To Strive, To Seek, To Find, & Not to Yield

Ulysses -- Alfred Lord Tennyson

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
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. 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,
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.

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,
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.

I mainly wanted to unpack this poem for my blog (even though it's quite long!) because I am currently in Mythology, and we just finished reading the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer. It is interesting to realize that Homer was writing around approximately 700 B.C.E., while Tennyson composed his poem in 1833. It's really cool when writers like Tennyson choose to build onto already existing stories, especially when they change aspects of the originals or decide to focus on different themes than the original writer. The Ulysses of the Odyssey travels for about ten years before he is able to return home; in that time, he has faced and conquered many obstacles and monsters that normal men could never survive. Ulysses in Tennyson's poem, however, has reached home and finally regained peace and quiet.

The most important themes I found in the poem were about escaping the tedium of everyday life through adventure, and how old age should not be a factor in stopping anyone from leading an exciting life. Ulysses is old in years, but he is not old in spirit; that is shown throughout many lines of the poem: "I cannot rest from travel" (6), "...always roaming with a hungry heart" (12), "Tis not too late to seek a newer world" (57). There are innumerable examples of how Ulysses wants to leave the monotony of his life at home and continue exploring the world. I thought this was a cool theme that still applies a lot to people today, since so many of us get complacent the older we get. Hungering for life the way Ulysses does is preferable to, say, the life of the Lotus-Eaters in Tennyson's other poem concerning Greek mythology. His crew is introduced to a delicious flower that causes a drowsy contentment, and they want to stay on that island forever and forget about living their real lives. That poem is in stark contrast to this one; Ulysses wants nothing more than to have more exciting experiences around the world, even if that causes his death. He states, "For my purpose holds/To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths/Of all the western stars, until I die" (59-61). His experiences in the real world have changed his life, and now he is too restless to stay somewhere in peace.

The most interesting part  about this poem for me was that Tennyson's techniques tie in nicely with what we have been discussing in my Theory and Criticism class. The story of Ulysses is not an original one to Tennyson; he obviously "poached" the ideas for this poem straight from the words Homer had already written centuries before. However, we've been talking a lot in Theory about how artists have always borrowed ideas from other artists, and how that act of stealing ideas is "good" plaigarism if the author adds to or complicates the previous author's ideas. I think that is exactly what Tennyson is doing here with Homer's story of Ulysses. Homer was a mastermind and genius who was able to create a character like Ulysses that went through many adventures and then longed for rest. Tennyson's Ulysses has acheived the rest that Homer's so desperately wanted, but now is bored with his life. His message through this poem is to remind readers (and maybe even himself) that an exciting life is worth living, old age is not the end of a great life, and that it is better to press on and continue living rather than becoming complacent and in a trance like the lotus-eaters. There are powerful messages throughout the poem, and it's interesting to see how Tennyson is able to build upon another great writer's ideas, and, in turn, make them his own.