Part V

Alexandra, Dan, and Skye

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

OH sleep! it is a gentle thing,Beloved from pole to pole!To Mary Queen the praise be given!She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,That had so long remained,I dreamt that they were filled with dew;And when I awoke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,My garments all were dank;Sure I had drunken in my dreams,And still my body drank.

Finally the mariner can sleep/pray and mercifully escape his morbid reality/the curse

Gloss: “By grace of the Holy Mother, the Ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain [and sleep]”

Alliteration 5 line distinction

silly: from the Middle English seli for blessed, the Old English gesaelig for blessed, and the Gothic sels for good

Turning point; reversal of fate/punishment

Alliteration Relief comes with the long-

awaited quenching of thirst Baptism? - renewal

Reversal of fate: “With throats unslaked and

black lips baked” (III).

I moved, and could not feel my limbs:I was so light--almostI thought that I had died in sleep,And was a bless'ed ghost.

And soon I heard a roaring wind:It did not come anear;But with its sound it shook the sails,That were so thin and sere.

The upper air burst into life!And a hundred fire-flags sheen,To and fro they were hurried about!And to and fro, and in and out,The wan stars danced between.

Numb with joy/deliriousness Dream-like state vs. reality

What is real at this point?

Ironic b/c crewmates will soon become ghosts - foreshadowing “blessed” has good

connotations

Contradiction of seeing and hearing the wind but not feeling it

Alliteration Mimics sound of the wind

Personification of air, flags, & stars

To and fro: repetition, pacing, parallelism

fire-flags: either lightning, aurora borealis, or St. Elmo’s Fire Electricity in the atmosphere

(bad omen)

Change from fear to awe

And the coming wind did roar more loud,And the sails did sigh like sedge;And the rain poured down from one black cloud;The Moon was at its edge.

The thick black cloud was cleft, and stillThe Moon was at its side:Like waters shot from some high crag,The lightning fell with never a jag,A river steep and wide.

The loud wind never reached the ship,Yet now the ship moved on!Beneath the lightning and the MoonThe dead men gave a groan.

Anaphora & Alliteration Simile: comparison to grass Unnatural; divine

intervention Black = ominous

Personified natural element

5 line distiction Vivid/surreal imagery Simile & hyperbole Straight, huge bolts of

lightning Strange, wild, scary?

Natural becoming supernatural

Gloss: “the ship’s crew [is] inspired, and the ship moves on” Mystical representation of

illuminating elements – divine significance

Alliteration, onomatopoeia

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;It had been strange, even in a dream,To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;Yet never a breeze up-blew;The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,Where they were wont to do;They raised their limbs like lifeless tools--We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother's sonStood by me, knee to knee:The body and I pulled at one rope,But he said nought to me.

Parallel structure Eye motif Dream vs. reality

Bizarre, but not frightening

6 line distinction Dead men perform old

tasks Simile – their own limbs are

foreign Includes himself in the

ghastly crew Refers back to previous line

His dead nephew works beside him Nothing more than the

empty shell of a body Unspeaking

'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!'Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,Which to their corses came again,But a troop of spirits blest:

For when it dawned--they dropped their arms,And clustered round the mast;Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,And from their bodies passed.

Around, around, flew each sweet sound,Then darted to the Sun;Slowly the sounds came back again,Now mixed, now one by one.

Diversion away from the story back to the Wedding, 5 lines distinction

Old English influence “But not by the souls of the

men, nor by demons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint.”

Proof to him that their bodies are filled by angels

Alliteration enhances the euphony

Repetition Personification of the sounds

of their souls

Sometimes a-dropping from the skyI heard the sky-lark sing;Sometimes all little birds that are,How they seemed to fill the sea and airWith their sweet jargoning!

And now 'twas like all instruments,Now like a lonely flute;And now it is an angel's song,That makes the heavens be mute.

It ceased; yet still the sails made onA pleasant noise till noon,A noise like of a hidden brookIn the leafy month of June,That to the sleeping woods all nightSingeth a quiet tune.

5 line distinction The Mariner compares the singing to the

spirits to the singing of birds Reference back to birds; positive;

birds thought to be a good omen at sea

Skylark Symbolism- Associated with Christ, prayer

More alliteration of the “s” sound

Diction choice – delicate and beautiful

Singing is now compared to instruments and a lonely flute using a simile, and a angel’s song using a metaphor.

6 line distinction Continued positive descriptions,

pleasant diction Simile More “s” alliteration Personification of the woods and of

the sail’s “song”

Till noon we quietly sailed on,Yet never a breeze did breathe:Slowly and smoothly went the Ship,Moved onward from beneath.

Under the keel nine fathom deep,From the land of mist and snow,The spirit slid: and it was heThat made the ship to go.The sails at noon left off their tune,And the ship stood still also.

The Sun, right up above the mast,Had fixed her to the ocean:But in a minute she 'gan stir,With a short uneasy motion--Backwards and forwards half her lengthWith a short uneasy motion.

Euphonic language Double alliteration Mystical: the boat is still moving without

wind

Gloss: “The lonesome spirit from the south-pole carries on the ship as far as the line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still requireth vengeance. “

6 lines distinction, shows that a change is coming

Alliteration Internal rhyme His theory is that a spirit made the ship

go

6 line distinction When the ship crosses the equator,

the confusion returns Personification of the ship Fantastical events; the boat is moving

backwards and forwards Repetition highlights this

Then like a pawing horse let go,She made a sudden bound:It flung the blood into my head,And I fell down in a swound.

How long in that same fit I lay,I have not to declare;But ere my living life returned,I heard and in my soul discernedTwo voices in the air.

'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man?By him who died on cross,With his cruel bow he laid full lowThe harmless Albatross.

Simile Continued personification of the

ship Swound—Middle English, alteration

of swoon Mariner is knocked unconscious by

ship’s unnatural movement

5 line distinction Shows his confusion/disorientation Are there really voices? Or is he

imagining it? – Reality vs surrealism

Gloss: “The Polar Spirits fellow-demons, the invisible inhabitants of the element, take part in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to the other that penance long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward.”

Religious reference - Jesus Juxtaposition of his cruel deed

against the harmless Albatross

The spirit who bideth by himselfIn the land of mist and snow,He loved the bird that loved the manWho shot him with his bow.’

The other was a softer voice,As soft as honey-dew:Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done,And penance more will do.'

Offers an explanation for why the spirit is making the ancient mariner pay

“The land of mist and snow” is frequently repeated – refers to the frozen land they passed through previously

Simile Crime/punishment Penance- repentance of sins,

Roman Catholic Foreshadowing

In the beginning of Part V, the Mariner is finally able to fall asleep and mercifully, rain falls and quenches his thirst. This marks what seems like the end of his hellish punishment and a turn in fate for the Mariner. A mysterious wind, seen but unfelt, blows the ship in the right direction - mystical natural elements like this and the “fire-flags” straddle the line between surrealism and reality and give this part of the poem a dream-like quality. Whether this is caused by the Mariner’s current physical state or real elemental qualities is unclear.

The mariner’s dead crew mates rise up and begin to work the ship, moving it forward. There is a quick break back to reality and the Wedding-Guest states his fear, though it is apparent that he is also still in awe, and the story continues when he is reminded that these were good spirits. Their angelic souls begin to swing from earth into heaven, and they drop once again. Eyes appear again here as a motif - always watching (and judging?) the Mariner.

Without her crew, the ship sails on with the help of the spirit below it. The mariner falls when the ship is jerked forward unnaturally and eventually hears two voices conversing about him. Crime and punishment remains a common theme here. After identifying him, the softer of the two voices foreshadows that, though Part V marks the turning point from the mariner’s punishment, his sentence has yet to be fulfilled: 'The man hath penance done, / And penance more will do.'