Iron Maiden: Rime of the Ancient Mariner Meaning

Rime of the Ancient Mariner Lyrics

Hear the rime of the ancient mariner
See his eye as he stops one of three
Mesmerises one of the wedding guests
Stay here and listen to the nightmares of the sea.

And the music plays on, as the bride passes by
Caught by his spell and the...

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   #1 top rated interpretation:
   anonymous

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   Oct 21st 2009 !⃝

   Rime is about a poem made in 1797-1798 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
   the songs lyrics are about the poem and from the poem such as the verse
   Day after day, day after day,
   We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
   As idle as a painted ship
   Upon a painted ocean.
   Water, water, everywhere,
   And all the boards did shrink;
   Water, water, everywhere,
   Nor any drop to drink.
   
   the Poem is about a Mariner and his crew whom were sent to find good fortune they were sent off course by a storm
   the mariner kills the "albatross" which is commonly heard in the song is is interpreted as Christ the albatross helped the crew. He gave them food shelyer and good weather but when killed the sailors were angry which is wat the previous verse was about Here, however, the sailors change their minds again and blame the Mariner for the torment of their thirst. In anger, the crew forces the Mariner to wear the dead albatross about his neck, perhaps to illustrate the burden he must suffer from killing it, or perhaps as a sign of regret (Ah! Well a-day! What evil looks / Had I from old and young! / Instead of the cross, the albatross / About my neck was hung). Eventually, in an eerie passage, the ship encounters a ghostly vessel. On board are Death (a skeleton) and the "Night-mare Life-in-Death" (a deathly-pale woman), who are playing dice for the souls of the crew. With a roll of the dice, Death wins the lives of the crew members and Life-in-Death the life of the Mariner, a prize she considers more valuable. Her name is a clue as to the Mariner's fate; he will endure a fate worse than death as punishment for his killing of the albatross.
   
   
   A statue of the Ancient Mariner, with the albatross around his neck, at Watchet, Somerset. The statue was unveiled in September 2003, as a tribute to Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
   Ah ! well a-day ! what evil looks
   Had I from old and young !
   Instead of the cross, the Albatross
   About my neck was hung.One by one all of the crew members die, but the Mariner lives on, seeing for seven days and nights the curse in the eyes of the crew's corpses, whose last expressions remain upon their faces. Eventually, the Mariner's curse is lifted when he sees sea creatures swimming in the water. Despite his cursing them as "slimy things" earlier in the poem (Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs / upon the slimy sea), he suddenly sees their true beauty and blesses them (a spring of love gush'd from my heart and I bless'd them unaware); suddenly, as he manages to pray, the albatross falls from his neck and his guilt is partially expiated. The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and steer the ship back home, where it sinks in a whirlpool, leaving only the Mariner behind. A hermit on the mainland had seen the approaching ship, and had come to meet it with a pilot and the pilot's boy in a boat. This hermit may have been a priest who took a vow of isolation. When they pull him from the water, they think he is dead, but when he opens his mouth, the pilot has a fit. The hermit prays, and the Mariner picks up the oars to row. The pilot's boy goes crazy and laughs, thinking the Mariner is the devil, and says "The Devil knows how to row." As penance for shooting the albatross, the Mariner is forced to wander the earth and tell his story, and teach a lesson to those he meets:
   
   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 agony returns and his heart burns until he tells his story.

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