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Ulysses

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Saved by Jieun Jun
on September 4, 2008 at 1:40:26 pm
 

Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

 

Ulysses (1833)

 

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,

Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole[1]

[2]Unequal laws unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

 

I cannot rest from travel[3]; I will drink

Life to the lees[4]. All times I have enjoy'd

Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when

Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades

Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;

For always roaming with a hungry heart

Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men

And manners, climates, councils, governments,

Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--

And drunk delight of battle with my peers,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and for ever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life

Were all too little, and of one to me

Little remains; but every hour is saved

From that eternal silence, something more,

A bringer of new things; and vile it were

For some three suns to store and hoard myself,

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,[5]

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

 

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--

Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill

This labor, by slow prudence to make mild

A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees

Subdue them to the useful and the good.

Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere

Of common duties, decent not to fail

In offices of tenderness, and pay

Meet adoration to my household gods,

When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.[6]

 

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;

There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;

Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.

Death closes all; but something ere the end,

Some work of noble note, may yet be done,

Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;

The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.

'T is not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths

Of all the western stars, until I die.

It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;

It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,[7]

And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.

Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'

We are not now that strength which in old days

Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--

One equal temper of heroic hearts,

Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will

To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Footnotes

  1. Instead of using terms such as "command" or "mandate," the author has chosen to use the words "mete" and "dole." These terms display Ulysses' indifference to his routine duties as king. Doling out "unequal laws" underwhelms Ulysses, as he is looking for a more lively and meaningful kingship.
  2. Odysseus does not appear to be a benevolent and nurturing king in this poem when he describes his people as savages. His condescending tone equates his own people with hoarding, sleeping, and gorging themselves. Their simple daily life does not appeal to Odysseus, who rather enjoys the "drunk delight of battle." This idea is interesting because for most people, the prospect of enduring the horrors of war and battle are often traumatizing and scarring.
  3. From early in the poem, one can identify the speaker to be a king -Ulysses. By the beginning of the second stanza, the speaker establishes his need to travel. In this monologue the speaker reveals details of how his experiences/travels have shaped his life and develops his persona.
  4. This is the first phrase in the poem that directly expresses Ulysses' future desire to explore the "untravelle'd world" of the broad seas. It is also a transitory sentence that links his present listless life to past glorious, adventurous days. It is almost as if Ulysses sees "lees" as his only source of escape from lifeless life, as the word can mean a protective shelter, that will ultimately give him the "Life" that he seeks.
  5. The enjambment used in the poem allows for specific phrases to stand out in the poem. Although these phrases are part of a longer sentence, by dividing up the lines, Tennyson was able to make these phrases more important in the poem. Some of these specific lines aid in the readers knowledge of why Ulysses' wants to travel and explore. This lines is just one example.
  6. This stanza shows the contrast of work and play Ulysses faces in the historical period. The previous stanza shows his love for traveling, and builds up to restlessness towards governing his kingdom. He is definitely happy to pass the thrown to his son, and knows that he is capable, yet almost does not care. “He works his work, I mine” provides an abrupt conclusion to his conflicting ideas. All the lines seem to have no rhythm, which adds to the contrasting, yet dynamic moods expressed by Ulysses with a stream of consciousness.
  7. The comments that Ulysses makes about wanting to sail "beyond the gulfs" or possibly "touch the Happy Isles" is very symbolic of Ulysses desires. Not only do these two places places represent the far ends/boundaries of the earth, but they are also both places that have affiliation with the afterlife. Thus, this shows not just the fact that Ulysses wants to sail for the sake of "the thrill" of such a distant, mysterious adventure but in addition reveals his intention to die doing so as his last act before death.

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