The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - FREEMIUM： Chronicles #48 ｜ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner： Part I

00:00:00.000 Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to Chronicles, where this week we're going to be

00:00:18.560 talking all about The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Very,

00:00:25.040 very famous poem of course and i happen to have um quite a nice edition of it myself on this

00:00:30.500 occasion i think i bought it at um some second-hand bookstore in tewksbury but it's actually a folio

00:00:37.000 edition so i've got some wonderful uh sketchings in in it anyway but the point is this is a very

00:00:42.660 very famous poem and deservedly so because not only was it a part of the lyric ballads a joint

00:00:49.480 effort from Coleridge and his lifelong friend William Wordsworth in 1798. But it was also in

00:00:58.320 lyric ballads that most people attribute to the very beginning of the Romantic period as well,

00:01:04.840 the Romantic movement, moving away from the older forms of Augustine and neoclassical poetry

00:01:11.200 by the likes of Alexander Pope and Dryden, and moving away here to something that's trying to

00:01:18.800 evokes something very, very different and very, very powerful. I would also be remiss not to just

00:01:24.760 mention the fact that there is an absolutely stellar Iron Maiden song based on this. So if

00:01:31.020 you're a metalhead, then definitely go and check that out. But let's talk a little bit before all

00:01:36.580 of this about Coleridge. In fact, before we even do that, I'll just explain to you how I'm going

00:01:41.920 to format this particular episode of Chronicles. So I'm going to split this into two parts. I've

00:01:48.200 made this decision, not only because I've had quite a lot of things on at the moment, but also

00:01:52.840 as well, you know, when I do sit down to record these chronicles, I really like to go into them

00:01:58.460 in great detail. And so it was really the question of basically doing a night's worth of sprucing up

00:02:04.940 and research beforehand, or giving myself the real dedicated time to sit with it, to ponder it,

00:02:11.280 and ultimately do it the justice that both, I think, the poem and you who are giving me your

00:02:16.540 time and attention, of course, deserve. And so how we're going to do it is in this first part of

00:02:22.100 Chronicles, I'm going to talk to you a little bit about Coleridge's life, because it's very,

00:02:28.460 very interesting, and I think something definitely worth discussing. And then we're going to read,

00:02:34.140 well, I'm going to read the poem in its entirety, which will be about half an hour. So a bit like

00:02:41.100 when we did T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland

00:02:43.660 and I just read the entire poem.

00:02:45.740 This is definitely one that justifies doing that as well.

00:02:49.440 And I hope as well, unlike T.S. Eliot's

00:02:54.140 very, very modernist abstract prose,

00:02:58.080 I think this one should have sort of a cadence

00:03:00.940 and a rhythm that most people can really get behind.

00:03:04.160 So I think you'll enjoy that.

00:03:06.260 And then next week in part two,

00:03:08.540 it will just be pure analysis of the actual poem itself, because there is simply so much to say

00:03:16.360 about it. And it is ever since I first discovered it, when I did English literature at college,

00:03:22.640 it was always one of my absolute favorites and one that I really need no convincing to return to.

00:03:29.360 So it deserves definitely two parts. So let's start talking about Coleridge himself. So he was

00:03:36.420 born in 1772 in the small village of Otterley on the River Otter in East Devon. So as you can

00:03:44.700 imagine, very, very peaceful, very tranquil life. Honestly, I'm quite envious. But he lived there.

00:03:51.320 And what's remarkable as well, he was the youngest of 10 children between John and Anne Coleridge,

00:03:58.980 his parents and of those eight were brothers and he had only one sister who unfortunately didn't

00:04:06.920 wasn't destined to be too long for this world and many have his he actually went on to outlive

00:04:13.540 most of his family this is our Coleridge that we're talking about well into 1834 dying in his

00:04:21.540 60s due to complications that we'll talk about later. But Coleridge's life is quite an interesting

00:04:29.080 one. So his father was both headmaster and local vicar for the parish in Otterley. Coleridge

00:04:36.880 definitely grew up in a family where faith was very important, both in the household and within

00:04:42.860 the community as well. And also his father was quite a benevolent, if not a bit buffoonish and

00:04:49.200 an eccentric sort of a man. But he was very paternal, right? And he really nurtured

00:04:54.980 Little Coleridge's fascination with his books and with his vivid, almost natural imagination.

00:05:03.600 Coleridge grew up a very, very precocious child. As soon as he could get out there and he was old

00:05:09.200 enough to go to the pub with his uncle, he was always, and for all of his life, really, right up

00:05:15.260 until he would spend his final decades living in Highgate, which I suppose wasn't actually

00:05:21.480 probably a part of London right then as it is now, but its own separate place.

00:05:26.640 But he was regarded then as the sage of Highgate. Coleridge is a guy that most people seem to have

00:05:33.480 had just a very, very positive impression of, an immense conversationalist, a remarkable passion,

00:05:40.760 as women recounted not attractive on the surface but give him five minutes to talk to you and he

00:05:49.120 will just sweep your heart away right that's kind of the guy he seems to have been he's very close

00:05:54.100 to everyone in fact it seems apart from his own children as he would go on to have and also his

00:06:00.240 wife he was um he was a distant father himself and an even more distant husband part of that was

00:06:06.500 because it was something of a loveless marriage.

00:06:09.840 And of course, he far preferred intellectual discussion with the men, the great men of his age.

00:06:15.740 So Coleridge grew up in this household and his father passed away when he was very, very young.

00:06:23.280 And this unfortunately left Coleridge with his mother.

00:06:27.540 Now, his mother was a very grim, very brittle, very, very harsh woman.

00:06:33.260 She wasn't a woman who had a great deal of natural warmth about her, which I have to say is not particularly great when you're the mother of 10.

00:06:43.580 But nonetheless, that's how it was.

00:06:45.820 But this meant that because Coleridge didn't get on with his mother very much at all, it meant that he spent a great deal of his time alone.

00:06:55.700 And Coleridge was a very lonely child growing up, in fact, very lonely indeed.

00:07:00.520 But this meant that in that loneliness, he filled his hours reading Arabian Nights and Robinson Crusoe and all of the great poetry to come before him.

00:07:12.340 And he was someone who had a remarkable imagination, even as a child.

00:07:17.980 And this is, you see so much of the material in Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, hearkening back to some of Coleridge's earliest experiences of literature.

00:07:29.460 and it just being a real coming together of so many influences

00:07:35.040 that he gathered through his time both at home

00:07:39.840 and then later on at Christ's Hospital, which he moved to in 1782

00:07:45.680 and was a very brutal place, to be honest with you.

00:07:49.000 The headmaster was a very liberal flogger.

00:07:52.940 But it did yield one great benefit to his life,

00:07:56.340 which was a lifelong friendship with writer, critic, philosopher Charles Lamb as well,

00:08:03.880 who he went on to have a very wonderful professional relationship with.

00:08:08.740 But as time went on, Coleridge ended up in a position where he was always broke, right?

00:08:15.860 He was always struggling. He was always in debt.

00:08:19.440 And when actually when Christ's Hospital granted him a scholarship to Cambridge

00:08:23.700 because they saw his natural aptitude and his passion for poetry and literature and writing.

00:08:30.880 So Christ's Hospital gave him a scholarship to go to Christ's College at Cambridge,

00:08:37.580 where Coleridge went on to study.

00:08:40.580 And there he wrote all sorts of things like Greek, sapphic poetry,

00:08:46.960 speaking out against the slave trade at the time,

00:08:49.380 which was, of course, a very popular topic throughout the population itself.

00:08:54.200 It's funny in a way, you see, even if it was an issue that didn't have a great amount of political capital and power within Parliament,

00:09:02.740 it was one of the many things that the actual people of England really wanted to talk about.

00:09:09.000 And of course, all of those famous abolitionists of the time, Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce as well, Granville Sharp,

00:09:17.320 All of these people were obviously handing out the pamphlets and trying to get the voice and get the message out there all across the country.

00:09:25.900 And this was something that really touched on Coleridge's heart.

00:09:28.780 And indeed, like most men of their generation, of any generation, in fact, he was his uni years were defined by radicalism.

00:09:37.080 When the French Revolution broke out in 1789, Coleridge was a great supporter of it.

00:09:43.660 And then as time went on, of course, he came to temper his own expectations of such things and such volatile occurrences and certainly found himself more aligned with the Burkean vein of thinking about all of this.

00:10:00.000 One of the other main things that, of course, dominates any true assessment of the life of Coleridge was his lifelong opium addiction.

00:10:10.580 Now, at the time, laudanum was a very, very accessible drug.

00:10:14.840 It was very easy to come by and was prescribed very liberally.

00:10:19.300 And unfortunately, because of an ailment that Coleridge had, he ended up being prescribed some laudanum and found himself before he knew it.

00:10:28.160 before, you know, he had any real personal say in the matter, being entirely dependent on it,

00:10:34.040 the withdrawal symptoms being overwhelming with pain. And he ended up being hooked on opium for

00:10:41.620 the rest of his life. And there were many accounts, certainly in his later life of him trying

00:10:46.840 to sever himself off from it because he knew it was terrible for him. He knew it was damaging him

00:10:53.220 and killing him. But at the same time, he couldn't break away from the addiction that had basically

00:10:59.620 been with him for most of his life. Though, of course, as well, something has to be said for the

00:11:04.480 fact that were it not for his opium addiction, we may not have had, in fact, we almost certainly

00:11:12.320 wouldn't have had some of his most famous and cherished works, such as Kublai Khan, which he

00:11:19.320 wrote after falling into an opium-induced sleep for about three hours and then having these really

00:11:25.220 vivid drug-addled dreams and then coming to and writing the beginning of Kublai Khan, which

00:11:31.940 Coleridge tells us was disrupted by some local man coming to knock about some local business

00:11:39.060 on his door and it breaking Coleridge's concentration and him not finishing it. Whether or not this is

00:11:44.480 just cope in an excuse. We don't know. But that's the story

00:11:47.420 that's told to us. Coleridge eventually wanted to obviously

00:11:52.580 get out there and make a name for himself. He wanted to become

00:11:55.940 a poet and he made all sorts of plans with some of his radical

00:12:01.340 Cambridge friends. There was even an idea waived at the time

00:12:05.160 to go to America and start something that they called a

00:12:09.560 a pantisocracy, which was really sort of like a proto commune type idea, not in the Marxist

00:12:19.080 sense of the idea, more in the Epicurean sense, I presume. Because what Coleridge was doing was

00:12:25.760 he was looking at the radical elements and just the suffering that was brought on by these grand

00:12:34.560 sweeping movements and these grand political ideologies of the time and he thought well

00:12:39.660 pure maybe true spiritual revolution like moral elevation of the human condition can only begin

00:12:48.480 on a smaller scale and so what we'll do is we'll start this pantisocracy and we'll dedicate it to

00:12:54.480 there'll be me and some of my close friends and our wives and everything and we'll go out to

00:12:59.960 America together and we'll try to build just a small society

00:13:04.760 based around trying to create as a microcosm of moral

00:13:09.260 excellence. And then from there, try and grow it out and bring

00:13:14.480 more people into its way of thinking. I mean, this is all

00:13:17.520 very, very fanciful, of course, very, very juvenile stuff. But

00:13:22.280 nonetheless, you know, they were they were dealing with a very

00:13:25.300 radical time. And I think that it seemed like so many things

00:13:29.580 that had until then not been thought possible, were.

00:13:34.760 And these Enlightenment thinkers were, of course,

00:13:37.520 very much taken by the ideals of the French Revolution,

00:13:42.900 fraternité, equality, égalité.

00:13:44.740 But one thing that's very interesting about Coleridge

00:13:47.660 in his earlier life, in his early student years, I should say,

00:13:52.280 is that though he was a radical,

00:13:55.240 and though he was in favour of the French Revolution,

00:13:57.900 One thing that really made him distinct from the other sort of radicals of his age was that Coleridge was never willing to do away with his Christian faith when he came into contact with other liberals in London society, such as William Godwin.

00:14:17.620 These are circles that were predominantly made up of atheists and people who thought of atheism as a way forward.

00:14:26.860 And Coleridge always held firm on holding true to Christian principle and his unwavering faith.

00:14:35.540 And even in, you see this in Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, and it's something that the great, one of the great thinkers, I believe, of our time, Malcolm Gite.

00:14:47.640 If you're not familiar with him, certainly check out his YouTube channel.

00:14:51.860 But you go on to see how Coleridge, through the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, it's an allegory for so many different,

00:15:00.720 It's obviously a voyage of faith, as Guy himself describes it,

00:15:06.460 but also as well, it's allegorical for the creative process of the artist

00:15:12.020 and trying to create something brilliant.

00:15:17.260 And Coleridge always wanted to be remembered as a great poet and a great writer.

00:15:22.200 But the problem was that as he was in his Cambridge years, he was absolutely broke.

00:15:27.480 and he was so in debt and so penniless, bless him, that he was verging on the point of suicide

00:15:33.460 which is a great tragedy when anyone does it and would have been an even greater

00:15:37.700 tragedy were we not to be blessed with the later life of Coleridge himself

00:15:42.220 and all that he was yet to do and be remembered for.

00:15:45.540 But Coleridge went on to enlist in the army because he became so desperate just to take a wage

00:15:53.080 And then fortunately, though he was never deployed overseas, he actually ended up in Henley looking after a soldier who was dying of smallpox.

00:16:01.800 And then eventually he was released from the army with the help of some of his brothers who were also in the army at that time.

00:16:09.500 But then in the middle of the 1790s, things would change for Coleridge forever when he was approached by Josiah Wedgwood II and his brother Thomas, who were the children of noted industrialist and potter, also Josiah Wedgwood, who offered him an annuity of £150 to write then a great poem, to write some great poetry.

00:16:35.000 because they could see the potential in Coleridge.

00:16:37.820 They could see that burning passion and desire

00:16:40.000 and also one of the most remarkable imaginations

00:16:43.780 they'd ever witnessed.

00:16:46.940 And so they saw the untapped potential in this man

00:16:49.880 and just saw that this was a guy who he just needed his lucky break.

00:16:54.080 And so Coleridge came into finally some money at last

00:16:58.300 and he also wanted to go to Germany,

00:17:01.840 of Holy Roman Empire, I suppose, at the time, so that he could meet some of the great German poets

00:17:08.800 and thinkers of the age, people like Goethe, and he would later go on to Germany after.

00:17:13.900 Though interestingly, at the time when he actually wrote Rhyming the Ancient Mariner back in 1797

00:17:21.500 and into 1798, he'd actually never been to sea before. And all of his knowledge of mariners and

00:17:30.240 seafaring just comes from a breathtaking amount of research and speaking to people who knew that

00:17:37.680 world well and incorporating those factors into it as much as they could to all ground it in

00:17:45.700 something that would be supernatural, gothic, dangerous, but would allow you to suspend your

00:17:52.960 willingness of disbelief so you could be entirely sucked into the story. And between Rhyme and the

00:17:59.620 Ancient Mariner and Christabel and Kublai Khan and so many of his early poems, because actually

00:18:06.300 it's interesting as well. A lot of the things that we associate with Coleridge and his fame

00:18:12.440 came about really in the middle part of his life. And Coleridge always struggled, actually,

00:18:20.000 with feelings of inadequacy. He always felt like a little bit of envy towards William Wordsworth,

00:18:28.920 that his career was taking off and Coleridge's seemed to constantly stagnate and stall

00:18:34.760 and how his creative abilities seemed to dry up.

00:18:39.840 That's not true, but that's how Coleridge felt himself about it at times.

00:18:46.200 And so in 1797, as Coleridge was living what sounds like a very peaceful life

00:18:52.200 in a nether stowey, which is on the seacoast of Somerset,

00:18:57.140 and he had a wonderful view out to the coast

00:19:00.660 and he'd go for walks with Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy

00:19:04.620 and they'd discuss everything that people of that day were talking about

00:19:10.400 who had a curiosity about the world

00:19:12.940 and I'm sure they were just some of the most remarkable days for them

00:19:17.360 but it's in this that Coleridge and Wordsworth

00:19:21.460 this is before Coleridge just came into that annuity I was just speaking about

00:19:25.840 So he's still desperately trying to scrape some money together.

00:19:30.120 And he and Wordsworth came up with the idea of, well, why don't we just, you know, write ourselves some quick ballads and some poetry and, you know, send it off to maybe a magazine or buy it off us.

00:19:44.000 And Wordsworth thought, you know, could get a fiver for it.

00:19:46.740 So this is how it began. And they'd based it upon a dream that Wordsworth had heard from someone who was local.

00:19:56.900 A dream about a haunting at sea and some dark dream of being out on sea as a mariner.

00:20:04.380 And so this was one of the inspirations that served for it.

00:20:08.680 But very strangely, in this case, actually, Coleridge began to outright Wordsworth and he was just totally taken and struck by the inspiration that he'd been desperately looking for.

00:20:22.280 And so basically most of the Rhyme and Ancient Mariner, save a very few number of references and I believe a few lines, it really is solely Coleridge's work in this case, though it was first issued in the joint work of lyric ballads that Wordsworth and Coleridge put together.

00:20:45.200 And what's interesting about this as well is that Coleridge and Wordsworth were looking at the neoclassical forms of poetry I was speaking about, and they wanted to return to something that they saw more traditionally English and Scottish, right?

00:21:02.740 Because obviously the poets like Pope and Dryden, they're all basing themselves off of Horace and Greco-Roman writers from antiquity and trying to hold themselves to those standards of poetry to recapture the magic of that age and those virtues that were highly regarded back then.

00:21:24.320 But Wordsworth and Coleridge are writing in reaction to the French Revolution, in reaction to industrialisation, and that means the huge displacements of people up and down England and Scotland as more and more people evacuated their rural heartlands and where their ancestors would have been, of course, for hundreds and hundreds of years to go and seek working factories throughout the cities.

00:21:50.400 And so with all of this displacement of peoples around the land and people losing their local connections and ties, Coleridge and Wordsworth are writing to try and preserve something traditional about English and Scottish culture.

00:22:05.840 And one of those things was the lyric ballad, these grand medieval lyric ballads that they're doing.

00:22:13.920 And so the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner is in the ballad form and it gives the entire thing.

00:22:20.960 Not only was it good enough for Iron Maiden, but it also gives the entire thing this fantastic unfolding, this dreamlike progression to it.

00:22:31.240 And, you know, you can really have fun with the tempo of it and you can barrel it forward as things get intense or you can slow it down as things get intimate.

00:22:40.140 And it's really fun to play with when you read it out loud.

00:22:44.480 For Wordsworth particularly, he wanted to get away from the neoclassical era.

00:22:50.880 He wanted to get away from the sort of elevated language and the classical allusions

00:22:56.880 and try to bring about a poetry that was much more rustic, much more ordinary,

00:23:03.760 that was spoken in the language of everyday people.

00:23:07.260 Now, to avoid confusion, in fact, Coleridge's Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner

00:23:10.840 doesn't adhere to that whatsoever, really.

00:23:13.780 In fact, this version that I've got here is, I think, Coleridge's third personal revision of the poem himself.

00:23:22.760 And generally speaking, it was always towards diluting and trying to make more accessible the very purposefully archaic choices of language, medieval choices of language, that the original 1798 version of the poem had.

00:23:40.160 And in fact, one of the reasons Wordsworth had a little bit of a gripe that he thought that one of the reasons why the lyric ballads didn't immediately become successful was because it was hamstrung by Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.

00:23:55.340 But as we'll see later on, this came to become a very greatly adored poem in its own right.

00:24:01.760 But nonetheless, Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner does still have many of the hallmarks of romantic literature.

00:24:07.880 It puts a focus on, not on gods and kings and antiquity, but on the lives of the ordinary.

00:24:16.440 And that's what we see just in this person, in the tale of this ancient mariner.

00:24:21.860 He is just a man, a stranger.

00:24:24.620 He's no one in any other time would be anyone of significant consequence.

00:24:29.880 And yet he goes on this profound spiritual journey that is just as powerful and has the

00:24:36.080 opportunity to change the lives of other people for the better as much as any aristocrat ever

00:24:44.140 could and of course the other thing that is always at the forefront of or a hallmark of romantic

00:24:50.960 poetry is of course the presence of nature within the poem we obviously talked about this quite

00:24:57.940 a lot when we did that two-parter on Wuthering Heights and how much Bronte employs nature into

00:25:05.020 that as a character in and of itself and that's certainly something that you see in rhyming ancient

00:25:11.040 marin as well taking nature away from being something uh that is merely window dressing and

00:25:18.340 is you know can create very idyllic imagery but really is something that is an active participant

00:25:24.460 in the story itself in the tale itself something that has a will of its own and something that

00:25:31.940 mankind actually have to reckon with and you can see this obviously being a strong reaction

00:25:38.340 to the industrial revolution i mean this is very much immortalized by william blake of course who

00:25:45.060 wrote the original lyrics slash poem for jerusalem you know about those dark satanic mills uh this is

00:25:52.900 all very much in reaction to that and what they saw as a spoiling of the land and of course that

00:25:58.580 kind of trajectory follows all the way through to Tolkien when he's writing The Lord of the Rings

00:26:04.300 and certainly, you know, further on into our day with more insufferable sorts of environmental

00:26:11.500 voices. But nonetheless, it's definitely present in there and is the source of some wisdom. And

00:26:17.680 the last thing as well to say about it before we read it as well and something to be mindful is

00:26:22.160 The level of feeling put into it as well, as opposed to the neoclassical poetry that put a great deal of emphasis on logic and decorum and reason.

00:26:36.000 And when you read those poems, they're just very orderly as they are.

00:26:41.080 You know, the romantics were really involved.

00:26:43.880 I mean, and obviously Byron himself would go on to immortalize this in the figure of the Byronic hero.

00:26:49.860 But it's really about a man who is feeling the emotions and it's about letting the words revel in the volatility of the emotional state and how these experiences make you feel on the inside and how through that feeling you can arrive at greater moral clarity about a situation.

00:27:11.160 And so The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner is a poem that really focuses in on the mariner's psychological state.

00:27:19.560 It's something that forces you to indulge in his loneliness, in his fear, in his relief towards the end.

00:27:27.800 And all of these things, it really makes a point of the emotional state and the emotional stakes of the poem.

00:27:35.620 So, with all that said, I think that I've front-loaded this with a good enough amount

00:27:41.840 of information for you to get us started off, and like I say, we'll discuss the entire analysis

00:27:47.280 of the poem next week. But for now, let us read, and let me regale you with the tale

00:27:53.000 of the rhyme of the ancient mariner.

00:27:55.180 it is an ancient mariner and he stoppeth one of three by thy long gray beard and glittering eye

00:28:09.360 now wherefore stop us on me the bridegroom's doors are opened wide and i am next of kin

00:28:15.760 the guests are met the feast is set mayest hear the merry din he holds him with his skinny hand

00:28:23.120 There was a ship, quoth he, Hold off, unhand me, greybeard loon,

00:28:28.260 Eftsoons his hand dropped he. He holds him with his glittering eye,

00:28:33.180 The wedding guest stood still, And listens like a three-year's child

00:28:38.280 The mariner hath his will. The wedding guest sat on the stone,

00:28:43.700 He cannot choose but hear, And thus spake on that ancient man,

00:28:48.040 the bright-eyed mariner. The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, merrily did we drop,

00:28:55.700 below the kirk, below the hill, below the lighthouse top. The sun came up, upon the left,

00:29:02.280 out of the sea came he, and he shone bright, and on the right went down into the sea.

00:29:09.900 Higher and higher, every day, till over the mast at noon, the wedding guest here beat his breast,

00:29:16.280 for he heard the loud bassoon the bride hath paced into the hall red as a rose is she

00:29:24.120 nodding their heads before her goes the merry minstrelsy the wedding guest he beat his breast

00:29:31.700 yet he cannot choose but hear and thus spake on that ancient man the bright-eyed mariner

00:29:38.240 and now the storm blast came and he was tyrannous and strong he struck with his overtaking wings

00:29:45.800 And chased us south along, With sloping masts and dipping prow,

00:29:50.520 As who pursued with yell and blow, Still treads the shadow of his foe,

00:29:55.000 And forward bends his head. The ship drove fast,

00:29:58.680 Loud roared the blast, And southward aye we fled.

00:30:03.240 And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold,

00:30:08.040 And ice, mast high, came floating by, As green as emerald.

00:30:13.320 And through the drifts the snowy cliffs did send a dismal sheen, nor shapes of men nor beasts were

00:30:20.580 ken, the ice was all between. The ice was here, the ice was there, the ice was all around. It

00:30:28.240 cracked and growled, and roared and howled, like noises in a swound. At length did cross an albatross,

00:30:35.780 thorough the fog it came, as if it had been a Christian soul, we hailed it in God's name. 0.92

00:30:42.320 It ate the food it ne'er had eat, and round and round it flew. 0.97

00:30:47.360 The ice did split with a thunder fit, the helmsman steered us through.

00:30:52.020 And a good south wind sprung up behind, the albatross did follow.

00:30:56.800 And every day, for food or play, came to the mariner's hollow.

00:31:02.060 In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, it perched for vespers nine.

00:31:06.580 Whilst all the wild through fog-smoke white glimmered the white moonshine.

00:31:12.320 God save thee, ancient mariner, from the fiends that plagued thee thus.

00:31:16.920 Why lookst thou so?

00:31:19.000 With my crossbow I shot the albatross.

00:31:30.240 The sun now rose upon the right, out of the sea came he.

00:31:35.220 Still hidden mist and on the left went down into the sea.

00:31:39.280 And the good south wind still blew behind.

00:31:42.320 and no sweet bird did follow, nor any day for food or play came to the mariner's hollow.

00:31:49.960 And I had done a hellish thing, and it would work and woe, for all averred I had killed the bird

00:31:57.000 that made the breeze to blow. Ah, wretch, said they, the bird to slay that made the breeze to blow.

00:32:04.660 Nor din, nor red, like God's own head, the glorious sun oppressed. Then all averred I had killed the

00:32:11.280 bird that brought the fog the mist. T'was right, said they, such birds to slay, that bring the fog

00:32:18.140 and mist. The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, the furrow followed free. We were the first

00:32:25.280 that ever burst into that silent sea. Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped down. T'was sad as

00:32:33.500 sad could be. And we did speak only to break the silence of the sea. All in a hot and copper sky,

00:32:42.060 the bloody sun at noon, right up above the mast did stand no bigger than the moon. Day after day,

00:32:50.040 day after day, we stuck nor breath nor motion, as idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.

00:32:57.060 Water, water, everywhere, and all the boards did shrink

00:33:02.100 Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink

00:33:06.540 The very deep did rot, O Christ, that ever this should be

00:33:10.960 Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs upon the slimy sea

00:33:15.680 About, about, in reel and rout, the death fires danced at night

00:33:20.660 The water, like a witch's oils, burnt green and blue and white

00:33:26.100 And some in dreams assured were

00:33:28.520 Of the spirit that plagued us so

00:33:30.800 Nine fathom deep he had followed us

00:33:33.620 From the land of mist and snow

00:33:35.820 And every tongue through utter drought

00:33:38.540 Was withered at the root

00:33:40.180 We could not speak no more than if

00:33:42.620 We had been choked with soot

00:33:44.540 Ah, well-a-day, what evil looks had I

00:33:48.100 From old and young

00:33:49.160 Instead of the cross, the albatross

00:33:52.100 About my neck was hung

00:33:56.100 There passed a weary time. Each throat was parched and grazed each eye.

00:34:06.780 A weary time, a weary time. How grazed each weary eye.

00:34:11.420 When looking westward, I beheld a something in the sky.

00:34:15.860 At first it seemed a little speck, and then it seemed a mist.

00:34:19.960 It moved and moved, and took at last a certain shape I wist.

00:34:23.920 A speck, a mist, a shape I whist, And still it neared and neared,

00:34:29.540 As if it dodged a water sprite, It plunged intact and veered.

00:34:34.100 With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, We could nor laugh nor wail. 0.56

00:34:39.080 Through utter drought all dumb we stood, I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, 0.83

00:34:43.740 And cried, assail, assail! With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, 0.98

00:34:48.480 Agape they heard me call. Gramercy! They for joy did grin,

00:34:53.620 And all at once their breath drew in, As they were drinking all.

00:34:58.420 See, see, I cried, she tacks no more, Hither to work her's wheel, 0.76

00:35:03.480 Without a breeze, without a tide, She steadies with upright keel.

00:35:07.820 The western wave was all aflame, The day was nigh well done.

00:35:12.480 Almost upon the western wave Rested the broad bright sun,

00:35:16.780 When that strange shape Drove suddenly betwixt us and the sun.

00:35:20.600 And straight the sun was flecked with bars, Heaven's mother send us grace,

00:35:26.460 As if through a dungeon grate he peered, With broad and burning face.

00:35:32.100 Alas, thought I, and my heart beat loud, How fast she nears and nears!

00:35:38.280 Are those her sails that glance in the sun Like restless gossamers?

00:35:42.800 Are those her ribs through which the sun Did peer as through a grate? 0.52

00:35:46.880 And is that woman all her crew? Is that a death, and are there two? Is death that woman's mate?

00:35:54.360 Her lips were red, her looks were free, her locks were yellow as gold, her skin was as white as 1.00

00:36:00.900 leprosy, the nightmare life in death was she, who thicks man's blood with cold. The naked hulk 1.00

00:36:08.520 alongside came, and the twain were casting dice. The game is done, I've won, I've won, quoth she 0.80

00:36:16.300 and whistled thrice the sun's rim dips the stars rush out at one stride comes a dark

00:36:22.880 with far heard whisper o'er the sea off shot the spectre bark we listened and looked sideways up

00:36:31.220 fear at my heart as at a cup my lifeblood seemed to sip the stars were dim and thick the night

00:36:38.520 The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white

00:36:41.640 From the sails a dew did drip

00:36:44.360 Till clung above the eastern bar

00:36:47.140 The horned moon with one bright star

00:36:49.980 Within the nether tip

00:36:51.600 One after one by the star-dogged moon

00:36:54.980 Too quick for groan or sigh

00:36:57.240 Each turned his face with a ghastly pang

00:37:00.140 And cursed me with his eye 1.00

00:37:02.100 Four times fifty living men

00:37:05.300 And I heard nor sigh nor groan

00:37:08.040 With heavy thump a lifeless lump

00:37:11.080 They dropped down one by one

00:37:13.760 The souls did from their bodies fly

00:37:16.760 They fled to bliss or woe

00:37:19.420 And every soul had passed me by

00:37:22.020 Like the whiz of my crossbow 1.00

00:37:24.560 I fear thee, ancient mariner 1.00

00:37:34.660 I fear thy skinny hand

00:37:36.740 And thou art long and lank and brown, as is a ribbed sea sand.

00:37:41.980 I fear thee and thy glittering eye, and thy skinny hand so brown.

00:37:46.940 Fear not, fear not, thou wedding guest, this body dropped not down.

00:37:52.400 Alone, alone, all, all alone, alone on a wide, wide sea,

00:37:58.520 And never a saint took pity, my soul in agony.

00:38:01.880 The many men, so beautiful, and they all dead did lie,

00:38:07.500 And a thousand thousand slimy things lived on, and so did I.

00:38:12.920 I looked upon the rotting sea, and drew my eyes away,

00:38:17.140 I looked upon the rotting deck, and there the dead men lay.

00:38:21.500 I looked to heaven, and tried to pray, but o'er ever a prayer had gushed,

00:38:26.900 A wicked whisper came, and made my heart as dry as dust.

00:38:30.920 I closed my lids and kept them closed 0.85

00:38:34.020 And the balls like pulses beat

00:38:36.180 For the sky and the sea and the sea and the sky

00:38:39.620 Lay like a load on my weary eye

00:38:42.380 And the dead were at my feet

00:38:44.300 The cold sweat melted from their limbs

00:38:47.480 Nor rot nor reek did they

00:38:49.480 The look with which they looked on me

00:38:52.420 Had never passed away 1.00

00:38:54.120 An orphan's curse would drag to hell 0.89

00:38:57.140 A spirit from on high 0.83

00:38:58.940 But, oh, more horrible than that

00:39:01.560 Is the curse in a dead man's eye

00:39:03.880 Seven days, seven nights

00:39:06.480 I saw that curse and yet I could not die

00:39:09.820 The moving moon went up the sky

00:39:12.960 And nowhere did abide

00:39:14.780 Softly she was going up

00:39:17.320 And a star or two beside

00:39:19.560 Her beams bemocked the sultry mane

00:39:22.500 Like April hoarfrost spread

00:39:24.760 But where the ship's huge shadow lay

00:39:27.680 The charmed water burnt all way

00:39:30.220 A still and awful red

00:39:32.560 Beyond the shadow of the ship

00:39:35.080 I watched the water snakes

00:39:37.360 They moved in tracks of shining white

00:39:40.340 And when they reared the elfish light

00:39:43.120 Fell off in hoary flakes

00:39:45.160 Within the shadow of the ship

00:39:47.480 I watched their rich attire

00:39:49.380 Blue, glossy green and velvet black

00:39:52.540 They coiled and swam

00:39:54.260 And every track was a flash of golden fire

00:39:57.600 O happy living things, no tongue their beauty might declare

00:40:03.300 A spring of love gushed from my heart, and I blessed them unaware

00:40:08.760 Sure, my kind saint took pity on me, and I blessed them unaware

00:40:14.500 The selfsame moment I could pray, and from my neck so free

00:40:20.120 The albatross fell off and sank like lead into the sea

00:40:27.600 Oh, sleep, it is a gentle thing.

00:40:36.800 Beloved from pole to pole, to Mary Queen the praise be given,

00:40:41.280 she sent the gentle sleep from heaven that slid into my soul.

00:40:47.160 The silly buckets on the deck that had so long remained,

00:40:51.180 I dreamt that they were filled with dew, and when I awoke it rained.

00:40:55.940 My lips were wet, my throat was cold, my garments all were dank

00:41:02.040 Sure I had drunken in my dreams, and still my body drank

00:41:07.320 I moved, and could not feel my limbs

00:41:10.920 I was so light, almost, I thought that I had died in sleep

00:41:15.720 And was a blessed ghost

00:41:17.840 And soon I heard a roaring wind

00:41:21.020 It did not come anear

00:41:23.580 But with its sound it shook the sails that were so thin and seer.

00:41:27.920 The upper air burst into life, and a hundred fire-flags sheen.

00:41:32.960 To and fro they were hurried about, and to and fro, and in and out,

00:41:37.260 the one-stars danced between.

00:41:40.020 And the coming wind did roar more loud, and the sails did sigh like sedge.

00:41:44.920 And the rain poured down from one black cloud, the moon was at its edge.

00:41:51.040 The thick black cloud was cleft and still, the moon was at its side.

00:41:56.000 Like water shot from some high crag, the lightning fell with never a jag, a river steep and wide.

00:42:03.860 The loud wind never reached the ship, yet now the ship moved on.

00:42:08.280 Beneath the lightning and the moon, the dead men gave a groan.

00:42:12.720 They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, nor spake nor moved their eyes.

00:42:19.000 It had been strange, even in a dream, to have seen those dead men rise.

00:42:25.600 The helmsmen steered, the ship moved on, yet never a breeze up blew.

00:42:30.840 The mariners all gan work the ropes where they were wont to do.

00:42:35.560 They raised their limbs like lifeless tools, we were a ghastly crew.

00:42:40.760 The body of my brother's son stood by me, knee to knee.

00:42:45.780 The body and I pulled at one rope, but he said nought to me.

00:42:51.440 I fear thee, ancient mariner, be calm, thou wedding guest.

00:42:56.520 T'was not those souls that fled in pain, which to their courses came again,

00:43:00.960 but a troop of spirits blessed.

00:43:04.080 For when it dawned, they dropped their arms and clustered round the mast.

00:43:09.280 Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths

00:43:13.100 And from their bodies passed

00:43:15.120 Around, around, flew each sweet sound

00:43:18.840 Then darted to the sun

00:43:20.840 Slowly the sounds came back again

00:43:23.580 Now mixed, now one by one

00:43:26.540 Sometimes a-dropping from the sky 1.00

00:43:30.080 I heard the skylarks sing

00:43:32.460 Sometimes all little birds that are

00:43:35.680 How they seem to fill the sea and air

00:43:38.400 with their sweet jargoning.

00:43:41.500 And now it was like all instruments,

00:43:44.000 now like a lonely flute,

00:43:46.200 and now it is an angel's song

00:43:48.460 that makes the heavens be mute.

00:43:51.400 It ceased, yet still the sail made on

00:43:54.040 a pleasant noise till noon,

00:43:56.340 a noise like all the hidden brook

00:43:58.420 in the leafy month of June,

00:44:00.220 that to the sleeping woods all night

00:44:02.840 singeth a quiet tune.

00:44:05.660 Till noon we quietly sailed on,

00:44:08.400 yet never a breeze did breathe. Slowly and smoothly went the ship, moved onward from beneath.

00:44:16.360 Under the keel nine fathom deep, from the land of mist and snow, the spirit slid, and it was he

00:44:23.300 that made the ship to go. The sails at noon left off their tune, and the ship stood still also.

00:44:30.680 The sun, right up above the mast, had fixed her to the ocean, but in a minute she ganned stir with

00:44:37.260 short uneasy motion, backwards and forwards, half her length with a short uneasy motion.

00:44:45.760 Then like a pouring horse let go, she made a sudden bound.

00:44:49.620 It flung the blood into my head, and I fell down in a swound.

00:44:54.500 How long in that fit I lay, I have not to declare.

00:44:58.720 But ere my living life returned, I heard and in my soul discerned two voices in the air.

00:45:06.020 Is it he, quoth one, is this the man, by him who died on cross?

00:45:11.180 With his cruel blow he laid full low the harmless albatross.

00:45:15.640 The spirit who bideth by himself in the land of mist and snow.

00:45:20.240 He loved the bird that loved the man, who shot him with his bow.

00:45:24.460 The other was a softer voice, as soft as honeydew.

00:45:28.940 Quoth he, the man hath penitence done, and penitence more will do.

00:45:36.020 But tell me, tell me, speak again, thy soft response renewing.

00:45:47.260 What makes that ship drive on so fast? What is the ocean doing?

00:45:52.000 Still as a slave before his lord, the ocean hath no blast.

00:45:56.540 His great bright eye most silently up to the moon is cast.

00:46:00.860 If he may know which way to go, for she guide him smooth or grim.

00:46:05.240 See, brother, see, how graciously she looketh down on him

00:46:10.280 But why drives on that ship so fast, without, or wave, or wind

00:46:15.280 The air is cut away before, and closes from behind

00:46:19.920 Fly, brother, fly, more high, more high, or we shall be belated

00:46:26.140 For slow and slow that ship will go when the mariner's trance is abated

00:46:31.000 I woke, and we were sailing on, as in a gentle weather.

00:46:37.160 T'was night, calm night, the moon was high, the dead men stood together.

00:46:42.900 All stood together on the deck, for a channel dungeon fitter.

00:46:47.660 All fixed on me their stony eyes, that in the moon did glitter.

00:46:52.520 The pang, the curse, with which they died, had never passed away.

00:46:56.620 I could not draw my eyes from theirs, nor turn them up to pray.

00:47:01.000 and now the spell was snapped once more i viewed the ocean green and looked far forth yet little

00:47:09.580 saw of what had else been seen like one that on a lonesome road doth walk in fear and dread

00:47:17.900 and having once turned round walks on and turns no more his head because he knows a frightened

00:47:25.640 fiend doth close behind him tread but soon there breathed a wind on me nor sound nor motion made

00:47:33.480 its paths were not upon the sea in ripple or in shade it raised my hair it fanned my cheek like

00:47:40.680 a meadow gale of spring it mingled strangely with my fears yet it felt like a welcoming

00:47:47.320 Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, yet she sailed softly too.

00:47:53.720 Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze, on me alone it blew.

00:47:59.280 O dream of joy, is this indeed the lighthouse top I see?

00:48:05.280 Is this the hill, is this the kirk, is this mine own country?

00:48:10.480 We drifted o'er the harbour bar, and I with sobs did pray.

00:48:15.320 Oh, let me be awake, my God, or let me sleep alway.

00:48:20.600 The harbour bay was clear as glass, so smoothly it was strewn,

00:48:25.720 and on the bay the moonlight lay in the shadow of the moon.

00:48:30.180 The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, that stands above the rock.

00:48:34.680 The moonlight steeped in silentness, the steady weathercock.

00:48:39.460 And the bay was white with silent light, tis rising from the same,

00:48:44.320 Full many shapes that shadows were

00:48:47.280 In crimson colours came

00:48:49.260 A little distance from the prow

00:48:51.900 Those crimson shadows were

00:48:53.700 I turned my eyes upon the deck

00:48:56.200 O Christ, what saw I there?

00:48:58.700 Each course lay flat

00:49:00.220 Lifeless flat

00:49:01.840 And by the holy rood

00:49:03.980 A man all light

00:49:06.240 A seraph man

00:49:07.560 On every course there stood

00:49:09.780 This seraph band

00:49:12.400 Each waved his hand

00:49:13.840 it was a heavenly sight they stood at signals to the land each one a lovely light this seraph band

00:49:23.420 each waved his hand no voice did they impart no voice but oh the silence sank like music on my

00:49:31.440 heart but soon i heard the dash of oars i heard the pilot's cheer my head was turned perforce away

00:49:39.880 and I saw a boat appear. The pilot and the pilot's buoy, I heard them coming fast.

00:49:47.380 Dear Lord in heaven, it was a joy, the dead man could not blast. I saw a third, I heard his voice,

00:49:56.020 it is the hermit good. He singeth loud his godly hymns that he makes in the wood.

00:50:02.120 He'll shrive my soul, he'll wash away the albatross's blood.

00:50:09.880 This hermit good lives in that wood, which slopes down to the sea.

00:50:18.200 How loudly his sweet voice he rears! He loves to talk with mariners that come from a far country.

00:50:25.760 He kneels at morn, and noon and eve he hath a cushion plump.

00:50:31.040 It is the moss at holy highs, the rotted old oak stump.

00:50:35.720 The skiff boat neared, I heard them talk.

00:50:38.040 Why, this is a strange I trow. Where are those lights, so many and fair, that signal made but now?

00:50:46.100 Strange, by my faith, the hermit said. And they answered, not our cheer.

00:50:51.640 The planks were trapped, and see those sails, how thin they are and seer.

00:50:56.300 I never saw aught like to them, unless perchance it were.

00:51:00.540 Brown skeletons of leaves at lag, my forest brook along.

00:51:04.000 When the ivy tod is heavy with snow

00:51:06.480 And the owlet whooped the wolf below

00:51:08.580 That eats the she-wolf's young

00:51:10.640 Dear Lord, it hath a fiendish look

00:51:14.220 The pilot made reply

00:51:15.980 I am afeard, push on, push on 0.97

00:51:18.840 Said the hermit cheerily 0.93

00:51:20.680 The boat came closer to the ship 0.97

00:51:23.400 But I nor spake nor stirred

00:51:25.460 The boat came close beneath the ship

00:51:27.880 And straight a sound was heard

00:51:30.000 Under the water it rumbled on

00:51:32.660 Still louder and more dread

00:51:34.340 It reached the ship

00:51:35.580 It split the bay

00:51:36.780 The ship went down like red

00:51:38.900 Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound

00:51:42.340 Which sky and ocean smote

00:51:44.620 Like one that hath been seven days drowned

00:51:47.400 My body lay afloat

00:51:49.180 But swift as dreams

00:51:51.280 Myself I found within the pirate's boat

00:51:54.360 Upon the whirl where sank the ship

00:51:56.880 The boat spun round and round

00:51:58.980 And all was still save that the hill

00:52:01.560 was telling of the sound. I moved my lips, the pilot shrieked, and fell down in the fit.

00:52:08.440 The holy hermit raised his eyes and prayed where he did sit. I took the oars, the pilot's boy,

00:52:15.200 who now doth crazy go, laughed loud and long, and all the while his eyes went to and fro.

00:52:22.100 Ha! ha! quoth he, full plain to see, the devil knows how to row.

00:52:28.560 And now, all in my own country, I stood on the firm land.

00:52:34.660 The hermit stepped forth from the boat, and scarcely he could stand. 1.00

00:52:39.740 O shrive me, shrive me, holy man! The hermit crossed his brow.

00:52:45.260 So quick, saith he, I bid thee say, what manner of man art thou?

00:52:51.580 Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched, with a woeful agony,

00:52:55.520 which forced me to begin my tale, and then it left me free.

00:53:00.600 Since then, at an uncertain hour, that agony returns,

00:53:05.580 until my ghostly tale is told, this heart within me burns.

00:53:11.040 I pass, like night, from land to land, I have stranger power of speech.

00:53:17.000 That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me,

00:53:21.880 to him my tale I teach.

00:53:25.200 What loud uproar bursts from that door, the wedding guests are there,

00:53:29.840 and in the garden bower the bride and bridesmaids singing are,

00:53:34.160 and hark the little vesper bell which bideth me to prayer.

00:53:39.220 O wedding guest, the soul hath been alone on a wide, wide sea,

00:53:44.920 so lonely twas that God himself scarce seemed there to me.

00:53:49.560 O sweeter than the marriage feast, tis sweeter far to me

00:53:54.760 To walk together to the kirk with a goodly company

00:53:58.540 To walk together to the kirk and all together pray

00:54:03.380 While each to his great father bends

00:54:06.280 Old men and babes and loving friends 1.00

00:54:09.140 And youths and maidens gay 1.00

00:54:11.400 Farewell, farewell, but this I tell 0.97

00:54:15.340 To thee, thou wedding guest

00:54:17.920 He prayeth well, who loveth well, both man and bird and beast.

00:54:23.820 He prayeth best, who loveth best, all things both great and small.

00:54:29.320 For a dear God who loveth us, he made and loveth all.

00:54:34.740 The mariner, whose eye is bright, whose beard with age is whore, is gone.

00:54:40.120 And now the wedding guest turned from the bridegroom's door.

00:54:43.660 He went like one that hath been stunned, and is of sense forlorn.

00:54:49.520 A sadder and a wiser man, he rose the morrow morn.

00:55:13.660 Out of the sea

00:55:17.640 Sea

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - June 20, 2026

FREEMIUM： Chronicles #48 ｜ The Rime of the Ancient Mariner： Part I

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