Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 4)

Wes & Erin continue their discussion of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Thanks to our sponsor for this episode, HelloFresh. Go to HelloFresh.com/subtextapps for free appetizers for life. 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 Erin: But where the shadow of the ship lies, the water is red. So the sultry is the redness, is it? So that's why it bemocked the sultry main. So, you know, this is image almost of like blood in the water, you know, is the shadow of the ship. I think that's why it's sultry. Maybe I'm reading this wrong. 0:19 Wes: Well, I'm thinking heat and humidity, something like that. It's not unheard of for it to have a sexual connotation. Are we getting any of that here? I don't know. 0:31 Erin: The moon is a woman, but otherwise, I don't. It's in contrast to the sultry. Maybe the purity of the moon. I mean, there's a respite here, right? From the. 0:44 Wes: Yes, this is. I think you're spot on here. 0:46 Erin: Okay. 0:47 Wes: Yes, yes. The purity of the moon is what mocks the sultriness of the main. The sinful, bad main, bad ship. 0:55 Erin: Well, there's also, I think this punitive quality to the sun is relaxed with the more ameliorative moon. So, you know, one is put in mind of Marian implications. You know, Mary is the intercessor for her son Christ, who can be more of an administrator. I'm sorry, of an administrator of. Of justice, perhaps. Right. So there's something pure but also rather, I think, gentle and more maternal about this moon, which, you know, the purity of the moon and the connection to Mary would connect those two ideas pretty well, I think, if we want to look at it that way. Yeah. So she's coming in, she's interceding, and her intercession seems to be what then induces the mariner to find the water snakes now, now beautiful in this softer light. And this seems to be what allows his conversion of sorts. 1:59 Wes: So all he had to do is change his perspective. Yeah, I guess so. The water burnt alway. The water is burning. I guess that would make things sultry. And it remains that way, remains red even as the moon frosts up, so to speak, cools down the ship. But I presume now that he's looking at the water snakes, which we had read, you know, at some point it seemed like they had legs maybe and there might be maggot, like because they're coming from a rotting deep. Presumably he's looking still at the burning water. Whether that's just, you know, the way. The way it looks or what it. What. What's actually happening. But when they reared, the elfish light fell off in hoary flakes they're leaving tracks of shining white. It's as if now they are sort of agents of the moon, right? And they're having the same cooling effect, at least when it comes to the light. Light comes off them as if they're shedding pieces of skin. You know, one of the most interesting parts of the poem is the oddness of this imagery, right? It's not just surreal, it's not. It's just. It's quite. I guess surreal is the right word. But it's not just dreamlike, it's quite out of the ordinary, this cooling effect. 3:10 Erin: I think that in a way we're returned spiritually, if you will, to the scene of the crime, right? So the hoary flakes are like snow. So we're almost in the middle of this sultry ocean at the equator. We're being returned to these Antarctic conditions for his transformation to be. His sort of spiritual transformation to be. Be affected. And I think that there's, you know, there's something too in the following stanza that is a mirror of the witches oils. So, you know, the water snakes are described as blue, glossy green and velvet black. Right prior the psychedelic, I think was the word you used for the waters, like the witches oils at the equator, which burnt green and blue and white. But here they're described as being like attire. So it's almost the velvet black is like they have rather heavy clothing on, which would be indicative of a colder place. So these water snakes are going to turn out to affect his redemption or whatever we want to call it. Not to put too fine a point on that, but I think for that reason we have to get this gust of cold air, this reprieve and as I already said, this return to, you know, the conditions in which he killed the albatross. 4:28 Wes: Let's take a moment to talk about our sponsor for today's episode, HelloFresh. With HelloFresh, you get farm fresh, pre portioned ingredients and seasonal recipes delivered right to your doorstep. Skip trips to the grocery store and count on HelloFresh to make home cooking easy, fun and affordable. That's why it's America's number one meal kit. Make restaurant quality meals at home without the high cost of takeout. Plus, HelloFresh's new Ready in 20 recipes are on the table in just 20 minutes. That's even quicker than delivery. HelloFresh is really convenient. You just choose your meals and select a delivery date. HelloFresh handles all the meal planning, shopping and most of the prep. So all you have to do is open your box and get cooking that includes balanced, fit and wholesome recipes. Chock full of fresh produce and under 650 calories per serving. My experience with hellofresh has been great. I cook way more using hellofresh than I am when I'm not using it. That's because I'm far more inclined just to do takeout or delivery rather than meal plan. Go to the grocery store, get all the fresh ingredients, do the prep work, do the cooking. I might have done that sometimes, but not on the same consistent basis. Hellofresh made it much easier to consistently prepare healthier, fresh meals for myself. Some of my favorite recipes include Hearty Steak and Potatoes, Balsamic Chicken Rustico, and Lemony Shrimp risotto. Go to hellofresh.com subtextsweet for free. Dessert for life. One dessert item per box while subscription is active. That's free. Dessert for [email protected] subtextsweet that's HelloFresh, America's number one meal kit. Okay, back to the show. Yeah, it's interesting because when they broke into the static realm, we speculated that that might have something to do with the aesthetic, at least the Apollonian aesthetic. And here he rediscovers, or he discovers for the first time, I guess, the beauty of the things that he thought were a kind of rotting. We had moved from aesthetic stasis to death to rot, which reintroduced dynamism, and then to this spirit that's been pursuing them under the water. And now we've made it transition to the idea that there could be something beautiful in what seemed to be a rotting. So and that. That, as you've pointed out, is his redemption. The ability to see that beauty where he only saw terror. And that's the thing that frees him up to be able to pray again. It spiritually hydrates him, so to speak. He can now actually speak in more than a whisper. The albatross falls off like lead into the sea. Great image. Great. It conveys the heaviness of it. This continues to suggest that his problem involves his relationship to the natural world and in particular to living things, to other creatures, and maybe to the concept of creaturehood in general. Which would also explain his relationship to marriage. Maybe it's a relationship to propagation. Right. Maggots coming from rot are like propagation according to right. Pre scientific theory, spontaneous generation would be sexless generation of life. 8:07 Erin: That's a great point. I just wanted to, you know, I figured I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that he blesses the water snakes unaware. Right. So this is what makes this poem so frustratingly complicated is that, you know, seemingly just as unmotivated as his shooting of the albatross was, he's also not really responsible for. Even for his moment of redemption. You know, I don't want to say. 8:32 Wes: Yeah, I think you're spot on here. Go ahead. 8:34 Erin: Yeah, no, I don't want to say that this is a poem that's sort of like anti. Anti. Free will. But it might be. I don't know. 8:43 Wes: Yeah, no, I think you're spot on. I hadn't thought of this. Yeah. This moment where he blesses them unaware. This is directly parallel to the lack of awareness with which he shoots the albatross. I don't know that he describes his. When he shoots the albatross, he just says. And I. Yeah, I just went ahead and shot the albatross. I think it doesn't. He doesn't say, I was. I shot it unaware. But it comes across that way. So I think this has to. Coleridge is purposefully juxtaposing these two moments. The thing that gets him in trouble and the thing that gets him out of trouble are very similar. He's shooting from the hip, in a sense. Well. 9:20 Erin: And there's a kind of. 9:20 Wes: I can see why you would think that maybe this implicates a lack of free will or he's acting from the unconscious. Although I guess you could suppose at this point he's acting out of grace, maybe. 9:32 Erin: Right. But either way, I think, you know, what this highlights is if you like a kind of capriciousness to his internal weather. Right. Like if he is an extension of the natural landscape, which can turn on a dime and, you know, and suddenly decide to make you feel as though you're being persecuted, as if there's a. There's a kind of a thought behind it, but really there isn't. In spite of this desire for mastery over it or for separation or, you know, whatever motivated the killing of the albatross. You know, he's just as much a part of nature as the weather is or any of these other. Or the water snakes or the albatross. Right. 10:13 Wes: Yeah. Makes sense. Shall we do. Yeah. One more section. 10:17 Erin: Sure. And now we're into section five. Oh, sleep it is a gentle thing, beloved from pole to pole To Mary Queen the praise be Yevon. She sent the gentle sleep from heaven that slid into my soul. The silly. 10:30 Wes: Is this like a Robert Burns poem? I mean. 10:32 Erin: Yeah, exactly. The silly buckets on the deck that had so long remained. I dreamt that they were foolish, 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. I moved and could not feel my limbs. I was so light almost I thought that I had died in sleep and was a blessed ghost. The roaring wind, it roared far off. It did not come anear but with its sound it shook the sails that were so thin and sere. The upper air bursts into life and a hundred fire flags sheen to and fro they are hurried about and to and fro and in and out the stars dance on between the coming wind doth roar more loud the sails do sigh like sedge. The rain pours down from one black cloud and the moon is at its edge. I'll do one more. Hark, hark. The thick black cloud is cleft and the moon is at its side like waters shot from some high crag the lightning falls with never a jag A river steep and wide. 11:38 Wes: Yes, the dead men are about to get up. 11:40 Erin: About to. 11:41 Wes: Yeah. So what's going on here? I mean, praise be Evan. 11:44 Erin: Yeah. Praise be Heaven. 11:46 Wes: Mary Queen. Praise be you to you, even. Yevon. Yeah. What is it? 11:51 Erin: I don't know. I think it's supposed to be given to you. Praise be given. 11:54 Wes: Well, you could have just said that. 11:55 Erin: No, it doesn't rhyme with heaven. Or I guess it does, but not. Not enough for him. 12:00 Wes: She could just put a G instead of a Y. Praise be given. 12:03 Erin: Gavin. Praise be Gavin. Mary loves people named Gavin. That's his name. 12:08 Wes: Lots of fun we do be having. 12:10 Erin: Sorry. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. So we have a direct invocation of Mary. So I wasn't too far off, I think, with this moon thing. Moon Mary connection. But anyway. But then we have these buckets. I love this. The silly buckets on the deck, which is ridiculous. It's glossed in my edition as simple or homely. So they're filled up with this dew is what he's dreaming. And then when he wakes up, he realizes that it's raining and they're filling up these buckets. And of course, I'm thinking of the Mariner as a vessel for these natural forces. Right. He, too, is being filled up like the bucket. But also, it seems like he's been filled with grace at the right moment and is now receiving his redemptive kind of hydration. Yeah, hydration. The albatross. Then, you know, just prior to this having fallen off of Him. You know, the suggestion here is that the albatross both marked or cursed and kind of blessed him at the same time. So now he's. He's gotten rid of this burden. He's. You know, if he's a Christ figure, then the sleep is like a. It's like a death. And in a way, this. This rain and this replenishment or this hydration. Right. Is like. Is like being reborn or being rather resurrected, right? 13:27 Wes: Yeah, that's what it seems to be. The dead men are going to get a different kind of resurrection, right? 13:33 Erin: That's right. Should I keep reading these? 13:36 Wes: Straight up zombies? Yeah, I think. Yeah. 13:39 Erin: Yeah, do it. Yeah. So he's. He thought he had died and thought he was a ghost, but in fact, he's. He's just truly resurrected. And then there's. There's a wind that's coming. The black cloud parts, and then we have this moment. The strong wind reached the ship. It roared and dropped down like a stone beneath the lightning and the moon. The dead men gave a groan. 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 son stood by me knee to knee. The body and I pulled at one rope, but he said nought to me. And I quaked to think of my own voice, how frightful it would be. The daylight 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. This was Wordsworth's idea that he. He gave himself credit for, right? This idea that the bodies of the crew would be reanimated to get the ship back where it belonged. Am I right for. Okay, remembering that correctly? 15:04 Wes: I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I know he. He gave himself credit for something, and that sounds right, but he gave himself credit for a few things. 15:11 Erin: You know, I don't know that I. That I love this point. This is the point at which I think, okay, you know, this is the really unbelievable part. 15:23 Wes: We're supposed to believe this. 15:26 Erin: I liked the whole, you know, death and life and death thing, but this is just a bridge too far. No, but there's, you know, there's something. 15:33 Wes: Well, is it consistent here? You know? 15:35 Erin: Yeah, yeah. This is what I mean. 15:37 Wes: I mean, their spirits have already shut off. Like his bow. 15:41 Erin: Right, right. 15:42 Wes: Like an arrow from his bow. 15:44 Erin: It does seem like this is just one too many complications in this. In a poem that's already kind of overburdened with various forms of, you know, immortal and mortal complications. But, you know, so we have the rain, and then we have this, like, big storm coming. And now we have again, we have something approaching which is very similar to the undead ship. It's one too many reanimations. One too many. You know, I was almost dead, and then I came back to life. Kind of twists and turns here. And this is supposed to be, like, a good thing, I guess, because this is how he gets back home. He needs the whole crew to run the ship. Otherwise, I suppose, it would have been too unbelievable for him to get all the way home on a ship that big with a crew of one. So this is how they. You know, how. Presumably Wordsworth suggested they fix the plot hole. Is that. 16:37 Wes: Oh, is that right? 16:38 Erin: Interesting. I'm assuming, right. Because otherwise people would say, well, I don't believe that. How could he get home? Just one guy on a ship. That's the thing they would critique the realism of. 16:48 Wes: Yeah, that's interesting. You know, we get another paradoxical image. There are lots of them in here. The strong wind dropping like a stone. And it seems to be the thing that reanimates the. The dead men. It's as if the wind becomes their spirit. And later on, the helmsman is steering never a breeze up blew. So a strong wind comes instead of just blowing the ship normally. Which would be plausible, right? That would be the plausible way. Even if he's the only one left. Yeah. He could do it if he has a wind. Instead, the wind comes, reanimates the men, and then it's gone. And then the ship moves without the wind, but with the crew. 17:26 Erin: Right, right. 17:27 Wes: I guess you need the crew more than you need the wind. Or they're their own wind. If they've been reanimated by the wind, the crew, in some sense, are the wind. So maybe we could see that as a kind of fusion of the agency of the crew members with the natural elements on which they are usually dependent, as on chance or fate, but, you know, but for movement. So they become their own source of movement here. 17:56 Erin: Well, I like this because you're, you know, you're. You're kind of submerging within the. The crew. Like the two things that we actually do need to make the ship go. Right. The, the ship in a way is like a clockwork mechanism or something. Right. That. Like that. But at the same time. Right. It's. It's also like dependent on wind and something that's extremely natural. So it's like these two sort of semi opposed forces coalescing in order to get the ship to move. And so here I think you're suggesting that this is like combined within these reanimated bodies. So we have them working the ropes, which is almost like the wind working them or the crew members. It could kind of go either way in that. Well, I suppose it says the mariners all, again, worked the ropes. This is the first time, is it, that these, the sailors are referred to as mariners, or am I. Yeah, I think so. 18:53 Wes: I think the only other reference to. Is when the wedding guest calls him a mariner. 18:59 Erin: Right. 18:59 Wes: Marine heir. 19:01 Erin: Right. Yeah. The crew, they're called the crew. They're called. I don't know, I suppose I've been referring to them as sailors to distinguish them from the mariner, but maybe that's just my own distinction. Certainly they're called the crew. 19:16 Wes: Right. 19:16 Erin: And so here. That's interesting. Here they're all mariners. We are all the crew of his nephew. 19:23 Wes: Nephew's along for the ride. And that's the first time we learn that. I don't know what this little stanza is doing other than for shock value. 19:33 Erin: Well, it's very. 19:34 Wes: My brother's son is. 19:36 Erin: Yeah, yeah, it's very strange. The brother's son, you know, gets this individualized shout out, but then, then he becomes the body. The body and eye pulled at one rope. 19:48 Wes: Yes. Spooky. 19:50 Erin: Yeah. So I don't know what that's supposed to do. It's supposed to show what. 19:56 Wes: I think it's just supposed to be spooky and creepy. 20:00 Erin: Well, it's not just the body of my brother, but my brother's son. So there's something here about. Right, about, I don't know, the extreme unnaturalness of the fact that like he's, you know, the younger generation is, has also died in this male. But, but we're learning this too late. You know, if there was a little boy. 20:17 Wes: Yeah. And I don't know. 20:20 Erin: Yeah. 20:21 Wes: But yeah, I see it as a little bit gratuitous. But then the interesting part here is, you know, so he, the nephew says nothing and then he says. The nephew says nought to me. And I quake to think of my own voice, how frightful it would be. So that's an Interesting reversal. The idea that he's the one who's frightening. He, the living one, would be frightening to the dead. That's inventive. 20:46 Erin: And also that, certainly. But also that his sort of surprise that this reanimated corpse is not speaking to him supersedes his own lack of speech towards this. Right. If anyone would be talking like, hey, who. Who are you? What's going on here? Presumably it would be the one who's actually alive. Right. And so instead, what we kind of get by the end of the sentence is the knowledge that neither is saying anything to the other. 21:17 Wes: They're both not speaking from this perspective of the dead. They probably. I think the supposition is that they would assume he's just one of them. Hey, we're all just dead men manning this boat, right? Nothing out of the ordinary about that. 21:32 Erin: We've been drafted by the wind. 21:34 Wes: Speak. What the hell is this? There's a living guy on board. What the hell? 21:39 Erin: Get him. 21:40 Wes: That's weird. That's scary. So you. Yeah. You get this reversal of perspectives where the dead might look upon the living as their own sort of haunting or weirdness or being out of place. 21:57 Erin: The mariner, our mariner, joins in, you know, but they have a very specific purpose here. Seems they, you know, they get right to work their limbs like lifeless tools. You know, they're just. They're purely there to do it. One. One last job before they're. And that's the other thing, is that they. They all were off to heaven or hell. So I guess they've been recalled. 22:17 Wes: Yeah. I don't. It's just such an inconsistency. I don't know how you have a look at it. But they will make now sweet sounds. There was a point, right, in the poem when they were alive when no one could speak because they were just so thirsty. 22:28 Erin: Yes. 22:29 Wes: And now presumably they don't speak because they're dead, even though they can man the boat. But they can emit these sweet sounds which then seem to take upon a life of their own, fly around, dart to the sun. So we get another darting. They've already dart. You know, the spirit's already darted out. 22:46 Erin: Right. 22:47 Wes: Right now they're producing sweet sounds which start then come back and mix. 22:51 Erin: Yeah. And this does remind me of the whistling and groaning that come through the holes of the eyes and mouth of death. 23:03 Wes: Right. 23:04 Erin: Yeah. But this seems better because they're sweet sounds. So. And then. 23:09 Wes: Oh, yeah, yeah. Back then it was creepy and terrible. 23:13 Erin: Right. Now it's just that now it's all good. The sounds of spirits once again departing from zombie bodies. So this is much sweeter. 23:23 Wes: It's like a tin whistle now. 23:26 Erin: Yeah. 23:27 Wes: Before it was more like someone with a chipped tooth kind of whistling. Now it's more like a melodic recorder. 23:36 Erin: Well, and this is going to be interpolated with birdsong. Right. In a second. And potentially the idea that he's now back home or he's near shore. 23:49 Wes: Right. 23:50 Erin: So let me read a few more stanzas here. 23:52 Wes: Well, I think we're out of time. 23:53 Erin: Oh, are we? Okay, well, then that's just a preview of the next few stanzas. 23:58 Wes: Yes, I think. Yes. We've gotten to a point where we can get through this in one more recording or two more episodes, right? Yeah. Two more parts. One more recording. Two more parts. That'll be parts five and six. We will finish this up, but for now, we must say farewell. What would the Mariner say? I think they'd say not adieu. 24:21 Erin: That's not a sweet sound. They would say not ahoy. Don't even the door on the way out. No, that's not. Say something like, don't curse me with your eye. If it's all the same to me. And. Yeah, okay. 24:39 Wes: How does a sailor say good night or goodbye? Is there a specific sailor term for that? 24:44 Erin: Hi ho. No, those are miners. 24:48 Wes: Godspeed. 24:49 Erin: Godspeed. Fare ye well. Ahoy is hello. So I don't know. 24:53 Wes: Yeah, like, what's the opposite of ahoy? 24:55 Erin: I know ahoy isn't like aloha, aloha, where it can mean hello and goodbye. Huh. 24:59 Wes: Right. 25:00 Erin: Too bad it's almost the same letters, but very different terms. 25:05 Wes: Okay. All right. Well, till next time. 25:08 Erin: Okay, bye bye. And thanks to everyone who listened. 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