When the Mariner sees what he believes is a ship approaching, he must bite his arm and drink his own blood so that he is able to alert the crew, who all grin out of joy.
In this terrible calm, trapped completely by the watery ocean that they cannot drink, the men on the ship grow so thirsty that they cannot even speak. The crew then hangs the albatross around the Mariner’s neck. The Sailors and the Mariner become increasingly thirsty, and some sailors dream that an angered Spirit has followed them from the pole. It is then that the wind ceases, and the ship becomes trapped on a vast, calm sea. But after the bird has been killed the fog clears and the fair breeze continues, blowing the ship north into the Pacific, and the crew comes to believe the bird was the source of the fog and mist and that the killing is justified. But then as the other sailor’s cry out in dismay, the Mariner, for reasons unexplained, shoots and kills the albatross with his crossbow.Īt first, the other Sailors are furious with the Mariner for killing the bird which they believed a god omen and responsible for making the breezes blow. Day after day the albatross appears, appearing in the morning when the sailors call for it, and soaring behind the ship. The sailors greet it as a good omen, and a new wind rises up, propelling the ship. An Albatross breaks the pristine lifelessness of the Antarctic. A tremendous storm then blows the ship even further to the South Pole, where the crew are awed as they encounter mist, snow, cold, and giant glaciers. The Mariner’s story begins with the ship leaving harbor and sailing southward. Despite the Wedding Guest’s efforts to leave, the Mariner continues to speak.
The Mariner stops the young man to tell him the story of a ship, providing no introduction but simply beginning his tale. The poem begins by introducing the Ancient Mariner, who, with his “glittering eye,” stops a Wedding Guest from attending a nearby wedding celebration.
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