The ancient mariner (on the right) stops one of the three wedding guests to tell him his mysterious story.
The ancient mariner has a glittering eye which scares the wedding guest.
The mariner then retells the story of the mysterious voyage.
The albatross is the crucial symbol of the story. After being shot by the `mariner, the crew believes that it will bring bad luck to their ship. Shortly afterwards, the weather changes and strange things start to happen.
The mariner is forced to bear the dead bird around his neck as a symbol of his guilt.
Suddenly, a mysterious ship appears with Death and Life-in-Death on board. They play dice and since Death wins the crew, they die.
This game suggests that human beings are just like puppets in the hands of some powerful external force and they do not control their own fates.
After seeing the watersnakes in the dead see, the mariner blesses them…
and the curse falls off.
After hearing the story, the wedding guest leaves as a sadder but wiser man and the mariner’s eye glitters no more.
