The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to row. The pilot's boy goes crazy and laughs, thinking the mariner is the devil, and cries, "The Devil knows how to row". As penance for shooting the albatross, the mariner, driven by guilt, is forced to wander the earth, telling his story over and over, and teaching a lesson to those he meets: After relaying the story, the mariner leaves, and the wedding guest returns home, and wakes the next morning "a sadder and a wiser man". The poem received mixed reviews from critics, and Coleridge was once told by the publisher that most of the book's sales were
The Pardoner's Tale roam the Earth until the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. One may compare this notion to the symbol and character of the Old Man in "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. "The Pardoner's Tale" finds itself widely debated among those in the literary world. The question of Chaucer's motivation in writing the tale, as well as potential social comments made within it, have been the subject of controversy concerning "The Canterbury Tales". Gregory W. Gross, as dictated in Modern Language Studies, concludes that The Pardoner finds himself publicly shamed by the Host's reprimand at the end