Literature abounds in spectral ships; but there is only one Vanderdecken. And how consistently the old Dutchman fits in with the roughness and wildness of typical sea-fancies, one quickly sees when he is matched in his unearthly integrity with the refined but entirely faithless interpretations or reconstructions of the legend by the poet or the romancer. Take, for instance, Thomas Campbell’s “Spectre Boat,” where a certain “false Ferdinand,” having broken a maiden’s heart, is visited by her ghost at sea.
“’Twas now the dead watch of the night, the helm was lashed a lee, And the ship rode where Mount Etna lights the deep Levantine sea; When beneath its glare a boat came, row’d by a woman in her shroud, Who, with eyes that made our blood run cold, stood up and spoke aloud.”
What the wraith said was to this effect: That Ferdinand was a false traitor, for whom his sweetheart’s ghost wanders unforgiven, and that he was to come down—in other words jump overboard—to appease her indignation for his having forced her to break her peace with heaven. As in the case of Coleridge’s Mariner, the spectre has her will; and the last we hear of her and Ferdinand and the boat is—
“And round they went, and down they went, as the cock crew from the land.”
How poor is all this superfine business of broken vows and revengeful spectres, side by side with the rugged, schnapps’-smelling figure of old Vanderdecken viewing the horny moon with a curse in his eye, or stumping the weather side of his castellated poop with a speaking-trumpet under his arm! Campbell has also put into swinging, melodious verse an old Scandinavian legend, which he calls the “Death-boat of Heligoland.” In this poem he represents a boat furiously rowed by ghosts, whose shrouds were like plaids flying loose to the storm. The watchman sings out to know who they are; and is answered—
“‘We are dead; we are bound from our graves in the West, First to Hecla and then to’——unmeet was the rest For man’s ear,”
All this is not Vanderdecken, but the poet finely refers to the old Dutchman when he sings of those curses which make horror more deep by the semblance of mirth, and which at “mid-sea appal the chill’d mariner’s glance.” Coleridge also sends a spectral ship to his Ancient Mariner in the vessel that approaches him without a breeze or without a tide, and whose sails glance in the sun, “like restless gossamers.” But, instead of Vanderdecken, we have Death playing at dice with a woman. How heartily the Ancient Mariner must have prayed that the woman would win! Certainly he could be no true sailor who would not so pray.