Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 3)

Wes & Erin continue their discussion of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s classic poem, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:00 Wes: represented, it's not about our need for it. So if it's a painting of an apple, it doesn't satisfy us by allowing us to eat the apple or enjoy it as an apple, but we enjoy it as a representation. We enjoy it qua representation. In this case, they are actually in a position of need. So the undrinkability of the water or the. The ships being, in a sentence, painted by no longer being moving is a problem. And that's the form of their interest in the situation. So for us as readers of the poem, we're in a much different position than the characters within the poem, obviously. And our enjoyment, this is something, I think, that has come up before, maybe in the turn of the screw. But our enjoyment, in a way, is predicated on their suffering, which goes for, you know, it's not real suffering, obviously, but it goes for a lot of art, especially tragedy. So pain out of hypothetical, getting pleasure, the fantasy of human suffering or human pain, which is one of the paradoxes of tragedy and one of the questions of how we do that. Because we're not just sadistically enjoying the pain of the other. We empathize, for instance, in tragedy. And yet it is a pleasurable empathy or pity, or however you want to put it. Which is not to say that in this case, this is, you know, a tragic medium. Exactly. Or that it induces pity. It doesn't, you know, it's too. It's too surreal. And, you know, I don't. I. I think it's too surreal to. To induce that. Those kinds of emotions in the audience. I don't know if you. You agree it's. It's too fairy tale, like. And if there is, I, I don't think I have a, you know, I don't have a strong emotional response to the content, to the narrative of the, the poem. 1:41 Erin: No, no, I think it's. I think it's more about the, the imagery it creates, which is quite, you know, it can be quite scary to a kid if this is convincingly recited as. Or read aloud rather, as it was to me when I was a little kid and I was, I was really freaked out by the water snakes. But what you said it reminds me of, or the relationship that we have to the art object reminds me so much of that famous anecdote from ancient Greece about the artistic contest between. Is it. Oh, it's two really strange names like Zeuxis. Zeuxis and Parrhasius, I think, are the names. And this is in Pliny. Oh, this is a story that Pliny tells that there was a contest to determine who was the best at art. The two greatest painters had a contest with each other. And one of them, I can't remember, which revealed this painting of grapes. And it was so realistic that birds came down to peck at the painting. And so this was considered to be like, okay, who's, you know, how could he possibly be beaten? And so then they move to the next painting and they're waiting to see what his competition is going to be. Because it's behind a curtain, since someone says, okay, you know, reveal the curtain. Right. And it turned out the curtain itself was the painting and it was so realistic that the, the one who, who painted the curtain, I can't remember if it was Zeuxis or Parrhasius anyway, but the one who painted the curtain one, because in the end it was like, ah, you only tricked the birds. But, you know, but I tricked everybody with, with my curtain painting. Right, but you know, and there, and there's a bird in that story as well, right? No, but it reminds me of this, this idea of this orientation towards the art object as being something like, quite literally here, having to do with appetite. Right. At least like the, the appetite of the birds. And then I, I don't know about the curtain and concealment, but it just, it reminded me of the, of the, the grapes that induce. Right. That something would be such an amazing painting that it could induce hunger or, or, or some other type of appetitive drive that your discussion of this idea of the water that is also undrinkable in a painting. Yeah, yeah. 3:53 Wes: Maybe there's a curse in A way he's drawing our attention to the unrealness of this. It's as if the real world is becoming like a representation and they are coming to live within a representation as such, instead of the real world, the real world is starting to behave as a representation. Let's say, at least if you think of representations as static in this way. So maybe they have broken a wall of sorts. I don't know which wall it would be by breaking into this silent place. Right. They've. It's not the fourth wall they've broken, but they've broken some sort of wall and entered into. It's almost like waking up and hey, am I in a poem or am I in a right representation? Is everything a simulation? Is the simulation broken down? In any case, it's. It accentuates the surreal aspect of this. And then we get. We get a transition from stasis to the. An organic metaphor, a really interesting organic metaphor in which, first of all, the deeps did rot. Is it. It's as if the ocean is a body, is a decomposing corpse. And then you have slimy things crawling with legs upon the slimy sea. So there's the obvious irony of how could the sea be crawled upon? But I suppose, you know, I think if the deeps are rotting, we would think of maggots. It being infested with maggots of some sort. But these slimy things are actually have legs and scurry on top. Very strange image. 5:20 Erin: Yeah. Though they, they, they lose them later. No, I mean, are these the same as the water. As the water snakes or. 5:27 Wes: I don't know. 5:27 Erin: Yeah, I think I read something that said, oh, you know, they. First they have legs and then they don't. But I don't. This is a different kind of animal. But yeah, I noted the same thing. Like the idea that this is like a decomposing corpse and that therefore, like the containments of the body, creatures within the sea are like the organs. Right. Within the body or as you're suggesting, like maggots or something. This idea that natural creatures are evidence of a kind of rot is a really interesting one, considering that these are sailors who are. Who are in a completely foreign place. Right. Like they're the invader, if you will, or like a kind of a virus in this. They're the thing that's not native. Not to say that that's indicative of a rot or a decomposition. Right. But if we want to think of the sea as like a. Like a body, as I think this is suggesting, then the ship and the people on it are the foreign object that's. That's been lodged in the middle of this body. And, you know, certainly the mariner's transgression of killing the albatross is proof perhaps of the potential deadliness of this invasion or the capacity for the people on the ship to wreak some kind of havoc or to, you know, leave death in their wake. And so, you know, something about like taking the rot that perhaps the mariner himself induced by killing the albatross, he now has a rotting thing around his neck and turning that around and kind of submerging that in the physical environments which seem to be particularly inhospitable to him at this particular moment. 7:03 Wes: Right. 7:03 Erin: And it seems to me to be a case of. Of what would we call it? And I mean, obviously I'm not the psychoanalyst, but. Right. This seems like a case of projection, perhaps, is what I'm trying to get at. I don't know, is that. Is that going too far or to 7:17 Wes: see the rotting out outside of himself, outside in the sea? Yeah. So you're taking the rotting as being part of something, something that's going on within him. 7:27 Erin: I mean, it must be, right? Because, I mean, certainly it's possible for things to rot in the natural world, but to, you know, paint with such a broad brush as he's doing here and to say that, you know, the entire sea is kind of rotting or that, you know, things which are. Which seem to be perfectly natural and native to this particular water are inverted and become something undead or, you know, even kind of perverse, I think is kind of. You know, there seems to be some too, I think. I'm trying to suggest that the desire for the projection is to see the inhospitable landscape as being somehow corrupt. Right. When it's. When it's being inhospitable to us, there's something sort of inherently wrong with it or it's. It's turned inside out. It's. It's blamed. It's right here. It's. It's called basically dead or undead, however you want to call it. I'm envisioning like a zombie, a zombie sea filled with zombie slimy creatures. So there seems to be like the desire again, to. To blame external circumstances or to see things as being perverse or perverted in light of this inhospitable situation in which they find themselves. 8:36 Wes: Yeah. You could see this in part as an expression of guilt, I suppose. So the progression here is he's killed. This link to the natural world I think that's part of the way we were looking at the albatross, and something to do with dependency on the natural world. So asserted a kind of independence from the natural world that we don't really have. And there's something grandiose in that. And that pushes him into a world of aesthetic stasis, as we've described it, motionlessness. And then there's the immediate association to death, which is a natural association. And it's oft explored in the history of philosophy and criticism, this relationship between the aesthetic and the deathlike. So for Schopenhauer, we've already described a sense in which it. The aesthetic is abstracts from. From need and appetite and desire, ultimately, which is the way Schopenhauer described the aesthetic relation to the world as a. In the Apollonian sense, as an involving, a cessation of will. It's different with music, different with the Dionysian, but. And then from death we get motion again. It's a circle of life. Hey, don't worry. There'll be worms crawling through your body. Things will come alive again. There'll be motion. So we get dynamism reintroduced through rot and through the dancing of the death fires and this kind of, like, psychedelic treat that they get with the witch's oils and the burnt green and blue, and then spirit. So the next step from rot and from this new sort of dynamism is the concept of spirit. And in this case, a spirit that plagues, which you could read as a fury or as a representative of conscience or justice or vengeance, I suppose. Nine fathom deep. He had followed us from the land of mist and snow, so it turns out. So is it the spirit of the albatross? Yeah. Is it something else? 10:34 Erin: I don't know. I didn't read it as such, but that's an interesting idea. 10:39 Wes: I didn't either until this moment, I'm wondering, because it's been following them all along, it turns out. So even before they burst into this static, deathlike world, they had been pursued by this. He finds out. 10:53 Erin: Yeah, it's very. You know, when I see spirit and then nine fathoms deep. I was trying to think about the significance of nine fathoms or the number nine biblically. And the only thing I could think of was that 9 is the number of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. But this is, you know, rather than being above the ship, right. It's below. So it's like this shadowy figure. I mean, it could very well be. If we wanted to read this literally, it could be A whale or so, you know, I mean, it could be something that's like literally been following them around. 11:24 Wes: Yeah, I mean, I think albatrosses do. They do dive into the water right when they're feeding. But yeah, could be a whale, a shark. Do they need a bigger boat? 11:36 Erin: Could be Steven Spielberg. Yeah. 11:40 Wes: Right. So, yeah, spirit of the albatross. Some sort of angry spirit, spirit of the natural world. Some representative of that has followed them from the moment that he killed the albatross. And how does he find out? Some of dreams assured were. So apparently some of the crew have dreamt this and that's. That's the idea now it's come from their dreams. 12:03 Erin: Well, I love that. 12:04 Wes: But now communication stops because they've run out of water. I guess they've been without water for a while now and they can no longer speak. Yeah, I suppose. And then this is the moment where they put the albatross around his neck. I don't know where it's been the body of the albatross has been all this time, but now it goes around his neck and there's this direct comparison to across. 12:25 Erin: I really like the word psychedelic that you used for the witches oils. And I suppose that now they're tripping, right? Like they're hallucinating from lack of water. Is this, by the way, is the albatross that they hang around his neck? Is it a skeleton at this point? Right. Like they must have actually. I mean, they must have eaten it. I'm still convinced that the most logical explanation is just that the mariner was hungry and they all just needed a snack. So. 12:53 Wes: Well, it depends on how superstitious they are. 12:56 Erin: That's right. 12:57 Wes: Well, maybe freaked out enough to not eat it no matter how hungry they 13:00 Erin: get, at some point when, when they decided it was a good thing, maybe they. They roasted it. 13:06 Wes: Yeah. I never read this as a skeleton. I mean, I. Neither did I. I how the skeleton would stay together. But. 13:11 Erin: Yeah, yeah, that's true, that's true. Yeah. I suppose it's even more cross like though if. If there was some way for the skeleton to stay together to. To hang the albatross around the neck as a skeleton rather than as a white and now probably rather stinky corpse. Just to briefly backtrack. I was thinking too about, you know, the idea of a rotting deep related to this idea of the witch's oils. So something here about, you know, nature and the feminine again being perverted or, you know, seen as some sort of like evil force or things that are natural and Normal, taking on a kind of inhuman valence. But then we have this. You know, I was thinking a lot about this idea of the cross and the albatross. Right. Like, there's an inversion here happening as well, where obviously a cross is a sort of. It's a sign of the promise of salvation. It's a sign of redemption. And here, you know, this is inverted. So instead, this is a sign of doom and shame. And it's rather heavy as well. Right. Like, this is a huge bird, so lighter if they've been snacking on it. But it should be really weighing him down physically. And so it's. You know, it puts me in mind, rather than someone, like, wearing a cross around their neck, it puts one in mind of the Mariner as a Christ figure, you know, shouldering the cross on the way to Calvary. 14:37 Wes: So, you know, is the albatross the Christ figure or is it the Mariner? Or is it both in a way, you know, getting your identification? 14:45 Erin: Right, right. 14:46 Wes: But, yeah, I thought it does seem much more like Christ carrying his own cross at this point. So it foreshadows an even greater possible sacrifice or suffering on the part of the Mariner. 15:00 Erin: It's strange, though. It's all the way wrapped around. Right. It's like. Reminds me of, like, when parents threaten their kids. Like, I brought you into this world and I can take you out of this world. Right. And so it's like. It's like, you know, this is a Christ figure who's introduced sin into the world and taken sin out of the world. Right. This is creating quite a confusing sort of cross to bear, considering that the Mariner is guilty of this death. But anyway, should we move on? 15:25 Wes: Yeah. 15:26 Erin: Okay, so here's section three. I saw a something in the sky no bigger than my fist at first it seemed a little speck and then it seemed a mist it moved and moved and took at last a certain shape, I wist a speck, a mist, a shape I wist and still it neared and neared and it dodged a water-sprite it plunged and tacked and veered with throat unslacked with black lips baked Nor could we laugh nor wail Then while through drought all dumb they stood I bit my arm and sucked the blood and cried Assail a sail with throat unslacked with black lips baked agape they heard me call Gramercy! they for joy did grin and all at once their breath drew in as they 16:08 Wes: were drinking all what are they drinking? 16:10 Erin: Yeah, that's a good question. 16:11 Wes: They're drinking it all in. They're just drinking in the sight. So the arrival of this new ship is the replacement for water? I suppose. So they make out what turns out to be a ship. In the beginning, it seems like it's something in the sky, like it's flying. It plunged and tacked and veered again. 16:29 Erin: Like a albatross. Yeah. Like, since it's a black shape. Where do I get this idea that it's a black shape? I don't know. I suppose a speck and then a mist. I'm thinking of this as being dark. And so, yeah, it seems like the sort of photo negative of the albatross, in a way. 16:48 Wes: I suppose it's possible. It's like a will o' the wisp type thing that then takes on the shape of a ship as it gets closer. Something like that. So you could think of a light or something or a speck floating around and then settling. I don't know. But I like the juxtaposition of these black lips baked so they. They're so thirsty that they can't laugh or wail. And in order to actually cry out, he has to drink his own blood, bite himself, drink some of his own blood and make. You know, so he can get his mouth unstuck so he can cry. A sale. A sale. And then they drink in. All at once their breath drew in and they were drinking all. So he's able to, in a way, quench their thirst with a sight. 17:37 Erin: Man, this is really grossing me out. 17:39 Wes: It's really. I was just thinking. It's really cool. Do you want to continue reading? 17:45 Erin: Sure. She doth not tack from side to side Hither to work us weal Withouten wind, withouten tide she steadies with upright keel. The western wave was all aflame. The day was well nigh done. Almost upon the western wave rested the broad bright sun. When that strange ship drove suddenly betwixt us and the sun and straight the sun was flecked with bars. Heaven's mother, send us grace as if through a dungeon grate. He peered with broad and burning face. Alas, thought I, and my heart beat loud, how fast she nears and nears. Are those her sails that glance in the sun like restless gossamers? Are these her naked ribs which flecked the sun that did behind them? Peer. And are these two all? All the crew? That woman and her fleshless Pheere. Okay. Is it Peer? Fear? Fear. Sorry. And are these two all? All the crew? That woman and her fleshless Pheere? His bones were black with many a Crack. All black and bare. I ween jet black and bare, Save where with rust of moldy damps and charnel crust they're patched with purple and green. Her lips are red, her looks are free. Her locks are yellow as gold. Her skin is white as leprosy. And she is far liker death than he. Her flesh makes the still air cold. The naked hulk alongside came and the twain were playing dice. The game is done. I've won. I've won, quoth she. And whistled thrice. A gust of wind stirred up behind and whistled through his bones, through the holes of his eyes and the whole of his mouth. Half whistles and HALF GROANS this is great. 19:23 Wes: So she will turn out to be life and death. Death and life. 19:26 Erin: Life and death, I think. 19:27 Wes: Yes, life and death. And he is just plain death. Yeah, just plain death. And she wins his soul in a game of dice. So everything that's going to follow here is the result of that. It's not a reprieve, but it's something that puts him into something more like purgatory. Instead of dying, he's going to remain alive even as his crew will end up dying. But before they. Yeah, we get this really, you know, we get this really cool image of. So they're. They're very helpful about this being a rescue. It turns out to be a death ship. And the way they learn it is really cool, right, where it comes in between them and the sun, and then they see the sun coming through. It's as if the ribs of the boat are like the ribs of a dead person and there's gaps in between them. 20:16 Erin: Right? Yeah. And then there's the. Before that, too. You know, the sun is often. Seems to be deified, right. It's described as like God's own head. And so before that, it's flecked with bars. So it's as if God is being half blotted out or imprisoned or say, you know, restraint. His power is being restrained for the moment. And that turns out to be true. Right, because these death and life and death in this moment have, you know, a kind of godly power to decide what's going to happen to these people, perhaps superseding God's power in this moment or taking over for the time being. 20:53 Wes: It's interesting, though, because the sun is the thing that's given them drought or made them thirsty. And it's also, as I was pointing out, the thing that is associated with stasis and is almost like pin the ship down in the light of the day. So Perhaps there's going to be some reprieve or at least some forward momentum, some dynamism in the fact that now the sun, that role for the sun is being interfered with. 21:20 Erin: Well, I mean, in a way, they are getting a reprieve. They're being put out of their misery. 21:26 Wes: But, yeah, I suppose I should worry a little bit more about his fellow sailors. They do die. There's no reprieve for them. 21:37 Erin: Well, you know, and I'm just looking here at the description of death and of life and death. I think in the previous episodes, I might have mentioned something, maybe in the first episode about the fact that life and death is sort of akin to the bride. Right. In that moment where we get the glimpse inside the wedding venue or into the hall. Right. We see her paced into the hall, red as a rose. Is she right here we have a kind of kinship between life and death and this. And this bride. And we do have, you know, just two people on the ship. Death and life and death. I'm assuming that Death is this guy's last name and that life in is her first name. So they're married, right? 22:18 Wes: Mrs. Death. 22:19 Erin: Mrs. Death and Mr. Death. Right. No, but I think, like, there's, you know, I just wonder about that. And I'm thinking too, about the fact that Death seems to be. He probably doesn't look all that dissimilar from the crew themselves and from the Mariner. Right. His bones are black, just as their black lips are baked. He's rather skinny, I'm sure. As they are. Right. 22:42 Wes: I was thinking of him as a skeleton, but I guess he could be a classic Death in a robe or. Yeah. What does he look like? 22:49 Erin: No, I think he is. I think he is a skeleton. I think he's. And then he has these, like, moldy parts of his body that are crusty. Like, almost like he's been in water. Like a skeleton, like, you know, decomposing in water and then kind of lifted up out of the water. And so he would have some almost like envisioning barnacle type things on him. Right. With this purple and green. But, you know, I mean, I'm sure. I'm sure that the. The crew is skeletal at this point. I mean, not. Not a literal animated skeleton. Right. But they seem to look a bit like Death himself. You know, this charnel crust. I know charnel crust. 23:28 Wes: I mean, charnel house is where skeletal remains are stored. I didn't know they got crusty. 23:38 Erin: Well, okay, so what sometimes happens. I don't know if this is true. Everywhere but in ossuaries, which is kind of. I think it's just the same kind of idea as a charnel house. What people do in southern Italy is you. You bury a body and then a couple years later, you go and you dig it up and you check and see what state of composite composition. Sorry, decomposition. It's in. So sometimes what you have to do is go in and clean off the bones and scrape things off of the bones and get them ready to then be stored in the ossuary, which is. This is pretty gross. Right. And sometimes they're not ready. Sometimes they still have more decomposing to do. But very often you do have to kind of scrape stuff off of the bones in order to get them ready to be reinterred in the family crypt. 24:30 Wes: Ah. So charnel crust is like when I'm eating barbecue ribs, it's like the best part of the rib is like attached. Yeah. The last to decompose could still be. 24:43 Erin: Still be some fibrous tissue on there, maybe. 24:47 Wes: Fibrous tissue? 24:49 Erin: Yep. Aren't you glad you know this about southern Italy? 24:54 Wes: Yeah. I was hoping you were just going to make something up. And I thought you were going to facetiously just. 24:57 Erin: Nope. 24:58 Wes: Makeup story. But no, it's better that you. It's. 25:04 Erin: I'm sure this is a common practice. 25:06 Wes: Interesting that. Interesting that you know about that. 25:08 Erin: Yeah, well, it's all in the family. I haven't had to do anything like that, but. Yeah, but I know people who have to go and scrape off grandpa's bones, you know, 25:22 Wes: Everyone get your scraper. I'm still like, visit Grandpa. 25:26 Erin: Seriously, I would not be able to, 25:28 Wes: you know, but then again, give your grandpa a scrape. 25:30 Erin: Those. Those Italians are tough, man. You know, one second you're petting a little bunny, and the next second your sweet little grandma is going out to the rabbit hutch to twist a neck so you can have rabbit cacciatore for dinner anyway. 25:44 Wes: And then the carcass is hung about her neck. 25:47 Erin: There you go. 25:48 Wes: No, that wouldn't happen. They should be tougher, these mariners. Her lips are red. Her looks are free, her lot. This is like a stanza that I just completely highlighted and put an asterisk next to. And now I want to figure out why I did that. Her lips are red, her looks are free. Her locks are yellow as gold. Her skin is as white as leprosy. And she is far liker death than he. Her flesh makes the still air cold. 26:16 Erin: She sounds hot. 26:17 Wes: It's funny because a very common Homeric epithet is Arms are white as ivory, and that's a good thing. The sexy girls have the white arms. White as ivory Here. It's white as leprosy, which is another thing I didn't know. I didn't know that leprosy was whitish. 26:32 Erin: I don't think it is interesting not to take issue with Coleridge here, but 26:38 Wes: I don't know if it's a scarring or who knows? But she is far liker Death than he, which is interesting in light of the fact that she's not all the 26:48 Erin: way deaf and he actually is deaf 26:51 Wes: and he actually is Death. But she's, as usual, it's a good woman standing behind the man who's the key to the man's success. And her lips are red, her looks are free. What does that mean? 27:11 Erin: I don't know. 27:12 Wes: She's got a little bit of life in her. 27:14 Erin: Yeah. Yeah. He married up, but I don't know 27:16 Wes: what her looks are free means exactly. Well, whatever the case, she makes the still air cold. It's not just because there's a dissatisfied woman romantic subplot here. She's not just complaining that Death spends too much time at work or nagging him in other ways. Sorry, is that a sexist? Yeah, but sexism allowed temporarily the one pass of the year, so she has this chilling effect. Yeah. So it's such a great, spooky image. I looked for animations of this poem online. I couldn't find anything really good. This would be something that you could do, an amazing. Whether live action or animation, it would be quite amazing. Put all that. Whatever they learned in the Pirates of the Caribbean, put all that knowledge to work. I can't help thinking of that Johnny Depp as the Mariner and Amber Heard as the Death. 28:15 Erin: Oh, no. Oh, now we're sorry we're going there. No, but you've seen the Gustave Doré illustrations, though, right? 28:25 Wes: I think so. 28:27 Erin: The life and death is not terribly. I mean, of course, they're line drawings, they're black and white. So the life and death and death playing dice illustration is not terrible. Not one of my favorites. But these are, you know, these are some of my favorite illustrations ever. 28:41 Wes: I hadn't really seen these. It's odd. 28:43 Erin: Oh, no way. Wow. 28:44 Wes: Yeah. 28:44 Erin: I got my best friend. I got a. I think I got her the 'ice mast-high' illustration, a print of it for Christmas or something at some point. 28:54 Wes: It's crazy. I didn't see these because I was looking for animations and images. Huh. 28:59 Erin: Yeah. And these are super beautiful, super, super popular. 29:02 Wes: Yeah. 29:02 Erin: I have. I have a very cherished edition of this poem with all the illustrations in it. 29:07 Wes: All right, so someone just needs to input these into ChatGPT and have it turn these into animations. 29:13 Erin: Yeah, well, you know, the. The thing about these, though, is that they are in black and white. And the. And so, you know, particularly the life and death kind of the. The odd coloring there is a bit lost, but she does look free. Her hair is billowy and wonderful, I think. Okay, so what can we say then about the fact that there's a man and a woman in the middle of this story, which is taking place in the middle of a wedding? I mean, is there anything besides jokingness? 29:43 Wes: So it does seem to be evocative of the fact that he's interrupted a wedding to tell this story when he 29:49 Erin: interrupts of, you know, a bar mitzvah. Is there, you know, a ghostly bar mitzvah happening on the ship? Does it depend on what. What event he's crashing? 30:00 Wes: Yeah. Does he have some special relationship to the concept of marriage? Does the shooting of the albatross. And you could read that in the Christian way, obviously, as well. Christ as the bride. Right. 30:14 Erin: Bridegroom. And the church is the bridegroom. 30:16 Wes: Bridegroom, sorry. Church is the bride. Christ as the bridegroom. And so you wonder. Yeah. You wonder if the interruption of the wedding. He's not interrupting the wedding per se. He's interrupting the experience of the third guest, interrupting his ability to attend the wedding. So I don't know. Yeah. What do you make of this? Is there something here about marriage? 30:38 Erin: I think you're right to have pointed out the strangeness in this idea of the sun as being something punitive in its way against these sailors and the ship being a potential relief that's then inverted by blocking out the sun. And I'm wondering if, considering this connection you're drawing between Christ and the church or whatever, if there's this. If this is a sort of inversion of this marital idea. Whereas rather than a sacrament, which would be working in participation with God, not blotting it out or imprisoning God and enforcing its own law onto the world, a good marriage, you know, in a. In a Judeo Christian sense, would work in tandem with God and with God's laws. I'm also thinking about the crew, therefore, as being like their children. I suppose maybe that's a bit of a stretch. Right. But they're. They're kind of deciding what to do with these kids, but not. Not necessarily about how to raise them up. If you like, or how to. How to help them, but rather in which direction or sense they might be condemned. How to end their lives rather than how to, you know, create children and create life. 31:48 Wes: Well, it's interesting that the Mariner, he's the one who's spared, and I presume it's because he's killed the albatross. 31:55 Erin: But for a fate worse. 31:56 Wes: His punishment is to. His punishment is to live for a fate worse. But on the other hand, he gets out of it in the end, so. Or does he, I guess he has to run around telling his story, maybe, which is also a fate worse. Worse than death. Not just for him, but for the people who have to listen to it and they want to be doing something else. He's just a determined bachelor who's being avenged by the ghosts of marriage future. Or who are suitably. Who are suitably represented as death. And this is Death. Just kidding. Sorry. Well, and I think, why didn't you get married? It's like having your mom nag you forever. 32:38 Erin: Well, I like this idea that the fates are dependent upon chance, though, right? It's not necessarily the death of the albatross that condemns him, though. He is singled out, right? They're playing for his soul. 32:51 Wes: I mean, if Death wins the dice game, he. Everyone dies, I suppose, right? If she wins, we get this, you know, he. He becomes the. The exception, right? 33:00 Erin: And then they get free advertising for the rest of time. But otherwise the story dies. 33:07 Wes: Exactly. Right. And so I was just thinking, you know, thinking of your idea of them as producing children or the crew being children in some sense. He gets a rebirth, perhaps, and becomes their. Their child in a way. 33:25 Erin: But another. Another deaths. 33:28 Wes: It's. Hey, everyone, it's the Death Family, starring the Mariner as little Bobby. Sorry. 33:38 Erin: Yeah. John Boy. No, but I'm thinking about the role of chance in this and the way that this kind of, like, flips the concept of the albatross on its head. So here they're like. They're literally watching these two figures decide through a game of chance what's going to happen. It's admitting both chance and determinism at the same time. Right? Which is. Which is kind of the relationship between the sailors and the interpretation of the albatross. Or it's sort of literalizing it in a way. Do you know what I'm trying to say about this? You know, in the way that they're looking at the albatross to be punished for its death through some sort of natural occurrence or to be rewarded for its death through some sort of natural occurrence. They're kind of trying to guess at what deterministic fate this action has afforded them. But what they're really doing is just interpreting chance events according to how they, you know, according to the superstition. Whereas here they're literally watching people play a game of chance. But for them, like, for their fates in a way, like, I mean, if we want to interpret this whole thing as a hallucination that, you know, that's part of the. The hallucinatory images that they're continuing to have because they're all going insane from starving to death and everything. This is maybe just an embodiment of some natural force that is already occurring. In other words, you know, the Mariner is hallucinating that this is happening, when in fact all that might be happening is that hunger and thirst are picking off each one of his companions. Right. So, you know, so. So they're kind of imagining this literalization of these two forces working in tandem that they previously were trying to guess at. Now it's brought. It's brought before their eyes. It's made real to them through this personification of these two forces. And yet it may just be like a hallucinatory wish fulfillment to see the mechanism of death at work. You know what I mean? 35:40 Wes: Yeah, I think that's right. I think you've well highlighted the relationship between their superstition about how killing the albatross might affect the elements and affect their fate, and then the way that becomes represented in the characters of Death and Mrs. Death who are playing dice with the futures of the Mariners. Did I get that right? 36:04 Erin: Yes. 36:04 Wes: So we get a movement from maybe some sort of determinism to the role of chance. But we can talk more about that in part four. Okay, this is the end of part three. Otherwise they'll have to wait a week. Thank you. 36:23 Erin: Thank you. And thanks to everyone who listened. For an easy way to do that, go to subtextpodcast.com patreon.com subtextpodcast please send your questions, feedback and episode requests to [email protected] if we get enough questions, we'll do some bonus Q and A shows for subscribers. You can also find us on Facebook @subtextpodcast and on Twitter enjoysubtext. You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. or patreon.com/subtextpodcast. 37:43 Wes: Okay, welcome to part four of our discussion of Rime of the Ancient Mariner. We just got done introducing death and what presumably is Mrs. Death. Although that may be in this reading classic couple. For all we know, she could be his daughter. Or they may not even be related, but they may just work together. 38:04 Erin: They work husband and wife. Yeah. 38:07 Wes: In any case, we should see what death and life turns out to be. Mrs. Death or death and life turns out to be the more important personage in the sense of that what comes now will be. For the Mariner will be life in death as opposed to death, because she's the one who won the dice game. So do you want to read on and tell us what that looks like? 38:25 Erin: Yeah, let's do it. Okay. With never a whisper in the sea off darts the spectre ship while clomb above the eastern bar, the horned moon with one bright star almost atween the tips One after one by the horned moon, Listen, Stranger! to me each turned his face with a ghastly pang and cursed me with his eye. Four times fifty living men with never a sigh or groan. With heavy thump a lifeless lump they drop down One by one their souls did from their bodies fly, they fled to bliss or woe. And every soul it passed me by like the whiz of my crossbow. 39:03 Wes: Okay, so I guess the stranger, his attention is wondering at this point, surprising given how cool Death and Mrs. Death are. But he's. He gets a little slap in the face here. Pay attention. 39:17 Erin: It's interesting that this. This condemnation to death does not extend to any kind of condemning, to eternal damnation. Say. Each one gets his own ascent in his own direction, right? Some are going to bliss, so some are going to heaven. And some are going to woe or hell. But, you know, regardless, they're all dead 39:37 Wes: and they're all passing by him. Each soul goes by him like the whiz of his crossbow. So they. Each flight of each soul recapitulates the killing of the albatross and sense. 39:49 Erin: Yeah. So it's kind of this you know, the sailors have been kind of one mass, if you will. You know, the mariner is the only one set apart. And otherwise they all seem to have a singular kind of consciousness, which, you know, interprets events as a fairly uniform body. I think the only indication of some individuals within this hoard prior to this are some people who are having these dreams of the spirit that's followed them from the land of mist and snow. Right. Some in dreams assured were. So I just think it's interesting that we have these 200 men just all dropping dead simultaneously as if. Again, as if they're all one singular body. And yet the particularity of the fact that these are individuals going to their individual fates, that each one has the. As you're pointing out, the weight of the singular albatross. It's a very interesting distinction to make at this point, that they're. They seem most particularized in death, in this. In this collective fate. 40:55 Wes: And then later on they'll seem to become zombies, Right? 40:57 Erin: Yeah. And they have. 40:58 Wes: No. So it's a little confusing what. What's animating them as they are. 41:04 Erin: Right, right. 41:05 Wes: Zombie creatures running the ship. But also, oddly enough, the Spectra ship just leaves Darts off. Also, it is kind of weird that if death and life wins the bet, that the bulk of the winnings go to death. She won the dice game, but he gets 99% of the winnings of the pot, so to speak. So very strange through the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth. Half whistles and half groans. What an image. 41:33 Erin: That's great. 41:34 Wes: All right, so what's next? Okay, die. 41:38 Erin: Part 4. Part 4 begins with quotation marks. Here we go. I fear thee, ancient mariner. I fear thy skinny hand and thou art long and lank and brown as is the ribbed sea sand. I fear thee and thy glittering eye and thy skinny hand so brown. Fear not, fear not, thou wedding guest. This body dropped not down alone. Alone all, all alone. Alone on the wide, wide sea. And Christ would take no pity on my soul in agony. The many men so beautiful and they all dead did lie and a million million slimy things lived on. And so did I. I looked upon the rotting sea and drew my eyes away. I looked upon the rotting deck and there the dead men lay. I looked to heaven and tried to pray I But or ever a prayer had gushed A wicked whisper came and made my heart as dry as dust. I closed my lids and kept them close till the balls like pulses beat for the sky and the sea and the sea and the sky lay like a load on my weary eye and the dead were at my feet. 42:43 Wes: So we finally get a reaction out of the wedding guest. Yeah, stop scaring me. 42:49 Erin: Who previously was maybe not totally paying attention, is now afraid and rapt again after just a couple more stances, I guess, you know, the payoff is, or the high point is all these people dropping dead. So now he's, he's back in it. But, yeah, so he fears the mariner. You know, this interesting interjection. He fears the mariner the way the mariner feared the ghostly figures on the ship. And again, like, I'm, you know, I'm drawing a connection here between the way the mariner looks and the way the way death seems to look. You know, I'm reminded of so many stories. I'm really. I grew up being really interested in old ships and particularly in, like, whaling expeditions and things like this. But anyway, I always loved stories of tall, tall ships and expeditions and things like that. And very often what you'll read in these accounts of real life instances in which people were shipwrecked and nearly starved to death is that usually for the, for the rest of their lives, their, their body, like, never makes up for the loss of nutrition that they had for however many days they might have been out at sea. Right. Oftentimes they'll eat and eat and eat and still, still always be underweight for the rest of their lives. At least this is what was reported, you know, back in the 19th century by their contemporaries. 44:06 Wes: There's a huge, huge dieting Fad in the 19th century, the seahand diet. Just go out and do your. Your do some time on a ship. 44:15 Erin: That's right. That's right. Yeah. No, but it's, it's being, you know, it's being called to mind here in terms of, like, the, you know, both the appearance of the mariner and he does seem like he's, he's not put on much weight since this, since this event. But also in the kind of, you know, the rapaciousness of the person who has gone through the experience. And, you know, here it's coming out in the compulsion to tell the story and in this, like, heightened emotion. Right. But this desire to continually relive it or rather like someone who hasn't moved beyond the event. Yeah. 44:48 Wes: So he doesn't like the mariner. He doesn't like a skinny hand. He doesn't like the tan. 44:55 Erin: It's kind of tan that you can 44:56 Wes: only get by being at sea for a long time. Right. And he doesn't like that glittering eye in a way, it sounds like. So he's telling the Mariner, you look like you're dead or maybe you look like you're a mummy, which is what the tanning and is kind of evocative of. And the Mariner says, don't worry, I'm not. I'm not actually dead. 45:13 Erin: Right, right. 45:14 Wes: Everyone else died, but I had this special death and life role to play. So let me just continue telling my story. 45:23 Erin: Right. 45:24 Wes: That's reassuring. That's really reassuring. So he's going to continue to force feed him this really disturbing story in which he now compares himself to the other million million slimy things that they lived on. So to see again, it sounded as if they might be maggot, like from the rots of the deep. And does he have a maggot role as well? I don't know. But he tries to pray. But again, the. This idea of the drought and thirst, which is. It's been used figuratively a few times, comes back and he. Right. He'd had to drink his own blood to communicate with the crew earlier and now he can't even pray. He's too dried out. And maybe that's the way he looks to the wedding guest. 46:09 Erin: He looks like jerky. 46:11 Wes: If he is looking mummy, mummy like. Yeah, like jerky. He looks dried out. He's not hydrating enough is what I'm trying to say. If you're going to do the Seahan diet, it's very important you stay hydrated. 46:23 Erin: That's right. 46:25 Wes: Even if there's water all around and not a drop to drink, you bring your own bottled water on the trip with you. It's clearly stated in the guidelines. But anyway, yes, spiritually, that's true. He's not spiritually hydrated. He can't. He can't pray. So you get this, you know, the continuing irony of there being water everywhere but things but drought, there being a drought, physical and spiritual, that prevents communication, prevents prayer. 46:57 Erin: Yeah. 46:58 Wes: I don't know what makes your eye glitter like that other than just complete insanity. 47:04 Erin: That's it. Yeah, I like this. Yeah. Spiritual dehydration. You know, I spent some time with the stanza thinking about why. Why a prayer can't gush from him. And. And whenever he tries to, a wicked whisper comes up instead of. And wondering what that. That whisper might be, you know, what's what sort of like what would he be saying a curse instead of a prayer, you know, taking the Lord's name in vain or something like that, rather than. Than crying out to God. You know, I think that there are a lot of potential interpretations for this inability to pray. He says, you know, Christ would take no pity on my soul. So, you know, presumably pity would. Would be having gone with. With death rather than death's wife dying or somehow being. Being relieved of this suffering. So he's, you know, he's kind of a job figure. And rather than, you know, continuing to handle this with those with a certain forbearance. Right. He's potentially kind of angry and alone now. And so anyway, it's. It's, you know, this spiritual dehydration seems to be related to the fact that he is still. He still hasn't learned his lesson, perhaps, or he's still. He's not redeemed yet. And so I just. I'm just curious about what that wicked whisper might be. I mean, you know, we don't. There's a suggestion perhaps that we'll get it a little bit. Do we get it later? Does he say something? No, I'm thinking of something else. 48:33 Wes: Well, it's interesting because the whisper makes his heart as dry as dust when you would expect the causality to run the other way. His heart is dry, and therefore he produces a whisper instead of a gush. So that's one interesting aspect of the image. We know he's alone because it's repeated several times. And presumably not just to make meter. Right. Alone. Alone. 48:55 Erin: All alone. 48:56 Wes: Alone. 48:57 Erin: Right. 48:57 Wes: Are you really alone? If you're alone four times, you've got company. At least you have the company of all the dead men on the deck. 49:07 Erin: Eldritch deck. 49:09 Wes: Perhaps he's alone as many times as there are dead men. Presumably the aloneness has something to do with this state of being able to pray properly. And as we've already mentioned, there's a sense in which he was alone even before all this began. And identified with the aloneness of the albatross. Perhaps. I like the image of the sky and the sea kind of laying on his eyes, his weary eye, like a. Like a load, like a bearing down on it. They have pressure such that, you know, the static image of the painted boat and the painted sea. There's a dynamism to it. It can be oppressive to the eye. 49:51 Erin: Should I keep reading? Yeah, okay, sure. The cold sweat melted from their limbs. Nor rot nor reek did they. The look with which they looked on me had never passed away. An orphan's curse would drag to hell a spirit from on high. But, oh, more horrible than that is the curse in a dead man's eye. Seven days, seven nights I saw that curse and yet I could not die. The moving moon went up the sky and nowhere did abide. Softly she was going up and a star or two beside her beams bemocked the sultry main like morning frost. Espread I spread. W. Spread. 50:32 Wes: Come on, Coleridge. Getting a little bit ridiculous. 50:36 Erin: Like morning frosts, y-spread. But where the ship's huge shadow lay the charmèd water burnt alway a still and awful red. Beyond the shadow of the ship I watched the water snakes. They moved in tracks of shining white and when they reared the elfish light fell off in hoary flakes. Within the shadow of the ship I watched their rich attire. Blue glossy green and velvet black. They coiled and swam and every track was a flash of golden fire. Oh, happy living things. No tongue their beauty might declare. A spring of love gushed from my heart and I blessed them unaware. Sure my kind saint took pity on me and I blessed them unaware the self same moment I could pray and from my neck so free the albatross fell off and sank like lead into the sea. 51:24 Wes: Well, that was quick. 51:25 Erin: It was quick, all right. 51:27 Wes: He was redeemed pretty quickly. 51:30 Erin: Well, it took a week. 51:32 Wes: Is that what it says? 51:33 Erin: Seven days. Seven nights. 51:34 Wes: Oh, seven days. Seven nights. 51:36 Erin: Yeah. 51:36 Wes: Alone, Alone, alone, alone. Day after day after day after day. Then Orphan's Curse would drag to hell a spirit from on high. Really? Orphans have that much power? 51:52 Erin: Yeah. God. Even more horrible than an orphan is the curse in a dead man's eye. 51:56 Wes: Dead man? Slightly. 51:58 Erin: You think? And especially like a ginger orphan, like Little Orphan Annie. Even more horrible than her is. Yeah. 52:05 Wes: The sun will come out tomorrow. 52:07 Erin: Oh, no. 52:09 Wes: But there won't be any water to drink. Be great to see that song performed 52:15 Erin: on the ship with the dead. 52:17 Wes: The dead mariners dancing like a Michael Jackson. 52:20 Erin: There you go. 52:20 Wes: Thriller video. Doing it to a hard knock. It's a hard knock. Life. Yeah. 52:24 Erin: Their bones clanking around. Little tap number. It's great. 52:28 Wes: So the curse on the dead man's eye. A bit evocative of the glinting eye of the. Of the mariner. As he's relating the tale. Maybe. Maybe I might be stretching it a bit there. In the meantime, the beams of the sun or the moon. Sorry? The moon. In parallel, it seems to the curse coming from the eyes is bemocking the sultry main. Ooh, sultry. The ship is sultry. It's the main. The mast. It's the main mast, right? 52:58 Erin: Yeah. 53:00 Wes: Why is it sultry? Well, because everything's supposed to Be dry. 53:04 Erin: Well, where the moon colors the sea, it's white. Right.