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The story seemed pretty
scary to me when I first read it in eigth grade. It was published in 1798 when
Coleridge was 25 years old.
The Basic Plot:
With strange mysterious power, an ancient mariner (old sailer) compels some poor
guy (the Wedding Guest) on his way to a fun wedding party to sit and listen to
an incredible story about a horrifying sailing voyage. The wedding guest is unhappy
about missing the fun party, but the mariner's "glittering eye" overpowers
him and he sits mesmerized, listening to the whole creepy tale.
The mariner tells of a nightmarish voyage. While rounding the "horn"
in the Antarctic Ocean, the mariner's ship is surrounded by dangerous ice bergs.
Things look bleak until a beautiful albatross flies in for a visit. The sailors
feed it and the ice splits open. The albatross stays a while and seems to be leading
the ship out of trouble, when for no good reason, the mariner kills it with a
bolt from his trusty crossbow. I've known a few guys like that.
At first the mariner's shipmates shun him for this crime against nature. They
hang the albatross about the mariner's neck. (This is where the expression, "an
albatross around his neck" comes from). But then, as the good breeze and
good weather continue, the crew decide killing the bird must have been a good
thing. Now the trouble really begins. No wind, no water, much suffering, until
all the crew but the mariner drop dead. For seven days the bodies lay there staring
at the poor mariner who, though in agony from thirst himself, can't die.
Lots more strange and wondrous things happen, including the dead crew rising like
zombies to sail the ship. But, as we used to say in grade school oral book reports,
if you want to know the rest of the story, you'll have to read it.
Or at least keep scrolling and read the excerpts below:
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Excerpts
from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner |
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An old sailor with strange
powers, forces a wedding guest to listen to a chilling story....
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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.
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In the antarctic ocean
they get stuck in dangerous ice until an albatross seems to come to their rescue.
Then the idiot mariner shoots it with a crossbow....
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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 had been 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 mariners' hollo!
A few verses later the mariner
kills the albatross...
"God save thee, ancient
Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!
Why look'st thou so?" ---With my
crossbow
I shot the Albatross.
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Things got really bad.... |
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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.
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.
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Then after more creepy
events, things got worse... |
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Four times fifty living
men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.
The souls did from their bodies fly,
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my crossbow!
The entire crew, except
for the guy telling the story, dropped dead.
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For seven days the dead
bodies stare at the mariner and don't rot. Though the mariner is in agony from
thirst, he can't die. Eventually, the bodies rise without a sound, like zombies,
and help him sail the ship.... |
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The loud wind never reach
the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan.
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.
The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never never a breeze up-blew;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools---
We were a ghastly crew.
The body of my brother's son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me.
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Finally, after many
more strange and wondrous events, the mariner makes it home. But now he is cursed
to roam around from place to place telling his woeful tale and the lessons learned.
He knows the person to whom he must tell the tale as soon as he sees their face.
As the Wedding Guest learned, they "cannot choose but hear".... |
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Forthwith this frame of
mine was
wrenched
With a woeful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.
Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.
I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.
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Finally, the mariner
sums it all up in some of the most beautiful, famous, and oft quoted lines in
the poem....
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O Wedding Guest! this
soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seem-ed there to be.
(skipping a few lines)
Farewell, farewell! but this
I tell
To thee, thou Wedding Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
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 Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone: and now the Wedding Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.
He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
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