The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Part V

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Part V Alexandra, Dan, and Skye

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. � 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 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. � 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 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. � 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--almost I thought that I had died in sleep, And was a bless'ed ghost. � Numb with joy/deliriousness � Dream-like state vs. reality Ø What is real at this point? � Ironic b/c crewmates will soon become ghosts - foreshadowing � “blessed” has good connotations 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. � Contradiction of seeing and hearing the wind but not feeling it � Alliteration � Mimics sound of the wind � Personification of air, flags, & stars 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. � 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. � Anaphora & Alliteration � Simile: comparison to grass � Unnatural; divine intervention � Black = ominous � Personified natural element � 5 line distiction � Vivid/surreal imagery The thick black cloud was cleft, and still The Moon was at its side: Like waters shot from some high crag, The lightning fell with never a jag, A river steep and wide. � Simile & hyperbole � Straight, huge bolts of lightning � Strange, wild, scary? � Natural becoming supernatural � Gloss: “the ship’s crew [is] The loud wind never reached the ship, Yet now the ship moved on! Beneath the lightning and the Moon The dead men gave a groan. inspired, and the ship moves on” � Mystical representation of illuminating elements – divine significance � Alliteration, onomatopoeia

� Parallel structure They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, � Eye motif Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; � Dream vs. reality It had been strange, even in a dream, � Bizarre, but not frightening To have seen those dead men rise. The helmsman steered, the ship moved on; � 6 line distinction � Dead men perform old tasks Yet never a breeze up-blew; The mariners all 'gan work the ropes, � Simile – their own limbs are foreign Where they were wont to do; � Includes himself in the ghastly They raised their limbs like lifeless tools-crew � Refers back to previous line We were a ghastly crew. The body of my brother's son Stood by me, knee to knee: The body and I pulled at one rope, But he said nought to me. � 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: � 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. ” For when it dawned--they dropped their arms, � Proof to him that their bodies are And clustered round the mast; filled by angels Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, � Alliteration enhances the euphony 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. � Repetition � Personification of the sounds of their souls

� 5 line distinction Sometimes a-dropping from the sky � I heard the sky-lark sing; Sometimes all little birds that are, How they seemed to fill the sea and air � With their sweet jargoning! 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 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 on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune. � 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. � Euphonic language � Double alliteration � Mystical: the boat is still moving without wind � Gloss: “The lonesome spirit from the south- Under the keel nine fathom deep, From the land of mist and snow, The spirit slid: and it was he That made the ship to go. The sails at noon left off their tune, And the ship stood still also. 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 � 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 length With a short uneasy motion. 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 discerned Two 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 low The 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 himself In the land of mist and snow, � Offers an explanation for why the spirit is making the ancient mariner pay He loved the bird that loved the man Who shot him with his bow. ’ � “The land of mist and snow” is frequently The other was a softer voice, As soft as honey-dew: Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done, And penance more will do. ' � Simile repeated – refers to the frozen land they passed through previously � 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. '