Psychedelic Regrets in “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” (Part 6)

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 0:20 Erin: or patreon.com/subtextpodcast. Okay, welcome to Subtext. We are finishing up our discussion of Rime of the Ancient Mariner. This is part six in our six part series, so help us God. And we are starting with part six of the poem. The last, last two parts are part six and seven. So we're going to be kind of speeding through them. So here is the opening section of Part 6. First voice but tell me, tell me. Speak again, thy soft response Renewing what makes that ship drive on so fast. What is the ocean doing? Second VOICE still as a slave before his lord, the ocean hath no blast his great bright eye. Most silently up to the moon is cast, if he may know which way to go, for she guides him smooth or grim. See, brother, see how graciously she looketh down on him. First VOICE but why drives on that ship so fast Withouten wave or wind? 2nd the air is cut away before and closes from behind. Fly, brother, fly. More high, more high, or we shall be belated. For slow and slow that ship will go. When the mariner's trance is abated. I woke and we were sailing on as in a gentle weather. Twas night, calm night, the moon was high. The dead men stood together. All stood together on the deck for a charnel dungeon fitter all fixed on me, Their stony eyes that in the moon did glitter. The pang. The curse with which they died had never passed away. I could not draw my een from theirs, Nor turn them up to pray. And in its time the spell was snapt and I could move my een. I looked far forth, but little saw of what might else be seen. Like one that on a lonely road doth walk in fear and dread, and having once turned round, walks on and turns no more his head, because he knows a frightful fiend doth close behind him tread. 2:26 Wes: I'm going to start referring to my eyes as een from now on. I know. 2:29 Erin: It's just. And it's so ugly. It's an ugly sound to. I just. I cringe every time I have to read that. 2:36 Wes: Yeah, I have. Blue een. Blue een. Where does that. Where does. Do we know where that comes from? Is that just made up or is that a Scottish thing? 2:44 Erin: I think it's a Scottish thing. It's. Yeah. I'm not going to be able to find it now in the notes because it was used so early on, but I think that is what I remember from the Glosses. 2:54 Wes: So I like, in this section that we. They're going to try and tell us why the ship is moving. We've speculated a lot about that. And I thought we found out the spirit was doing it. Why does the ship move so fast without wave or wind? And then we get two weird suggestions about what's causing it to move. The air is cut away before and closes from behind. Well, isn't that just what the wind is? Or is there something, some kind of vacuum thing going on? Is it getting sucked forward, so to speak? And then this. We find out that the ship will go slower when the Mariner's trance is abated. So it's as if the Mariner's trance itself is moving the ship. He's got, like, Carrie powers. He's got telekinetic powers, which just by. And virtue of being in a. In a trance, which has something to do. Right. With the whole zombie crew situation and life and death that is moving the 3:47 Erin: ship reminds me of light speed. Like when the Millennium Falcon seems to disappear into space and then reappear. It's just. 3:54 Wes: Or dune folding. Folding space or something. Yeah, yeah, Warp speed. 3:59 Erin: You know what's funny about these voices, though, I just have to say is that it's. It reminds me of, like, children's catechism or something like, you know, asking why, you know, why did this happen? And then there's like a little response that comes in. Or there's some. There's something it's reminding me of that I didn't think of it before, so I didn't look it up, but something of something of that nature, like, why did God create little children? And then there's like, an answer, you know, God created little children because he so loved the world. That. Right. So this. It's like there's something of that almost kind of childlikeness that is indicative and. Or. Sorry. It's something like that childlike quality of these two voices speaking to each other, where it reminds me of, like, a children's song or of a sort of children's catechesis, and we get. We get an actual little answer. So that's, you know. 4:46 Wes: Yeah. 4:47 Erin: Very strange moment in this poem, which I had completely forgotten about until. Until I reread it for. For the podcast. 4:53 Wes: Yeah. So his Trance is ablated, abated. Sorry. And it kind of wakes up sailing on in gentle weather. But now all the dead men are staring at him. So I don't know what's the good of not being in a trance anymore if this is still happening. And I suppose in staring at him and fixing their stony eyes on him sounds like they're asking to be put out of their misery. Which is not something he really has the power to do. So he can't take his eyes off them. They're staring at him. He can't take his eyes off them until a certain point where the smell is smell as the spell is snapped. And then what happens? He sees something. I looked far forth but little saw of what might else be seen. I guess he doesn't see anything like one that on the lonely road doth walk in fear and dread. 5:43 Erin: Yeah, he feels the presence of something behind him, but he doesn't. He doesn't know what. So he keeps turning around and seeing nothing. And basically, you know, at some point there's going to be a jump scare. But yeah, he can't see it. I just. I just point out that the. The stony eyes that glitter in the moon, it's indicative of the eye of the mariner, which holds the gaze of the wedding guest. Right. So. So something. It's almost like something happens here where what the zombies do to the mariner is what the mariner ends up doing to the wedding guest in the future. Right. 6:15 Wes: Good point. All right, you want to read on? 6:17 Erin: Okay. But soon there breathed a wind on me. No sound, no motion made Its path was not upon the sea in ripple or in shade. It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek like a meadow gale of spring it mingled strangely with my fears, yet it felt like a welcoming. Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, yet she sailed softly too. Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze on me alone it blew. O dream of joy. Is this indeed the lighthouse top I see? Is this the hill? Is this the kirk? Is this mine own country? We drifted o' er the harbor bar and I with sobs did pray. O let me be awake, my God, or let me sleep alway. The harbor bay was clear as glass, so smoothly it was strewn and on the bay the moonlight lay and the shadow of the moon, the moonlight bay was white all o' er till Rising from the same full many shapes that shadows were like as of torches came a little distance from the prow those dark red shadows were. But soon I saw that my own flesh was red as in a glare. I turned my head in fear and dread. And by the holy rood, the bodies had advanced. And now before the mast, they stood. They lifted up their stiff right arms. They held them straight and tight. And each right arm burnt like a torch. A torch that's born upright. Their stony eyeballs glittered on in the red and smoky light. 7:40 Wes: Did you say you have a cat? 7:41 Erin: I do. 7:42 Wes: Do you have one where you live? In Utah or Just a. Your parents? 7:46 Erin: My. My. Just my parents. My cat's 18. She's. 7:50 Wes: Okay. 7:51 Erin: She's really senile and too old to. To make the trip out, so. Yeah. 7:55 Wes: Well, I have a cat that when she gets bored, will just sit and stare at me in the most annoying way until. And sometimes meow and sometimes come up and paw me, but for the most part, will just sit and stare at me until I play with her. And that's what this reminds me of. He gets some good news. The wind is finally back. He's moving. It's great. It's getting to land. And then, lo and behold, for me, this is like me trying to sit and enjoy a TV show. Then you look over and someone's staring at you expectantly. Okay, so he's still beset with these. These very needy zombies. 8:36 Erin: Yeah. And then. Well, I mean, I suppose we haven't gotten to that point yet, but it's rather. I find this section to be rather confusing when the torch bearing arms of the zombies become actual torches from outside the boat of the hermit, etc. The pilot and the pilot's boy or whoever. Right. Who come aboard. So it seems like there's a. 8:56 Wes: Each right arm burnt like a torch. Right. Okay. 9:00 Erin: Yeah. It's really nuts. Strange. Yeah. Something like. What does that remind me of? Some logo of something. 9:08 Wes: Right. 9:09 Erin: Not just like, you know, the Olympic torch, which would make sense, but is there a logo that somebody has an arm burning? I don't know. 9:16 Wes: Anyway, well, you're reminding me of the thing outside auto dealerships where the dancing. Big inflatable dancing person with the arms almost look like burning flames. 9:25 Erin: Yes. I love those things. I have a. I have a poem with one of those guys in it and. 9:31 Wes: Oh, really? 9:32 Erin: Yeah. Nobody's ever picked it up. It makes me really mad because I love that stupid thing. Anyway. 9:38 Wes: All right, you want to continue? 9:39 Erin: Okay. I prayed and turned my head away Forth looking as before. There was no breeze upon the bay, no wave against the shore. The rock shone bright. The Kirk, no less, that stands above the rock. The moonlight steeped in silentness, the steady weathercock. And the bay was white with silent light. Till rising from the same full many shapes that shadows were in crimson colors Came a little distance from the prow those crimson shadows were. I turned my eyes upon the deck. O Christ, what saw I there? Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat. And by the holy rood, a man all light, A seraph man on every corse there stood the seraph band. Each waved his hand. It was a heavenly sight. They stood as signals to the land, each one a lovely light. The seraph band. Each waved his hand. No voice did they impart. No voice. But, oh, the silence sank like music on my heart. But soon I heard the dash of oars. I heard the pilot's cheer. My head was turned perforce away and I saw a boat appear. Then vanished all the lovely lights. The. The bodies rose anew with silent pace. Each to his place came back the ghastly crew. The wind that shade nor motion made on me alone it blew the pilot and the pilot's boy. I heard them coming fast. Dear Lord in heaven, it was joy the dead men could not blast. I saw a third. I heard his voice. It is the hermit Good. He singeth loud his godly hymns that he makes in the wood. He'll shrieve my soul. He'll wash away the albatrosses blood. 11:12 Wes: Hmm. 11:13 Erin: This is just so. At this point, it's like, you know, we've already had, like, the wind blows and then it stops, and then it blows. Then, you know, they're on the. They're on the, you know, roller coaster, and then the ship stops, and then it's this, that, and the other. And now it's like they're dead. Nope. They're back. Nope. They're dead. Nope. They're reanimated again. Nope. Now there's, like, seraph man standing on every single corpse or corse. Gee, why does and then they're back 11:41 Wes: have to be left out? 11:43 Erin: I don't know. And it's so. It seems that they're flickering. I mean, tell me if this is wrong. They're flickering, signaling to the land with their own light in a way. So they're like, signaling for some kind of intervention. But then they go back into the bodies and continue to work the ship, seemingly eliminating the need for someone to come and help the mariner. 12:07 Wes: Well, I suppose if they see a lighthouse, are they supposed to signal with lights or something? They're supposed to. I don't know. 12:13 Erin: Oh, maybe, Maybe. 12:14 Wes: So you signal back to the land to say you're coming in, but I don't know. 12:20 Erin: Okay, that could be true. 12:21 Wes: A Dash of oars. 12:24 Erin: Yeah. He hears the pilot's cheer, and then the bodies rise up. 12:29 Wes: Well, he saw a boat appear. I saw a boat appear. So is he hearing another boat? 12:34 Erin: Yes. 12:35 Wes: Okay. 12:35 Erin: This is the boat versus the ship, I think. 12:37 Wes: Right. 12:37 Erin: And then. So then the lights vanish. The bodies of the crew rise again. The wind is blowing just on the mariner, inexplicably. And then he hears the pilot and the pilot's boy coming, which is strange because they must be in a rather small boat compared to the ship. So the fact that he could hear them coming is odd. And then he hears the voice of the hermit. So presumably this is like the hermit is right. Right along the shore. So he's very, very close to land. Yeah. Anyway, I just. I forgot how confusing this part was when I. When I came back to read it. 13:09 Wes: It is confusing. Yeah. What is it? It's a joy the dead man could not. The dead men could not. Blast that they can't talk, that they 13:16 Erin: can't yell or that. Blasting it away, stifling it, like their presence couldn't diminish the joy, you know? Okay, maybe that's. That, though, is. 13:25 Wes: Oh, I see. It was a joy that. That the dead men could not get rid of. I think you're right about that. Yes. 13:31 Erin: But it fights against this idea of them as seraphs because they would be trumpeting the joy. 13:38 Wes: We just have to accept that there's just so many contradictions in the poem. It's the poem, you know, he. He includes so much in it. It's. It's chock full of different sorts of images and allusions and kinds of logic. And, you know, that what ran the ship, Was it the spirit or was it his trance or this or that? You know, that sort of thing. Ultimately, there's no fixed logic to any of this. 14:02 Erin: It's a lesson to everybody. If you write something complicated enough and contradictory enough, people will be arguing about it 200 years later. He's creating his own cottage industry of interpreting this poem. Yeah. 14:14 Wes: It's voiced by a marinaire. 14:16 Erin: Right. Loves his marinara sauce. 14:20 Wes: I know. They just called him Sauce for that's his nickname. 14:25 Erin: That's what he loved to share with the albatross. And they sat there and he. Nose to the meatball across the plate. Yeah. So then the hermit is there. You know, the need for the hermit is. I don't know. I mean, we could talk about the hermit and why a hermit and, you know, the significance of this person living along the shore being brought into the poem, obviously, as a Mirror maybe for the mariner or something like that. Right. This is someone who's like alone but happy about it versus the mariner who's alone and miserable. And the hermit is sort of self sustaining and the mariner is dependent. And even in this instance he seems to be dependent on the hermit. Hermit as someone who will presumably, you know, hear his confession and administer absolution for the sin of killing the albatross, which as far as I know, is not necessarily a sin in the Catholic Church, depending on how hungry the mariner was. 15:17 Wes: You know, the hermit does seem to have some things in common with the albatross. In a way. The albatross is the bird version of a hermit. 15:25 Erin: Oh, with the albatross. Oh, I like that. 15:27 Wes: Even though. Yeah, even though the albatross is mobile and goes to the ships for food and all that stuff. So. Although maybe we can see the albatross is kind of pilgrim in that sense. But the question on my mind is, why is it the hermit who's going to give him absolution and allow him to do penance? And perhaps having something in the. In common with the albatross is important, but I. I guess we're going to find out more in section seven. 15:50 Erin: Okay, here we go. This hermit good lives in that wood which slopes down to the sea. How loudly his sweet voice he rears. He loves to talk with mariners that come from a far country. He kneels at morn and noon and eve he hath a cushion plump. It is the moss that wholly hides the rotted old oak stump. The skiff boat neared. I heard them talk. Why, this is strange. I trow. Where are those lights so many and fair that signal made but now strange. By my faith, the hermit said. And they answered not our cheerful. The planks look warped. And see those sails, how thin they are. And sear. I never saw aught like to them, Unless perchance it were the skeletons of leaves that lag my forest-brook along. When the ivy tod is heavy with snow and the owlet whoops to the wolf below that eats the she wolf's young. Dear Lord, it has a fiendish look. The pilot made reply. I am afeard. Push on, push on, said the hermit cheerily. The boat came closer to the ship. Cheerily, cheerily, yeah. The boat came closer to the ship, But I no spake nor stirred. The boat came close beneath the ship and straight a sound was heard under the water. It rumbled on still louder and more dread. It reached the ship, it split the bay. The ship went down like lead, stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, which sky and ocean smote like one that hath been seven days drowned my body lay afloat. But swift as dreams myself I found within the pilot's boat upon the whirl where sank the ship. The boat spun round and round and all was still, save that the hill was telling of the sound. 17:27 Wes: So they're coming out to him on a boat and then as soon as they get there, the. The ship sinks. 17:32 Erin: Yeah, it's. It's reminiscent to me of like the ripping of the temple veil or something. But it's also a great way to just get rid of the evidence of all the ghostly zombie bodies. 17:43 Wes: Yeah. No one's gonna believe him now. 17:45 Erin: Right. 17:45 Wes: I'm reminded of an. At the end of the horror, like The Friday the 13th movies, they always ended with like the lone survivor being kind of put into a car by. Or an ambulance by police, I can't remember. But something like that. He's. His horror story is over and he's the only one who survived. But no one is going to believe him. 18:06 Erin: Well, there's. 18:07 Wes: So what is it about the character of the hermit? Yeah. That makes him suitable? He loves to listen or to talk with mariners. The mariner will have no problem getting this guy to listen to his very long poem. 18:22 Erin: Right. Reminds me of Thoreau at Walden Pond. Thoreau is a pretty bad example of someone who lives in the woods in self sufficiency when he's like going to Hawthorne's house every night for dinner or going to Emerson's house every night, hanging out in the library and, you know, 18:38 Wes: we go into town to get a newspaper every day too. He even says that after railing against the news and as if, you know, the telegram and all this stuff. Yeah, but I had to go. I had to have my morning fix. I went into the town every day for a newspaper and a coffee. Yeah. 18:55 Erin: So it's a hard knock life for Thoreau. Walden Pond. You know, there's something reminiscent of that here. Obviously. I'm also thinking, you know, I didn't look this up, but I. I'm sure that a hermit is not able to hear someone's confession because, I mean, okay, so this is obviously, you know, this is set in some kind of medieval time in which, you know, there are obvious Catholic imagery here. Coleridge is writing out of that tradition. So an older Scotland, whatever British Isles, which is still part of the Catholic Church. And a hermit is someone who, obviously this is a concept that transcends all different kinds of religions. A hermit I'm almost 100% sure is like a kind of a monk or a brother. It's someone who lives the consecrated life but is not a priest. So someone who could hear confessions and give penance and. Right, because a priest is someone who has to live in community. Right? They serve the community. They have this role to say Mass, to hear confessions, et cetera. Like, they have to be by nature of their calling, they have to be in relationship to other people. They have an important role to fulfill within the community. So this hermit can't really hear his. I mean, you know, you could tell. You could confess to somebody in air quotes and like the Mariner does with the wedding guest and kind of just unburden yourself in an unofficial way. But the hermit can't give penance. The hermit is living a specific kind of life away from the community, much in the same way that nuns do. Like they're nuns and then they're sisters. People think that all sisters are nuns, but they're not. Right. So much like cloistered nuns where they live, they actually live in community with each other, but they live apart from the world. 20:40 Wes: Right. 20:41 Erin: Hermits are like a step beyond that. So they're supposed to be living apart from the world and apart from other people. So the fact that this hermit wants to talk to people or makes a regular habit of talking with people, I don't know if that makes him like, a bad hermit. I don't know what the. Of the hermits are. I don't think they have necessarily, like a strict. They're not living by a sort of set of rules, because rules are, I'm pretty sure, you know, established within community living, like the Benedictine rule. You know, if you're part of a Benedictine order, you follow St. Benedict's rule. It's about how communities should operate. Presumably, like, a hermit would take orders or have, you know, have to answer directly to, like, a bishop or somebody. Somebody above him. But anyway, the point is he's not being a very good hermit, and the Mariner is not a very good, I don't know, Catholic or whatever you want to put it by. By thinking that the hermit could give him some kind of absolution. So it's. I don't know if this is helpful or useful. It's just that it's. It's the fact that this hermit seems so interested in the goings on of these ships. It's almost reads to me as like a gossipy kind of interest. So there's something fishy about him as a hermit. And and maybe there's something fishy about the mariner, too. And as I said, like, what the mariner wants, which is absolution or something. It's almost like maybe what. Maybe the Mariners need to tell a story over and over again, is because he hasn't actually received penance, because he's going to the wrong people. He's just. He's unburdening himself, but he's not actually confessing, right? Like, he's talking to the wedding guest. If we're going to say that. You know, we talked before about the bridegroom analogy. Christ is the bridegroom. What he should be doing, maybe is going to the bridegroom. Instead, he's going to a guest who's outside the wedding. He's not going to the right person. And that something about that seems to be mirrored in the fact that this guy is not doing what he's supposed to be doing. 22:32 Wes: Right. The wedding guest is waylaid by the mariner, who in a way plays a similar role to the hermit. And being a lunatic probably comes across as the same sort of person. So what do we know about hermits? We know they play a role in different, you know, in Christianity and different religious traditions. You know, you could see it as a kind of early form of monastic life, of seclusion for the sake of the spiritual, I guess. But also people. Do they. They are the sorts of people that are sought out for advice, right? So you climb the mountain or you go into the woods, or you find them in their cave and they're sitting there and they're. They probably don't smell great and probably not looking so great and. And looking pretty grizzled and old and unkempt and. But anyway, living austerely, but. But for whatever reason, can provide us with advice. And why is that? What. What is it about their sort of life that makes them suitable to hand out spiritual advice, to hand out counsel? After all, you know, when we want that sort of advice, it's sort of a. It's a product of the trials and tribulations of living in the world and living. Living in an ordinary life with all of its troubles. And a lot of those troubles arise from having to deal with people, which is something that the hermit has solved for himself successfully, for the most part. You know, gets visitors here and there, but he can otherwise have as much alone time as he needs. So I'm thinking about, out loud about what's suitable here about the hermit for the mariner. It is interesting. I mean, I think you're Capturing the spirit of this. You know, when you mention gossip, for instance, the hermit has a plump cushion. He's a bit perverse. In other words, he's excited when he sees the ship. He's not scared. Push on, push on. The pilot's excited. The hermit is like, oh, this is juicy. I'm really going to get a story from this guy. It's as if we get a version of the hermit who's less interested in providing spiritual counsel and more interested in gossip about what's going on out there in the world. So yeah, maybe very similar to Thoreau's who just likes reading the news. What's the news? Yeah, but is there anything more to say about the religious significance of the hermit or the spiritual significance, the significance of them as someone from whom we try to get spiritual counsel? And why would isolation be the avenue to that? 25:05 Erin: You're making me think of the importance of this kind of separation as a way to gain perspective or even to create conditions, extreme conditions under which you are then sort of forced into a new relationship with the world. So the hermits sort of self imposed conditions. I imagine the worst smelling hermits were the ones who were the, the pillar saints, like the people who lived on top of pillars. Do you know about this? No, this is real. You know, they're the hermits that live in the woods that, you know, hopefully they have some running water they can bathe in or whatever. But then there are the people that lived on top of the pillars. These are people deliberately were. This has nothing to do with anything. Sorry. It's just fascinating. They lived deliberately at the top of a pillar so that they would not have any access to any comforts at all. Yeah, did so for years. 25:53 Wes: Wow. 25:54 Erin: Anyway, yeah, so this forced perspective change which a hermit is voluntarily doing presumably gives it this kind of like outsider insight into, you know, they have an experience of growing up in a place and of being in relationship with people and then they have the experience of not being in relationship with people anymore. And this I guess gives them more insight into, or in theory would give them more insight by having the relationship with people removed. You know, I'm thinking about this too in relationship to the Mariner, you know, does the Mariner have some special insight as a result of what has happened to him? Or is he just as lost, if you will, as, as the hermit who you know is supposed to be also, you know, the life of the hermit is supposed to be also for the hermit's own edification or for their own moral purity by staying away from temptation, etc. It seems as, as you and I are both suggesting that the hermit has not learned to care less about. About worldly concerns by virtue of being a hermit. Maybe it's the location of his little hut that is the problem, that he's, he's set himself up in the middle of some kind of, you know, sea thoroughfare that he needs to be further into the woods or something, so he can't be. 27:05 Wes: Yeah. Why is he hanging out with the pilot? You know. 27:07 Erin: Right. 27:08 Wes: He's keeping an eye on everything. 27:10 Erin: A sailor is almost like someone in a religious community in a way. I mean, it's kind of the opposite of that too, but. Right. It's someone who, you know, you're in a close, enclosed environment with a bunch of men who are all of similar mindset to you. So in a way, he's like the opposite of a hermit, but also still sort of in this special sequestered, quasi religious kind of relationship to the world. 27:40 Wes: The sailing vessel is hermetic in a way. 27:42 Erin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know. I mean, I think like, there, there are a lot of similarities, but I guess I wanted to get to something about this relationship to the world from separateness and whether or not it gives you insight or a special kind of wisdom, whether or not we think the Mariner has the special kind of wisdom or if, like the hermit, he seems to not have necessarily gained spiritually from the experience because he's, he's, he's trapped. He's like, like the hermit, in a way, is trapped by his own spiritual foibles. And, you know, he's not seeming to learn anything from being a hermit because he's still to some extent trapped by the world and his relationship to it. The Mariner, it seems, is trapped in his experience of being. Of what happened to him when he was isolated. He's trapped inside the story. He's trapped in the past. I don't know. I'm trying to talk myself into some deeper connection, but I don't know if I'm finding it. 28:35 Wes: Well, leaving aside the deficiencies of the hermit, it's interesting that we have these three isolated figures. The Albatross, the Mariner. And the hermit. One thing to mention about the hermit as well is that he's connected to the land, just as the Albatross is also connected to the land, the spirit of the land. So in a way, hermit. Right. Is they're, they're, they're permanently camping, they're getting in touch with nature and perhaps that's part of this process. So the mariner has to literally find land, right? And he's trying to get back to land, but in some sense he also has to do that spiritually. Eventually the albatross has to go. And they can't fly forever. They fly for a very long time, but they have to land somewhere. Eventually the mariner has to. Mariner has to go back into port. The hermit, I think, is representative in part, not just of someone who is isolated, but also someone who's permanently on the land and close to the land. He's not doing the sailing thing, he's not doing the flying thing. So it's more than just. It's more than just isolation. And so then the question is, what is it that the mariner needs? Right. So the land does have more definiteness. We are talking about the way in which the, you know, the surreal aspect of the pond and the way everything melts into everything else. So in some sense, it sounds like he's looking for more things to be more defined and separated and down to earth and less spirit y and watery and airy and all the rest of it. Shall we read on and see? See what happens? 30:10 Erin: Yeah. Upon the whirl where sank the ship, the boat spun round and round and all was still save that the hill was telling of the sound. I moved my lips, the pilot shrieked and fell down in a fit. The holy hermit raised his eyes and prayed where he did sit, I took the oars. The pilot's boy who now doth crazy go Laughed loud and long, and all the while his eyes went to and fro. Ha ha, quoth he, Full plain I see the devil knows how to row. And now all in mine own country I stood on the firm land. The hermit stepped forth from the boat and scarcely he could stand. Oh, shrive me, shrive me, holy man. The hermit crossed his brow. Say quick, quoth he, I bid thee say, what manner, man art thou? Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched with woeful agony, which forced me to begin my tale and then it left me free. Since then, at an uncertain hour, now ofttimes and now fewer, that anguish comes and makes me tell my ghastly aventure I pass like night from land to land. I have strange power of speech. The moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me. To him my tale I teach. 31:25 Wes: So, yeah, it sounds like. Well, the hermit, it sounds like he does get some. Some peace right from. From telling his tale of the hermit which forced me to begin my tale and then it left me free. And then it's just occasionally at uncertain hours that he has the impulse. He has anguish of come over him and he has the impulse. The impulse or it's only going to be relieved by finding someone to tell his tale to. In other words, he's a poet. Maybe this is about being a poet and he's running around forcing people to listen to his poetry. 32:02 Erin: Yeah, we're the worst that way. I think that's very true. I do though, think there's no relationship between the hermit and this mariner in terms of the relief that the mariner feels. Correct me if I'm wrong, has nothing to do with having unburdened himself to the hermit in particular. Right. It's just this build up. It's like, it's like an earthquake. He builds up, it seems, this pressure, like tectonic plates building up pressure. And then he must unburden himself and then he feels a relief of that pressure only to have it then build up again. And pressure is not a strong enough word. Right. Woeful agony forces him to tell the tale. 32:42 Wes: Right. 32:42 Erin: So it doesn't seem dependent on the fact that he told the hermit that he gets relief. 32:47 Wes: Yeah, I mean, that sounds right to me. It's not the hermit in particular that matters. What does he mean by shrive me? 32:53 Erin: There's a direct connection being made to Matthew chapter eight. 32:57 Wes: I mean, I think it's right. So literally it's to. Sorry, is to give him penance. Right. Or give him absolution. 33:03 Erin: Yes, yes, yeah, Literally it's to hear his confession and. Yes, and administer absolution, which. Which as I already said, he can't really do. But the hermit looks at him and says, you know what manner of man are you? And this is From Matthew, chapter 8. Jesus has been performing a series of miracles. And this is from the moment where he calms the storm. So a bunch of these miracles happen right in a row in this chapter 8. And so then in verse 23, Jesus gets into the boat. This is when a furious storm comes up on the lake. So the waves swept over the boat, but Jesus was sleeping. So this is verse 25. The disciples went and woke him, saying, lord, save us, we're going to drown. He replied, you have little faith, why are you so afraid? Then he got up and rebuked the wind of the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. The men were amazed and asked, what kind of man is this? Or in some translations, what manner of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him. It's significant, I think, to read that, to understand the context from which this line is taken. Because the Mariner is asking the hermit for absolution. And the hermit says, what manner of man are you? Much like the disciples saying this to Jesus. So in the strange way, like the Mariner here is still the Christ figure. He's just been, you know, they're afraid because he's just been resurrected, it seems, right. Like they think he's dead. And that's why this freaks out the pilot and the pilot's boy so much. The pilot's boy goes and goes crazy. But then there's also the suggestion that he. That this might be evil or perverse, this resurrection, right? So, so the pilot's boy goes crazy and says, ah, look, the devil knows how to row. So the devil, meaning the Mariner. So whether or not he's Christ or the devil, it's like contained within this one, this one person. So. And either way, whether he's Christ or the devil, he would not need absolution from the. From the hermit, right? So it's this really complicated moment, these images kind of folded on each other. 35:08 Wes: So something about the telling of the tale is important to giving him peace. And I guess the hermit is his first experience with therapy. But as you point out, the hermit doesn't have to be a good therapist. It's not really about the hermit. It's just about the telling of the tale. And then he can go and find people on a regular basis to redo that therapy by telling his tale, by getting it off his chest, so to speak. It's interesting. It builds up in him as an urgency to speak, to confess. And, you know, then the question is why that is useful. We know, you know, there are plenty of theories about why that would be useful in therapy and having to do with connecting and, you know, making the unconscious conscious and connecting words and feelings and various, you know, various other ideas. But in this case, I suppose it's just about guilt and penance and confession by way of confession. It's just about having someone hear about what he did. And I guess in particular the killing of the albatross. Although that, that doesn't, you know, you get the sense that that's not really what he concentrates on when he's concentrating on the horror of the tale. The horror of the tale is more about the zombie crew and all the rest of it. As far as I can tell, the horrible thing that he did, which really should be the center of the confession, that's very casually treated and very quickly gone over. Oh, he'd shot the albatross. If it were a movie, the shooting of the albatross would not be in slow motion. It would not be a full fledged action scene. It would just be something that. That happened incidentally, in between a lot of other actions. So. So yeah, you don't, you don't get a sense here that. Well, it's unclear what atonement and confession actually mean to him. What it is he's confessing, what it is he feels guilty about. If anything, does he actually feel guilty? It's all very murky to my een. To my eye. To my een. 37:09 Erin: I like the connection you're drawing, and I think this is something that did occur to me as I. As I read this. This was maybe the first, like, analogy I could draw was. Was with the creative process as well. Is this therapeutic process you're pointing to. I also think of, like, Coleridge as a person who suffered from addiction as well. And I don't know if this is like something. Having never experienced addiction firsthand, I don't know if this is something that's similar where he feels like, the itch, the call to. I'd imagine it would be something that happened at more frequency than this. Than this cycle kind of suggests. But I'm just wondering about that connection. I also think it's like something in this too, that maybe we're, you know, maybe you were right to kind of point to the hermit. I'm reminded in the way that he puts this of that moment we talked about in the previous episode of Never Sadder Tale was told. You know, sadder and wiser. Thou wedding guest, where it seems like a lot of this is actually dependent on the recipient of the story, rather than it being purely about the Mariner unburdening himself. Because he does say, you know, the moment that his face. I see, I know the man that must hear me. To him, my tale, I teach. So this is about, you know, having a teachable moment. This is about. Actually there has to be. Not. It's not just about the Mariner unburdening himself. It's about there being a receptive person to hear. 38:31 Wes: And, well, he's warning people who might. Who might go astray. It sounds like he's actually saving people from themselves. It's a cautionary tale, in other words. 38:41 Erin: Right. And what. Okay, so what then? I mean, we talked a little bit about the. And we're going to come now. 38:47 Wes: Don't kill the albatross. Sorry. 38:49 Erin: Right, right. Like what, what about this wedding guest makes him the person? I mean, there's something that seems random about it. Right. And there's something that seems like, as we already suggested, maybe the bridegroom would be the more likely person to need this story or the bride, or somebody who's more central to this event that's happening rather than some random guest. You know, why this guy? It's kind of a. 39:13 Wes: Well, maybe he's the one who would have caught the flowers or something. I don't. 39:19 Erin: I think the fact that he's random too implies something supernatural or Christ like about the Mariner, but in this kind of opposite way. Like, you know, the idea that God gives. God selects the most unlikely people to be the ones who carry out his will, to be the ones who he gives kind of special gifts to. Right. This is a, this is a theme throughout the Bible, that it's always like the smallest one, the most unlikely one, who's the one who gets the glory or gets the gift that gives him this. You know, sometimes a gift or most times gift is like a double edged sword. Right. But it's like a, usually something that has a positive valence being bestowed on, on the unlikely person. In this instance, again, it's like, is the hermit. I'm sorry, is the Mariner. Now I'm really confusing him. Is the Mariner Christ or the devil? It's a teachable thing. So it's supposed to be about potentially redeeming the person or saving them from. From something which we haven't quite determined yet. So what that says about the Mariner, I'm not, I'm not sure, much less the person to whom he's giving this advice and what the advice is, what exactly the lesson is, I think is like another element of this poem that's so confusing is that it has, as we've already said, so many different possible interpretations and yet the purpose seems to be instruction to a particular end with a particular moral. 40:38 Wes: Yeah. What is the ordinary world version of killing the albatross? What does killing the albatross ultimately represent if not trying to be too independent of one's formative conditions, trying to be too autonomous, trying to be independent of, you know, you could think of it a number of different ways, but of God trying to be entirely self sufficient. And of course there are a variety of images of self sufficiency in the poem that the albatrosses to some extent, although that turns out I think just to be the self sufficiency of nature. And it's on nature, that we have to depend in part. And then there's the self sufficiency of a ship, of the Mariner, who aspires to be so self sufficient that he is willing to casually kill the albatross or feels compelled to do that. The supposed self sufficiency of the hermit. Right. Which turns out not to be real. I guess if you translate it into real world terms, you're looking for people who are uncomfortable with dependency and intimacy, let's put it that way. Or are hubristic, are maybe narcissistic, maybe overly self involved, but are in some sense disconnected from the social fabric. A wedding guest, you think is actually plugged into the social fabric. That seems to be their role. Right. I mean, in attending a wedding, they are part of the community. So, you know, you find the Mariner at some communal event and it's as if he can spot an imposter, maybe tell them that they're going through the motions, but they're doing it more deeply. 42:11 Erin: Yeah, I like that a lot. Because it gives credence to this idea that it's not deliberately or precisely not the bride or bridegroom that's being chosen to receive the message. And also like someone who is. Yeah. Who seems to be, on his face to be part of this. Yeah. Of the ceremonial rights of the community. Which I think like a wedding is perfectly, you know, maybe this gets to some of what we were talking about in the first episode about the significance of the wedding, that like this is a. At least at the time that the, that Coleridge is harkening back to. This is both a religious and a social ceremony that has double. A double function. I mean, I suppose these things wouldn't have been tweezed out the way that they maybe are today. Right. But it's not a Mass, so it's not something that's like purely religious in which everyone is partaking, but it's also not something that's just like a birthday party. Right. And some. It's like both of those things celebrating an individual personal kind of joining together. And it's also a community celebration as well, and something that would incorporate a Mass. 43:13 Wes: Yeah. And we, you know, we could see this more broadly as a warning about the nature of ritual itself and the nature of social forms and the way in which they can become devoid of deeper meaning or separated from what it is that they're trying to signify. And, you know, the church historically was criticized for this. So Erasmus. Right. Who's not a Protestant, obviously, but was very critical of the Church. This is one of the things that he was on about as a humanist, the sense in which, say, monks just go through the motions. They do what it is they're supposed to do, but it's all very rote. It has no deeper spiritual significance. And in the Chinese tradition, right, this is the sort of things that Confucians were criticized for as well. It all comes to seem very superficial. So I'm just speculating here, but if one is showing up to a wedding to annoy people, one of the underlying motivations could be that, you know, to say, yeah, you're going through. You're going through the motions here, but you are at a spiritual level divorced from the substance of this. And that's my. That's my warning to you. Shall we read the final part? 44:22 Erin: Yeah. 44:22 Wes: What loud uproar bursts from that door, speaking of the wedding. It's about to burst out. Finally. 44:28 Erin: What loud uproar bursts from that door? The wedding guests are there. But in the garden bower the bride and bridesmaid singing are. And hark the little vesper bell which biddeth me to prayer. O wedding guest, the soul hath been alone on a wide, wide sea. So lonely twas that God himself scarce seemed there to be. O, sweeter than the marriage feast. Tis sweeter far to me to walk together to the kirk with a goodly company. To walk together to the kirk and all together pray while each to his great father bends. Old men and babes and loving friends and youths and maidens gay. Farewell, farewell. But this I tell to thee, thou wedding guest. He prayeth well who loveth well, both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small. For the dear God who loveth us he made and loveth all. The mariner whose eye is bright, whose beard with age is hoar, is gone. And now the wedding guest. Turned from the bridegroom's door. He went like one that hath been stunned and is of sense forlorn. A sadder and a wiser man. He rose the morrow morn. 45:36 Wes: So here we do. We do seem to get again a call to being on land, so to speak, to being part of the natural world. We get the wedding feast or the marriage feast compared to something sweeter, which is goodly company and this very nice vision of a community. Loving friends who are assembled outside in a natural environment, Right. They walk together to the kirk. I guess the kirk is the church, Right. So they go to church, Right. So maybe I'm wrong about the Natural environment. Part of this. All right. 46:13 Erin: Yeah. I think you're pointing to something really strange about this, which is like, I think this ends in a really uncomfortable place because we have. What's sweeter is to walk together to the kirk. So there's also the suggestion that they're in transit, but they're never arriving. Much like the idea that he can never be fully divested of this experience, that it never leaves his body. He tells it and it seems to leave, but then it reappears. Right. It's like an illness that can't be cured or something. It's in transit. He's never arrived. We do get this in the following stanza, to walk together to the kirk and altogether pray. But we're never like, quite inside the church. Right. There's a strange thing that happens where we're walking to the church and then we're all praying, but the poem kind of never goes inside the church. And then, in fact, we do get a kind of moral, which is about being part of this community. And I think, like, you know, I like your reading. The idea of not being rote. And this, you know, connection to Erasmus that you're drawing, I think is a really good one. And there's something here about, like, the moral involves being in a community, and that community involving the world both inside and outside the kirk, if you will. Right. Men. And also, like, the natural world is incorporated into this community. 47:31 Wes: Right, Right. 47:31 Erin: But then in the Last Beasts. Right. And then the bridegroom. I'm sorry, the. The wedding guest leaves, though he doesn't go into the wedding. He leaves his. In a way, like the. The mariner has just created another wanderer, which. Which. Which makes me think again that he's like. There's something almost demonic or could be demonic about this, where he's. He's turning this inside out. He's. He's not. He's creating more people like him. He's creating social. This is like people who. Who go online and become, like, more lonely and more outcast as a result of the, you know, the manifestos or whatever that they read online. It's like he's creating these people who are actually discontented and separated from the community in the process of telling the story, which is like a pretty terrifying thing. Right. That's the opposite of what a story, like any story on its face, should be doing, which is like providing a collective narrative, a way to fit into a community better. He's. Instead, it's like he's creating these isolationists. 48:32 Wes: He's creating These isolationists? 48:34 Erin: Yeah. 48:35 Wes: What do you mean? What? 48:36 Erin: He's. He's creating people like him, people who can't go into the wedding feast, people who can't go into the church. He's creating islands rather than adding to the main. 48:46 Wes: You know, I thought he was trying to save them from becoming islands. 48:49 Erin: Well, you think he is. But this wedding guest responds by turning from the bridegroom's door. That's as strong an image of spiritual isolation and potentially even damnation as it is someone who's turning away from community. Right. Because outside the bridegroom's door is where there is wailing and gnashing of teeth. Right. Like this is the people who are sent out into the outer darkness. So, you know, something's broken at the end. 49:16 Wes: Well, my. Yeah, I mean, I just had the more benign reading of which I mentioned before, of trying to save people from both. From trying to be hubristically independent of God or nature, but also from being overtaken by ritual. For instance, the ritual of marriage to the point where it no longer has any substance. And so there's a call here to be kind of returned to nature, to all things great and small. And that return to nature is supposed to serve something spiritual. And I guess the wider anxiety is one we've talked about before, many times, about the division between signifier and signified and the worry about getting lost in the land of signification and out of touch with the real. 50:04 Erin: I suppose what I thought you meant by that was that the return to nature would be a way to refresh the ritual so that ultimately there would be a coming back right to the fold. So there would be a new kind of invigoration of the ritual. This suggests. 50:19 Wes: Right. We can't just get rid of signification and ritual and all the communal rights and all of that stuff altogether. No, we can't. 50:26 Erin: And I suppose where the wedding guest ends up sounds to me like something that is something much more modern or postmodern. Right. Which is like the abandonment of the ritual altogether. There's something being totally cut off here. I don't know. Maybe I'm. Maybe I'm wrong to read it in such a dark way. 50:42 Wes: No, I mean, I think it makes sense to go either way. 50:46 Erin: Right. 50:46 Wes: You have a more pessimistic reading. I have the more optimistic. 50:50 Erin: Well, the invocation, I think of, like, turning from the bridegroom's door. That. That seems to me is like a direct reference to the outer darkness, which is hell, in Jesus's parable of the wedding feast. 51:04 Wes: Right. 51:04 Erin: But I hope. I hope not. I hope there's a more positive reading of the. You know, it's funny because it's like the. At once the most, like, overly positive and cloying and most morally moral that we get in the whole poem. I think like is immediately followed by what I see as something like the utter rejection of that moral. Or like someone who becomes lost. Like, so we finally get some kind of answer which is, you know, like a wink, wink answer, maybe not an answer at all. And the response to that, once we finally get it, is the rejection of that answer. Like, to me, that's. That's how I'm reading this. 51:43 Wes: And so, like, he is sadder and wiser. 51:45 Erin: Simplicity. In the end, he is sadder and wiser. Yeah, but I think, like. And this is something that has to do with, like, the absorbing of the whole tale rather than the thing that it can be boiled down to. So maybe this is like anti. You know, anti moral. I mean, in the sense of anti. Boiling something down to a single stanza versus anti morality. Right. Where it seems to me that what's happened is he's. He's somehow digested the whole story and that's what's affected this transformation in him. He's been changed by the story. And the length of the story has something to do with that. Right. And the fact that it follows the like, sing songy, super cute and simple moral. There's something like, kind of ironic and perverse almost about that. 52:30 Wes: Yeah, interesting. 52:32 Erin: I don't know, but, I mean, I want to be convinced otherwise for obvious reasons, but I don't know. 52:37 Wes: All right. Yeah, we can appeal to listeners. What do you think? Do you have. Yes, more pessimistic reading, more optimistic, or something in between? Let us know. Did you have anything else before we end? 52:49 Erin: No. 52:50 Wes: Okay, that was fun. Thank you. 52:52 Erin: Thank you. And thanks to everyone who listened. For an easy way to do that, go to subtextpodcast.com patreon.com 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.