16 March 2026
(5 September 2014) Last week, we saw the crew hang the dead albatross around the Mariner’s neck as a penance for his ‘hellish deed,’ the ship stranded without wind somewhere in the south Pacific. The Mariner, looking west, sees a ship, apparently tacking against the wind (although remember, the Mariner’s ship is trapped windless, so this should be a clue to the nature of the approaching ship!). Since all are dying of thirst, none can really say anything, but the Mariner bites his own arm, drawing and drinking his own blood so that he can speak, but there is something odd about the ship approaching, beyond the fact that it moves without the wind:
See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a 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 shape 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 gossameres?
Are those her ribs through which the sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that woman’s mate?
This strange ship passes between the Mariner’s ship and the setting sun (an ominous symbol for the Romantics) and its masts and rigging look like the bars of a dungeon: who is inside? Who is outside? And who are the prisoners? Worse still, the ship has only two members: Death and a woman, who is later named ‘Death in Life’ for reasons which will become clear on Wednesday! Good reading.
Clyde B. Northrup 
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