Menu Close

PAG2-savage-mariner-jpg

This illustration depicts the opening scene from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” in which the mariner stops a group of men, including a groom, on their way to a wedding ceremony, in order to tell his story of the albatross. The central figures of the image are the three men. The one in the centre is being held up by the two men who flank him. The two men holding him up are wearing early modern robes, stockings, and coats with large hats. They each also carry what looks like peacock feathers in their right hands. The man in the centre wears a garland of flowers on his head with his left arm draped over the man to his left, and another on the same man’s chest. His has a long dark robe over his right shoulder that drapes down to the ground. They are all in three-quarter profile facing down towards the mariner, who is in the lower right corner of the image. They gaze down to the lower right corner where the mariner has accosted them as they walk. The mariner is bare-chested with a long wild beard with a hat, a cape, and a pair of short trousers. He is bare foot and crouched down in a squatted position. Only his left leg is visible, and he wears a sandal on that foot. His left hand holds the free hand of the man closest to him with his hand up on his chest, just as the man at the centre does. The mariner looks up at the men, but his face is obscured by his broad-brimmed hat. The setting is a port city, with a dockyard and parts of a couple of ships and their sails visible in the upper right corner of the image. The men walk on cobblestone and to their right of the image, a crowd of people are gathered. The two in the front are a couple kissing, with another man crouched down in front of them at their feet holding a bird in his hand. He wears a hat, and someone’s hand is pushing down on his head as if for balance. A crowd of people are behind them, and two hold up two more willow branches, beyond which, only the tops of heads are visible from the shadows where they stand under an arched doorway.