his will.
The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
“The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.
The sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.
Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon -”
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.
The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.
The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
“And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o’ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.
With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.
And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken -
The ice was all between.
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!
At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it were a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name.
It ate the food it ne’er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner’s hollo!
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moonshine.”
`God save thee, ancient Mariner,
From the fiends that plague thee thus! -
Why look’st thou so?’ -”With my crossbow
I shot the Albatross.”
Navigate to Part: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
At first, the wedding-guest is annoyed by the mariner. But the ancient mariner has a certain compelling power in his eyes, and the wedding-guest is spellbound, listening even while he’s supposed to perform duties in the wedding ceremony.
The old seaman tells how his ship set sail. It was struck by a storm, which drove it south, as far as the antarctic regions. There, the sailors were stuck by walls of ice. But an Albatross visited the ship, and it was a bird of good fortune: soon as the sailors gave the bird food and played with it, the ice split apart and they escaped their icy prison, though they still suffered lots of fog and mist.
Halfway through this part of the tale, the wedding-guest hears the ceremony going on without him, and he is distraught that he’s missing it, yet he has no choice but to listen as the mariner goes on.
Near the end of this Part I, the mariner suddenly looks very grieved and distraught. So much so that his listenter has to ask what’s wrong. Then comes the confession: unprovoked, the mariner shot and killed the Albatross.
FURTHER READING
A Modern Version of Genesis Chapter I
10 Metaphors for Death
Gloom and Doom