It kept crapping on his poop deck which he had to mop everyday.

Pure bloody-minded malice. He killed it for fun. Serve him right what happened to him, just a pity about the relatively innocent bystanders. But they probably weren't all that innocent.

the answer is found within the ballad. the mariner killed it without a reason,and without thinking. accordingly, alot of people do barish things to nature as they think the same way this mariner do.

1) Why die the albatross cross their road? ;-) 2) "inhospitably" (In an inhospitable / unfriendly manner) Because he was probably no great friend of albatrosses. "[And lo ! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen, and followeth the ship as it returned northward through fog and floating ice.] And a good south wind sprung up behind ; The Albatross did follow, And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hollo ! In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine ; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white Moon-shine.' [The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen.] `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." Source and further information: http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/stc/Coleridge/poems/Rime_Ancient_Mariner.html 3) I think he wanted it the hard way... Further analysis with various interpretations of the poem can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner 4) "The moral suggested at the end of the poem seems too simplistic to account for what is clearly a more complex and confused rendering of the theme of sin and redemption placed upon the Mariner's tale. The poem purports to tell a story about how one man's act of "evil" affects him and the people around him. The story is deeply influenced by religious imagery, yet seems muddled. Why did the Mariner kill the albatross in the first place? What drove him to commit such an act? Was it simply because he didn't "loveth well both man and bird and beast" (612)? Is that what we're supposed to take away from the poem? Too much is missing from this explanation." "The simple moral seems to suggest a reading that maybe the entire poem should be reconsidered in terms of who is telling the tale. Perhaps the events as described didn't actually happen the way we are being told. The Mariner himself may have been in a state of frenzy during much of what happened and maybe the story he tells should be completely reconsidered as a statement of absolute fact. Perhaps it was a dream or a recollection from a state of madness. The fact is that there is indeed too much moral conflict in the poem for the simple moral at the end to account for. The poem is too complex for the stated moral to be taken at face value, and must be considered more deeply in terms of narrative structure and point of view for a deeper understanding of the real moral of the story to take place." Source and further information: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/12924/simple_moral_in_the_rime_of_the_ancient.html?cat=9