Water, water, every where / Nor any drop to drink. We all know these lines. And we are all familiar with the image of an “albatross around the neck” as a symbol of a heavy burden of guilt. What many don’t know (or have forgotten) is that these and others are from Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, a long poem cast in the form of a narrative of a long sea voyage told by an old mariner to a wedding guest. It is classic horror story. The ship starts off well but is soon driven by storms to the Antarctic, where an albatross leads them out of an ice jam, but is then shot by the mariner. Initially cursed by the crew for his sin against nature, he is praised when the ship sails out of the mist and chill to rosier climes, and cursed again when the ship is becalmed at the equator. They meet a supernatural creature when they encounter a ghostly ship who gambles for the souls of the crew. They all gradually succumb and then rise from the dead to steer the ship back home, only to sink in a whirlpool on arriving, with all lost except the mariner. Coleridge narrates the events in the story in different styles to convey the different moods of the listener’s reaction to each section, ranging through bemusement, impatience, fear, and fascination. The poem first appeared in “Lyrical Ballads” in 1798 and was inspired by several accounts of voyages of exploration, most notably James Cook’s account of his second voyage of the South Sea Islands and the Pacific Ocean.

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