In the poem's first line, we meet its protagonist, "an ancient Mariner." He stops one of three people on their way to a wedding celebration. The leader of the group, the Wedding Guest, tries to resist being stopped by the strange old man with the "long grey beard and glittering eye." He explains that he is on his way to enjoy the wedding merriment; he is the closest living relative to the groom, and the festivities have already begun. Still, the Ancient Mariner takes his hand and begins his story. The Wedding Guest has no choice but to sit down on a rock to listen.

The Ancient Mariner explains that one clear and bright day, he set out sail on a ship full of happy seamen. They sailed along smoothly until they reached the equator. Suddenly, the sounds of the wedding interrupt the Ancient Mariner's story. The Wedding Guest beats his chest impatiently as the blushing bride enters the reception hall and music plays. However, he is compelled to continue listening to the Ancient Mariner, who goes on with his tale. As soon as the ship reached the equator, a terrible storm hit and forced the ship southwards. The wind blew with such force that the ship pitched down in the surf as though it were fleeing an enemy. Then the sailors reached a calm patch of sea that was "wondrous cold", full of snow and glistening green icebergs as tall as the ship's mast. The sailors were the only living things in this frightening, enclosed world where the ice made terrible groaning sounds that echoed all around. Finally, an Albatross emerged from the mist, and the sailors revered it as a sign of good luck, as though it were a "Christian soul" sent by God to save them. No sooner than the sailors fed the Albatross did the ice break apart, allowing the captain to steer out of the freezing world. The wind picked up again, and continued for nine days. All the while, the Albatross followed the ship, ate the food the sailors gave it, and played with them. At this point, the Wedding Guest notices that the Ancient Mariner looks at once grave and crazed. He exclaims: "God save thee, ancient Mariner! / From the fiends that plague thee thus!- / Why lookst thou so?" The Ancient Mariner responds that he shot the Albatross with his crossbow.

Analysis

In editions where it is included, the Latin epigraph serves as a semi-thesis for the poem. It is a Latin quote from Burnet's "Archaeologiae Philosophicae" (1692), which Coleridge translates as follows:

I readily believe that there are more invisible than visible Natures in the universe. But who will explain for us the family of all these beings, and the ranks and relations and distinguishing features and functions of each? What do they do? What places do they inhabit? The human mind has always sought the knowledge of these things, but never attained it. Meanwhile I do not deny that it is helpful sometimes to contemplate in the mind, as on a tablet, the image of a greater and better world, lest the intellect, habituated to the petty things of daily life, narrow itself and sink wholly into trivial thoughts. But at the same time we must be watchful for the truth and keep a sense of proportion, so that we may distinguish the certain from the uncertain, day from night.

From the Ancient Mariner's first interaction with the Wedding Guest, we know there is more to him than the fact that he appears unnaturally old. He has a "glittering eye" that immediately unnerves the Wedding Guest, who presumes he is mad and calls him a "grey-beard loon." Yet there is more to his "glittering eye" than mere madness, as he is able to compel the Wedding Guest to listen to his story with the fascination of a three-year-old child. Although he is clearly human, the Ancient Mariner seems to have a touch of the otherworldly in him.

Throughout Part 1, the temporal world interjects itself into the storytelling haze in which the Ancient Mariner captures the Wedding Guest and reader. For example, just as the Ancient Mariner begins his tale, the joyful sound of a bassoon at the wedding reception distracts the Wedding Guest. He "beat[s] his breast" in frustration that he is missing the festivities. In light of Burnet's quote, one can say that the temporal world with its "petty" pleasures tempts the Wedding Guest. He is of that world - indeed he is next of kin to the bridegroom and therefore intimate with the festival's worldly joy. Meanwhile, the Ancient Mariner cannot enjoy the temporal world because he is condemned to perpetually relive the story of his past.

In the Ancient Mariner's story itself, the spiritual and temporal worlds are confounded the moment the sailors cross the equator. Suddenly the natural world - which is closely connected to the spiritual world - makes the sailors lose control of their course. The storm drives them into an icy world that is called "the land of mist and snow" throughout the rest of the poem. The word "rime" can mean "ice", and can also be interpreted as an alternate spelling of the word "rhyme." Therefore, as much as the poem is the rhymed story of the Ancient Mariner, it is also the tale of the "land of mist and snow": the "rime", where the Ancient Mariner's troubles begin. By calling the poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," Coleridge equates the "rhyme" or tale with the actual "rime" or icy world. As we learn at the story's end, the Ancient Mariner is condemned to feel perpetual pangs of terror that force him to tell his "rhyme," a fate just as confining and terrifying as the "rime" itself is initially for the sailors.

The ship sailed northward into the Pacific Ocean, and although the sun shone during the day and the wind remained strong, the mist held fast. The other sailors were angry with the Ancient Mariner for killing the Albatross, which they believed had saved them from the icy world by summoning the wind: "Ah wretch! Said they, the bird to slay / That made the breeze to blow!" Then the mist disappeared and the sun shone particularly brightly, "like God's own head." The sailors suddenly changed their opinion. They decided that the Albatross must have brought the must, and praise the Ancient Mariner for having killed it and rid them of the mist: "Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, / That bring the fog and mist."

The ship sailed along merrily until it entered an uncharted part of the ocean, and the wind disappeared. The ship could not move, and sat "As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean." Then the sun became unbearably hot just as the sailors ran out of water, leading up to the most famous lines in the poem: "Water, water, every where, / And all the boards did shrink; / Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink." The ocean became a horrifying place; the water churned with "slimy" creatures, and at night, eerie fires seemed to burn on the ocean's surface. Some of the sailors dreamed that an evil spirit had followed them from the icy world, and they all suffered from a thirst so terrible that they could not speak. To brand the Ancient Mariner for his crime and place the guilt on him and him alone, the sailors hung the Albatross's dead carcass around his neck.

Analysis

Coleridge introduces the idea of responsibility in Part 2. The sailors have an urge to pin whatever happens to them on the Ancient Mariner, since he killed the Albatross for no good reason. It seems more important to them to make him claim responsibility for their fate than what their fate actually is; first, they curse him for making the wind disappear, and then they praise him for making the mist disappear. Coleridge may be poking fun at allegory in this section. He told reviewers after the poem's release that he did not intend for it to have a moral, even though when reading the poem, one is hard-pressed not to discern a moral message. By having the sailors switch from blame to praise and back to blame again, Coleridge mocks those quick to judge. To go back to the preface, the sailors represent those too eager to discern the "certain" from the "uncertain", preferring to see things in black-and-white terms.

The major theme of liminality emerges more fully in Part 2. In literature - and especially Romantic literature - a liminal space is where plot twists occur or things begin to go awry. The Romantic hero, although he begins confident and with a clear mission, stumbles into a bewildering space where he struggles, and from which he emerges wizened and saddened. Traditionally these places are borderlines, such as the edge of a forest or a shoreline. Recall from Part 1 that the ship's course is sunny and smooth until it crosses the equator and the storm begins. The equator is the boundary between the earth's hemispheres, and is therefore an extreme example of a liminal space. The icy world or "rime" itself is also a compelling liminal space. At first it seems to be the epitome of the temporal; there are no visible creatures there besides the sailors, whose senses it assaults with huge icy forms, terrifying sounds, and bewildering echoes. But it is equally a spiritual place, the dwelling of a very powerful spirit who wreaks havoc on the sailors to punish the Ancient Mariner for killing its beloved Albatross. The icy world represents a tenuous balance between the temporal and spiritual. The physicality of the icy world represents its tenuousness; in it, water exists in all its three phases: ice, water, and mist. The boundaries between the temporal and the spiritual, what Burnet calls the "certain and uncertain" in the epigraph, are as indistinct there as the physical state of water. It is not necessarily the loudness, coldness, or desolateness of the icy world that makes it so terrifying. Rather, it is the fact that nothing there is easily definable. In light of the epigraph, it represents the balance that one must seek between the "certain and uncertain," which will ultimately lead to the truth. However, the icy world as a symbol suggests that this path to enlightenment is equally fascinating and terrifying.

The most famous lines in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" are unquestionably: "Water, water, every where, / Nor any drop to drink." The sailors are punished for the Ancient Mariner's mistake with deprivation made worse by the fact that what they need so badly - water - is all around them, but is entirely undrinkable. Since the poem's publication, these lines have come into common usage to refer to situations in which one is surrounded by the thing one desires, but is denied it nevertheless.

In light of the epigraph, the Ancient Mariner shoots the Albatross because he, like humans throughout time, wants to learn about the spiritual world. The Albatross is an animal, but it is akin to a spirit, and its murder wreaks spiritual havoc on the sailors. We are given no reason why the Ancient Mariner shoots the Albatross, and he does so without premeditation. It is as though he needs to bring the beauty of the spiritual world (embodied in the Albatross) down to the temporal world in order to understand it. He takes the bird out of the air and onto the deck, where it proves to be mortal indeed. After that, the spiritual world begins to punish the Ancient Mariner and the other sailors by making all elements of the temporal world painful. They are thirsty and sunburned, cannot sail for lack of wind, and are threatened by creatures and strange lights in the water. The sailors add to the Ancient Mariner's physical punishment when they hang the Albatross around his neck, giving him a physical burden to remind him of the spiritual burden of sin he carries. They too punish him physically for his spiritual depravity.

The sailors were trapped in their ship on the windless ocean for some time, and eventually became delirious with thirst. One day, the Ancient Mariner noticed something approaching from the West. As it moved closer, the sailors realized it was a ship, but no one could cry out because their throats were dry and their lips badly sunburned. The Ancient Mariner bit his own arm and sipped the blood so that he could wet his mouth enough to cry out: "A sail! A sail!" Mysteriously, the approaching ship managed to turn its course to them, even though there was still no wind. Suddenly, it crossed the path of the setting sun, and its masts made the sun look as though it was imprisoned, "As if through a dungeon-grate he peered." The Ancient Mariner's initial joy turned to dread as he noticed that the ship was approaching menacingly quickly, and had sails that looked like cobwebs. The ship came near enough for the Ancient Mariner to see who manned it: Death, embodied in a naked man, and The Night-mare Life-in-Death, embodied in a naked woman. The latter was eerily beautiful, with red lips, golden hair, and skin "as white as leprosy." Death and Life-in-Death were gambling with dice for the Ancient Mariner's soul, and Life-in-Death won. She whistled three times just as the last of the sun sank into the ocean; night fell in an instant, and the ghost ship sped away, though its crew's whispers could be heard long after it was out of sight. The crescent moon rose above the ship with "one bright star" just inside its bottom rim, and all at once, the sailors turned towards the Ancient Mariner and cursed him with their eyes. Then all two hundred of them dropped dead without a sound. The Ancient Mariner watched each sailor's soul zoom out of his body like the arrow he shot at the Albatross: "And every soul, it passed me by, / Like the whiz of my cross-bow!"

Analysis

In Part 3, the poem becomes more fantastical as the spiritual world continues to punish the Ancient Mariner and his fellow sailors. Although later in the poem Coleridge reveals that a specific spirit is responsible for their demise, it seems as though the spiritual world as a whole is punishing the men, using the natural world as its weapon: the wind refuses to blow, the ocean churns with dreadful creatures, and the sun's relentless heat chars the men. The ghost ship, however, is separate from the natural world - it sails without wind, and its inhabitants are spirits. Death and Life-in-Death are allegorical figures who become frighteningly real for the sailors, especially the Ancient Mariner, whose soul Life-in-Death "wins", thereby dooming him to a fate worse than death. Even those sailors whose souls go to hell seem freer than the Ancient Mariner; while their souls fly unencumbered out of their bodies, he is destined to be trapped in his indefinitely - a living hell.

Life-in-Death, who takes on the form of an alluring naked woman, represents perpetual temptation. Because she wins the Ancient Mariner's soul, he is doomed to die only when he has paid his due...perhaps never. As we learn later, the Ancient Mariner is cursed to continually feel the agonizing compulsion to tell his tale to others; although telling the tale allows him temporary relief, he may never be free. First, he and the sailors are denied the satisfaction of drinking; now the Ancient Mariner will be denied the satisfaction of being able to die. His spirit is trapped in his own body, in an excruciating state of limbo - the realm of Life-in-Death. His "glittering eye" suggests more than madness; it is also a synecdoche representing his soul, which longs to be released from living death. It yearns to fly out of his body like the two hundred other sailors' souls did. In fact, when the sailors' souls are released, they fly past the Ancient Mariner with the same sound as the arrow he shot at the Albatross. Initially, the Ancient Mariner is relieved to have survived his shipmates, but in retrospect the sound tantalizes him, as it reminds him that his impulsive sin is the reason for his torture.

Part 3 introduces the theme of imprisonment. As we have said, the Ancient Mariner is doomed to be trapped in a state of deathlike life; his own immortal body is his prison. The ship itself is a prison for the sailors when there is no wind to carry it. Even before the ghost ship comes near enough for the Ancient Mariner to see its crew, it seems to imprison the very sun with its masts. This symbolizes Death and Life-in-Death's level of power; they have so much sway over the natural world and its inhabitants that they can jail the sun itself. The natural world seems to have this power, as well: the sailors are trapped in the "rime" by impenetrable ice until the Albatross sets them free. For this reason, many have interpreted the Albatross as Christ, and the Ancient Mariner as the archetypal sinner. The Albatross has the power to guide the sailors just as Christ has the ability to guide men's souls to heaven. By sinning on impulse, the Ancient Mariner ruins his chances at salvation, and is condemned to the eternal limbo of Life-in-Death. This interpretation implies that every time a person sins, he destroys his relationship with Christ and his chances of reaching heaven, and must redeem himself through acts of atonement. Just as people wear crucifixes around their necks to remind them of Christ's sacrifice and their responsibility to him, the sailors hang the Albatross around the Ancient Mariner's neck to remind him of his sin.

The Wedding Guest proclaims that he fears the Ancient Mariner because he is unnaturally skinny, so tanned and wrinkled that he resembles the sand, and possesses a "glittering eye." The Ancient Mariner assures him that he has not returned from the dead; he is the only sailor who did not die on his ship, but rather drifted in lonely, scorching agony. His only living company was the plethora of "slimy" creatures in the ocean. He tried to pray, but could produce only a muffled curse. For seven days and nights the Ancient Mariner remained alone on the ship. The dead sailors, who miraculously did not rot, continued to curse him with their open eyes. Only the sight of beautiful water snakes frolicking beside the boat lifted the Ancient Mariner's spirits. They cheered him so much that he blessed them "unawares"; finally, he was able to pray. At that very moment, the Albatross fell off his neck and sank heavily into the ocean.

Analysis

As the Ancient Mariner drifts on the ocean, the natural world becomes more threatening. His surroundings - the ship, the ocean, and the creatures within it - are "rotting" in the heat and sun, but he is the one who is rotten on the inside. Meanwhile the sailors' corpses refuse to rot, and their open eyes curse him continuously, giving the Ancient Mariner a visible manifestation of the living death that awaits him. He will age, but his body will never rot enough to release his soul; his eye will glitter forever with the horror of damnation. As the Ancient Mariner floats, he becomes delirious, unable to escape his overwhelming loneliness even by sleeping: "I closed my lids, and kept them close, / And the balls like pulses beat; / For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky / Lay like a load on my weary eye..." His depravity has even denied him the comfort of prayer.

Ironically, it is the "slimy", "rotten" creatures themselves that finally comfort the Ancient Mariner and allow him to pray. Until this moment, Coleridge's imagery has underscored the overbearing nature of the Ancient Mariner's environment: it is hot, salty, pungent, and "rotten." However, his surroundings - and the imagery that accompanies them - turn cool in the moonlight. Coleridge compares the moonlight to a gentle frost, connecting it to the serenity of the "rime": "[The moon's] beams bemocked the sultry main, / Like April hoar-frost spread." Aglow in the moonlight, the sea creatures begin frolicking, rather than churning nastily; creatures of a beautiful, supernatural world, they "moved in tracks of shining white, / And when they reared, the elfish light / Fell off in hoary flakes...I watched their rich attire; / Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, / They coiled and swam; and every track / Was a flash of golden fire." Whereas Coleridge's descriptions of the ghost ship, sun, and sailors are replete with spare, harsh imagery, he describes the water-snakes in decadent, lush terms. Only when the Ancient Mariner is able to appreciate the beauty of the natural world is he granted the ability to pray - and, it is implied, eventually redeem himself. Earlier in the work, the desiccated setting represented the Ancient Mariner's moral drought, but the moment he begins to view the natural world benevolently, his spiritual thirst is quenched: "A spring of love gushed from my heart." As a sign that his burden has been lifted, the Albatross - the burden of sin - falls from his neck: it is no longer his cross to bear.

After praying, the Ancient Mariner thanked the Virgin Mary for finally allowing him to sleep. He dreamed that the buckets on the ship were filled with dew, and awoke to the sound of the falling rain. He drank and drank after so many days of thirst, and became so lightheaded that he thought he was a ghost. Suddenly he heard a loud wind far off, and the sky lit up with darting "fire-flags" that could be interpreted as lightning, aurora borealis, or "St. Elmo's Fire" (electricity visible in the atmosphere that sailors consider a sign of bad luck). The rain poured from a single cloud, as did an unbroken stream of lightning. The ship began to sail, although there was still no wind. Just then, all the dead men stood up and went about their jobs as a mute, ghostly crew.

The Wedding Guest proclaims again: "I fear thee, Ancient Mariner!" but the Ancient Mariner quickly assures him that the dead sailors were not evil. At dawn, they even gathered around the mast and sang so beautifully that they sounded like an orchestra. When they stopped singing, the ship's sails sang instead. The ship sailed on miraculously in the absence of wind, moved instead by the spirit that had followed it from the icy world. Once the ship reached the equator and the sun was directly overhead, it stopped moving and the sails stopped singing. Then it began to rock back and forth uneasily until it suddenly jolted, causing the Ancient Mariner to faint. He lay for an indeterminate period of time on the ship's deck, during which he heard two voices. The first voice swore on Christ that he was the man who betrayed the Albatross that loved him, and that the spirit from the icy world also loved the Albatross: "The spirit who bideth by himself / In the land of mist and snow, / He loved the bird that loved the man / Who shot him with his bow." The second voice, softer than the first, declared that the Ancient Mariner would continue to pay for his crime: "The man hath penance done, / And penance more will do."

Analysis

Until the end of Part 5, it seems as though the Ancient Mariner is redeemed. Not only is he allowed to sleep, but it finally rains, and his thirst is quenched. Since physical drought and thirst have represented the Ancient Mariner's moral depravity up until this point, it is implied that the abundant rain symbolizes his redemption. According to a Christian interpretation, the rain signifies that he is being baptized anew as a righteous servant of Christ who respects God's creatures. Even though terrifying things continue to happen all around him - a storm, lightning, thunder - the Ancient Mariner is awed by them, instead of fearful of them. The natural world is no less forceful or imposing than it was previously, but it is now benevolent. Part 5 also sees an end to the Ancient Mariner's loneliness, as the sailors 'awaken' to sail the ship; they and the ship itself sing beautiful music, and some spiritual force moves the ship along its course even though the air is still. Again, only when the ship crosses a boundary - the equator - does confusion return; the Ancient Mariner is knocked unconscious, and the reader begins to doubt whether he will actually be redeemed.

The voices confirm that it is indeed a specific spirit punishing the Ancient Mariner. The text's suggestions of sin, baptism, redemption, and other Christian themes shifts towards a more pagan understanding of the story's moral intricacies. A spirit that inhabits the icy world of the "rime" loved the Albatross - perhaps kept it as a pet - and is making the Ancient Mariner pay for murdering it. In the 1817 version of the poem, we are told that the two voices that the Ancient Mariner hears are spirits. Perhaps they are kin to the spirit that is punishing the Ancient Mariner, or are even taking part in his punishment. It is also possible, however, that they, like all of the supernatural elements of the Ancient Mariner's story, are merely figments of his imagination. That Coleridge leaves their identity somewhat open-ended harkens back to Burnet's musings on "invisible Natures"; humans cannot classify spirits, and therefore cannot really know them. Likewise, the Ancient Mariner - and the reader - cannot define what kind of spirits are speaking, or if they are indeed spirits at all. Burnet's statements are applicable to all humans. Furthermore, the reader is as subject to Coleridge's whims as his protagonist, and therefore cannot know any more than him. As humans - and therefore sinners - we can all identify with the Ancient Mariner, and are thus equally implicated in his crime.

Part 6 opens with a dialogue between the two voices: the first voice, the Ancient Mariner says, asked the second voice to remind it what moved the Ancient Mariner's ship along so fast, and the second voice postulated that the moon must be controlling the ocean. The first voice asked again what could be driving the ship, and the second voice replied that the air was pushing the ship from behind in lieu of wind. After this declaration, the voices disappeared. The Ancient Mariner awoke at night to find the dead sailors clustered on the deck, again cursing him with their eyes. They mesmerized him, until suddenly the spell broke and they too disappeared. The Ancient Mariner, however, was not relieved; he knew that the dead men would come back to haunt him over and over again. Just then, a wind began to blow and the ship sailed quickly and smoothly until the Ancient Mariner could see the shore of his own country. As moonlight illuminated the glassy harbor, lighthouse, and church he sobbed and prayed, happy to be either alive or in heaven. Suddenly, crimson shapes began to rise from the water in front of the ship. When the Ancient Mariner looked down at the deck, he saw an angel standing over each dead man's corpse. The angels waved their hands silently, serving as beacons to guide the ship into port. The Ancient Mariner heard voices: a Pilot, the Pilot's boy, and a Hermit were approaching the ship in a boat. The Ancient Mariner was overjoyed to see other living human beings and wanted the Hermit to wipe him clean of his sin, to "wash away the Albatross's blood."

Analysis

In Part 6, the two voices offer a narrative and stylistic break in the poem. Whereas before the text was unbroken, their speech is structured much as in the script of a play. The voices are also omniscient in that they know everything that has happened up until now, and are able to offer the Ancient Mariner a more complete explanation of his situation. The manner in which the voices are presented lends a didactic, narratorial feel to their words. The voices leave because, like the Wedding Guest, they have somewhere to be; the second voice urges the first: "Fly, brother, fly! More high, more high! / Or we shall be belated." Yet unlike the Wedding Guest, the voices are not riveted by the Ancient Mariner's tale and can continue on to their destination after briefly stopping to consider him. They are like the two other guests walking with the Wedding Guest when the Ancient Mariner stops him; while his tale may interest them, they are not compelled to hear it.

When the Ancient Mariner is out in the open ocean, Coleridge's imagery is heavily visual and tactile, but also focuses on sound: the noises of the wedding merriment interrupt the Ancient Mariner's tale, "voices in a swound" fill the "rime", there is a terrible silence that abounds when the men are unable to speak, and the glorious music created by the ship and the sailors implies that fortune has once again smiled on the Ancient Mariner. Indeed, in Part 6 sounds are especially important. We know of the two voices only because they speak; they have no visible presence. If they are indeed spirits, then they are discernable to humans only because of the sounds that they make. Furthermore, the Ancient Mariner hears his rescuers before he sees them, although he does not cry out to them. Coleridge's focus on sound connects us to the fact that the Ancient Mariner is telling a story to the Wedding Guest. While readers must view the story on the page, the tale is being told aloud, and is meant to be passed on in this manner, much like a sermon.

As the ship enters the harbor, we once again get the sense that the Ancient Mariner will be redeemed, although we know that he is doomed to be haunted by the dead men indefinitely: The ship is now in the safety of the harbor, and home is in sight; two hundred angels, one for each dead man, silently guide the ship into shore, acting as beacons that attract the Ancient Mariner's rescuers. Not only are the Pilot and Pilot's Boy coming to rescue the Ancient Mariner, but a Hermit has come out of the woods to help them. By definition, a hermit is someone who lives in seclusion in a natural setting, making the natural world his shrine and living place. He does not venture out into society, and certainly not on the ocean. The Hermit that the Ancient Mariner meets is joyous and social, urging the Pilot and Pilot's Boy on even though they are afraid of the tattered ship. Although at the end of Part 6 the Ancient Mariner knows that he will soon be home and believes that the Hermit can absolve him of his sin, the reader can't help but suspect that more horror is in store.

The Ancient Mariner was cheered by the Hermit's singing. He admired the way the Hermit lived and prayed alone in the woods, but also "love[d] to talk with mariners." As they neared the ship, the Pilot and the Hermit wondered where the angels - which they had thought were merely beacon lights - had gone. The Hermit remarked on how strange the ship looked with its misshapen boards and flimsy sails. The Pilot was afraid, but the Hermit encouraged him to steer the boat closer. Just as the boat reached the ship, a terrible noise came from under the water, and the ship sank straightaway. The men saved the Ancient Mariner even though they thought he was dead; after all, he appeared "like one that hath been seven days drowned." The boat spun in the whirlpool created by the ship's sinking, and all was quiet save the loud sound echoing off of a hill. The Ancient Mariner moved his lips and began to row the boat, terrifying the other men; the Pilot had a conniption, the Hermit began to pray, and the Pilot's Boy laughed crazily, thinking the Ancient Mariner was the devil. When they reached the shore, the Ancient Mariner begged the Hermit to absolve him of his sins. The Hermit crossed himself and asked the Ancient Mariner what sort of man he was. The Ancient Mariner was instantly compelled to share his story with the Hermit. His need to share it was so strong that it wracked his body with pain. Once he shared it, however, he felt restored.

The Ancient Mariner tells the Wedding Guest that ever since then, the urge to tell his tale has returned at unpredictable times, and he is in agony until he tells it to someone. He wanders from place to place, and has the strange power to single out the person in each location who must hear his tale. As he puts it: "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." The Ancient Mariner explains that while the wedding celebration sounds uproariously entertaining, he prefers to spend his time with others in prayer. After all, he was so lonely on the ocean that he doubted even God's companionship. He bids the Wedding Guest farewell with one final piece of advice: "He prayeth well, who loveth well / Both man and bird and beast." In other words, one becomes closer to God by respecting all living things, because God loves all of his creations "both great and small." Then the Ancient Mariner vanishes. Instead of entering the wedding reception, the Wedding Guest walks away mesmerized. We are told that he learned something from the Ancient Mariner's tale, and was also saddened by it: "A sadder and a wiser man, / He rose the morrow morn."

Analysis

As expected, things again go awry for the Ancient Mariner despite his momentary relief. Though safely in the harbor, the ship is pulled under by a forceful undertow, but the Ancient Mariner cannot drown since he is doomed to a living death. Just as he is compelled to tell the Wedding Guest his story, he is compelled to tell it to the Hermit. The Hermit does not ask him where he came from or how he got to the harbor, but rather asks, "What manner of man art thou?" as if to discern whether or not he is human. After all, the Ancient Mariner appears dead when the rescuers pull him into the boat, and suddenly comes to life to row the boat to shore. Instead of answering the Hermit's question directly, the Ancient Mariner is forced for the first time to tell his tale, or be consumed by agony. As he tells the Wedding Guest, he does not seek out certain people to whom to relate his tale, but rather knows them when he sees them. Since both the Hermit and the Wedding Guest are forced to listen to the tale, it is implied that there must be some similarity between the two men even though they appear to come from entirely opposite worlds.

The Hermit, a type of character often valorized by the Romantics, is pious and keeps to himself except to converse with transient sailors. He has divorced himself from worldly pleasures, preferring to live in harmony with nature. Meanwhile the Wedding Guest yearns to join his friends in a social and merry setting, full of decadent pleasures such as fine food, wine, song, and dance. The Ancient Mariner's final message is that by respecting all creatures, one can become closer to God. This advice is certainly not new to the Hermit, who devotes his whole life to living in unity with nature and praying three times a day. If the Wedding Guest must be reminded of this because he is on his way to indulge in earthly pleasures separated from nature, why doesn't the Ancient Mariner stop either of the Wedding Guest's two companions? As in the rest of the poem, we cannot know more than the Ancient Mariner himself; by maintaining this device, Coleridge reminds us that we are subject to the same moral laws and consequences as his characters. He also maintains a position of authorial power, as though to remind us that while we inhabit his story, we are in his hands. Just as the Ancient Mariner can compel men to listen to his tale, Coleridge can compel us to read "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" from first line to last, and communicate his message to us so that we become "sadder and...wiser."

Coleridge famously claimed that he did not intend for "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" to have a moral, although he seems to phrase one neatly in the lines: "He prayeth best, who loveth best / All things both great and small; / For the dear God who loveth us, / He made and loveth all." Put differently, one becomes closer to God by respecting all his creations. Coleridge uses the word "teach" to describe the Ancient Mariner's storytelling technique, and says that he has "strange power of speech." In this way, he compares the protagonist to himself; both are gifted storytellers who impart their wisdom unto others. By associating himself with the Ancient Mariner, Coleridge implies that he - and by extension all writers - are tormented by their gift for storytelling; it is in fact a curse. Just as the Ancient Mariner is forced to balance in a painful limbo, the writer is compelled to balance in the liminal space of the imagination "until [his] tale is told." Both are like addicts, and storytelling is their drug; it provides only momentary relief until the urge returns. Coleridge paints an equally powerful and pathetic image of the writer. He is able to hold an audience's attention so completely that he can force a man to miss his next of kin's wedding reception. He is capable of forever changing his listeners, but is also the constant victim of his own talent - a skill that torments, but never destroys.

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