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The Ancient Mariner
The Wedding Guest is a man on his way to a wedding celebration – he seems to be a relative of the groom, a young man, perhaps in his twenties, who enjoys a good party – when he is chosen by the Mariner to hear his tale. The Wedding Guest attempts to evade the Mariner, to continue on to the wedding and not hear the Mariner’s story. At one point he calls out in a kind of agony because he hears the instruments playing at the party; at other times he calls out in terror at the events the Mariner is relating. But either way, the Wedding Guest cannot help but listen to the story. By the end of the poem, after he has listened to the Mariner’s story, the Wedding Guest has become “a sadder and wiser man,” with the implication that the Mariner’s story has changed him, made him less interested in revelry and more concerned with the spiritual and natural concerns that the Mariner’s story describes.
The Wedding Guest Quotes in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The The Rime of the Ancient Mariner quotes below are all either spoken by The Wedding Guest or refer to The Wedding Guest. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part I
Quotes
He holds him with his skinny hand,
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
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'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus! –
Why look'st thou so?'-
With my cross-bow I shot the Albatross.
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Part VII
Quotes
I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.
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He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
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The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.
He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
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Get the entire Ancient Mariner LitChart as a printable PDF.
The Wedding Guest Quotes in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
The The Rime of the Ancient Mariner quotes below are all either spoken by The Wedding Guest or refer to The Wedding Guest. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Part I
Quotes
He holds him with his skinny hand,
'There was a ship,' quoth he.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus! –
Why look'st thou so?'-
With my cross-bow I shot the Albatross.
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Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Part VII
Quotes
I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.
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He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.
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The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.
He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
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