THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

With

Abubakar Sulaiman Muhd

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner narrates a story within story of a wondering mariner who stops one of the three wedding-guests to tell his woeful experience on the course of his voyage where he killed an Albatross, the bird of good omen.

          The mariner will be wondering from place to place boldly to tell whoever he meets his experience and teach him the lesson about tempering with nature, its harmful effect and its consequence. The mariner will suffer more than death by going round the world telling his story as a punishment for his responsibility of killing the Albatross

          The part one of the poem narrates a journey on ship with wedding-guests along with the mariner.  The mariner tells (to the wedding-guests the story of his voyage on which he killed the Albatross) that their ship was sailing to the southward in smooth wind and fair weather. But all of a sudden the ship was hijacked by a storm towards the South Pole, to the direction of an inhabitable icy place of Antarctica. Then a sea-bird, Albatross came to their aid and the bird proved to be a good-omen bird. It directed the ship to the north out of the fog   and mounting ice.  The ancient mariner inhospitably killed the pious bird of good omen. For the mariner suspected the bird to be the cause of the storm.

         

Why look’st thou so? With my cross bow

          I shot the Albatross

After killing the albatross, the plague of the storm has befallen upon them again. There and then the mariner started to regret what he did.

          And I had done a hellish thing

          And it worked them woe

          For all averred, I had killed the bird

          That made the breeze to blow

The shipmates started to resent about what the mariner did and they begin to holler their anger at him over the killing of the bird of good luck. But when the fog cleared away, they wrongly justified that it was the bird that wrought the fog and storm and as a result they made themselves accomplice in committing the crime of slaying the Albatross.

          Then all averred, I had killed the bird

          That brought the fog and mist

Because of their crime, a sipirit followed them, one of the invisible inhabitants of the planet. And they started experiencing a myriad of plague. The shipmates in their distress forced the mariner to hang up the carcass of the dead Albatross round his neck as a symbolism of being responsible of killing the bird , and other hand as a sign of repentance.

In the part three of the poem, the mariner continued to say that the situation he encountered along with the crew members was dull and unpleasant because of the description he gave that he attempted to bite his shoulder perhaps he might get blood to suckle in order to quell his thirst.

 We could not laugh nor wail

          Through utter drought all dumb we stood

I bit my arm, I sucked the blood

They passed into a weary time

There passed a weary time each that

          Was perched and glazed each eye

          A weary time! A weary time

But more dreadful scenes occurred, one by one all the crew members died leaving the mariner amid of corpses cursing himself against his crime.

 Four times living men

          (And I heard nor sigh nor groan)

With heavy thump, lifeless lump,

They dropped down one by one.

For he would not die like the crewmen did as their punishment, he would only remain to see horrific encounters more than death in order to teach others lesson about the danger of violating nature or in other words the killing of the Albatross. The mariner continued to moan over his loneliness and solitary because there was nobody around. Afterwards the mariner pleaded mercy from the heaven so as to repent his crime and to lessen his punishment.

In the part four of the poem the mariner started to be afraid and remorsed, pitying himself.  He got hopeless for even his prayer seemed to be unheeded. In this, the poet uses biblical allusion to show that whoever commits a crime; he must get his consequence and therefore must bear with it. In other words we can say that violation of nature befalls harmful effect on the people. As part of his punishment, the dead bodies were tormenting him and everything around him seemed to be rotting and terrifying.

          I looked upon the rotting sea

          And drew my eyes away

          I the dead men lay

Wherever he looked to find comfort, proved to be rotting and stinking. So the mariner has no way out. He insisted on praying and praying but seemed to no avail. A voice in his mind told him that his prayer would not be answered, for that he became more hopeless;

          A wicked whisper came and made

          My heart as dry as dust

He became hapless, despaired and restless. The sky and the sea became like lead in his eyes, so he closes his eyes to take refuge but the eyes beat a heavy painful pulse and again amid the corpses. The mariner longed for death rather than living with the unpleasant things for a total of boring seven days. Again and again the mariner was praying and trying to do something as repentance. Later on, the mariner saw water –snakes. He took lesson from his previous crime and now he overwhelmingly and spontaneously appreciated the creatures. At this juncture, we can say that the poet as a Romanist uses the snake as symbolism of nature and his curse to represent the punishment of violation of nature.

          I watched their rich attire

          Blue, glossing green and black velvet.

The mariner felt some degree of love to the water-snakes and started to admire them. He was so engrossed, so enthralled and so mesmeric.

          A spring of love gush form my heart

          And I blessed them unaware

          Sure my kind saint took pity on me

Buoyant was the mariner. His burden lighted and his prayer answered. Right away the carcass of the Albatross started to fall down off his neck and sank in to the sea. Many critiques attributed this with the case of Jesus Chris’s salvation to people. He came to save people from their sins and that same people crucified him and then later he was taken to heaven as symbolizes in the case with the Albatross and the mariner. The Albatross came to save them and the mariner and crew members ended up killing the bird.

In the part five of the poem a pleasant and resting moment came and more so the rain fell which symbolizes the God’s blessing on the mariner or perhaps to say that his prayer is now answered. As a Romanist it might mean to say that those who protect nature, blessing on them. To affirm the forgiveness, the dead men rose to life again.

          They groaned, they stirred, they all rose

          It had been strange, even in a dream

To have seen these men rise  

The wedding-guest were taken aback with the incident and the mariner calmed him down that it was all form the guardian saint(mother of heaven) who sent the troop of blest sipirit to rescue them. Sweet and pleasant moment. Coleridge as a romantic poet, he metaphorically assumed the ‘lark’ ‘lark’ drop of  the drizzle as sweet jargoning  sound and the chirps of insects as musical instrument to produce a pleasant sound like angel’s song .

          Now like a lonely flute

          And now it’s like angel’s song

          The breeze and the storm all cleared off and they started again to the right direction enjoying in the pleasant noise of insect and the drops of water.

In part six, the ship sailed towards northward. The mariner was cast in to a trance and began dreaming, hearing two voice speaking. He woke up and continued their journey peacefully in mild and soft weather along with the crew members. The mariner continued to tell the wedding-guest all that happened and his penance how ‘twas accepted. He said he could never forget the pang of and the curse and all the dreadful experiences he underwent.

          The pang, the curse which they died

          Had never passed away

And soon the he expiated and started his life afresh and anew, and they arrived at the harbour-bay of his country.

The last part, the mariner concluded his narration to tell the wedding-guest that for a long time he have been suffering in a burning and woeful agony that forced him to tell his agony  to anybody he meets about his predicament. And at long last how he was set free and forgiven. And whenever the agony returns, it burns him within until when he tells his ghastly tale then at ease he feels.

          The mariner emphasizing his course of tale that truelly all that he tells is a solid truth.

          O wedding-guest! This soul hath seen

          Alone on a wide wide wide sea

And his lesson is that whoever violates nature, God Himself will ignore him until when the consequence exacts its toll of suffering on him. And at the end, he said it is necessary for him to teach people by his example the danger of nature violation and call for the reverence and love of all that God creates and loves. This is to show that people should not temper with nature, they should leave whatever God creates in it natural way because God creates it with purpose.