Ulysses
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
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 honour'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 forever 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 fulfil This labour, 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 honour 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.
Latent Book Club Analysis
This powerful, eminently quotable poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892) was written in 1833. It features the greek hero Ulysses, made famous by Homer’s The Odyssey.
That the star of Homer’s epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey is Odysseus is fairly common knowledge. However, and somewhat confusingly, ‘Ulysses’ is believed to be the latin variant of ‘Odysseus’, or at least the conflation of two people. For present purposes, it is enough to accept that Ulysses = Odysseus, and thus deal with the major source of confusion in this poem for anyone whose classics are a bit rusty.
Ulysses was the Greek king of the mythical Ithaca, a Greek island. In The Iliad Odysseus romps about giving an account of the Trojan war, with much self aggrandisement. The Odyssey, meanwhile, relates some of his attempts to return home to Ithaca, and see off all the rivals that have attempted to install themselves there… with much self-aggrandisement.
Aspects of Tennyson’s Ulysses
That the hero of The Iliad and The Odyssey has lived a full life is notable from the outset of the poem. Ulysses, who addresses the audience, seems to express his discontentment with his return, and pours scorn on both his people and their way of life:
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.
This perhaps should be unsurprising for a hero who ‘cannot rest from travel’ and in his epic, has caroused across the centre of the Greek world, and evidently enjoyed it, as he attests:
I will drink Life to the lees
This is a visceral image. The lees are the deposits left by yeast at the bottom of the barrel at the end of fermentation; thus the line evokes someone who intends to squeeze the very last drop out of his days. And one can imagine a braggart, a hero of the picaresque, swaggering around Ancient Greece, being a ruffian, and painting himself in a sympathetic light as he does so.
Tennyson’s Ulysses is also reflective, about his own life and the experience he has had on his travels . Indeed, he shows more perspicacity than most, as he acknowledges that these events have closed off others to him:
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 forever when I move.
This almost stoic outlook is reminiscent of the quote attributed to the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river, and he's not the same man”.
In these aspects of this poem we find a clever, multi-layered structure that hints at the personality Tennyson evidently felt lay underneath his conception of Ulysses.
Two Interpretations: The Heroic, and the Cynic
Traditionally, Tennyson’s workhas been interpreted as a paean to resoluteness, and determination, particularly in light of old age, declining health, or increasing infirmity. This ‘Heroic’ interpretation is rendered with the majestic closing, which is worthy of any eulogy:
Old age hath yet his honour 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.
That said, the inherent contradictions in this poem have more recently explored. Viz, Ulysses was never much of a real hero; and after his epic quest is plainly bored with his life of merely being king. His home life seems dissatisfactory, his wife being described only as ‘aged’, and his son, Telemachus, is evidently loved but is alienated:
He works his work, I mine.
On this interpretation Ulysses merely wants to set off again with his crew for one further adventure that seems fatalistic, perhaps unperturbed by the thought of death. In this respect, and in many others, Ulysses echoes Shakespeare’s Lear: We sense he is ready to hand over his kingdom, which may mean being thrown out to wander in the wilderness one last time.
In this respect, and in many others, Ulysses echoes Shakespeare’s Lear: We sense he is ready to hand over his kingdom, which may mean being thrown out to wander in the wilderness one last time.
But perhaps more than Lear, this final wandering seems to be what Ulysses wishes. This argument, certainly detectable in the final stanza, ‘Who cares if I die on this last trip?’ is not, after all, the thoughts of some wise and benign ruler, but rather the death wish of a tyrant who cares little for his people, or for the duties associated with his rule, which he has spent a lifetime trying to avoid.
The ‘cynic interpretation’, let’s call it that, is not without its merit, and is certainly detectable in the text. However, it seems too much to dethrone Ulysses from his heroic status given his cultural dominance. And thus, notwithstanding his faults, the heroic interpretation remains the preferred one.
Structure
We suspect the poem, in its 70 line, blank verse format, is addressing us, the reader. However, its peroration and climactic makes it seem more like a speech. It is difficult to discern the actual audience.
Its structure - an opening lament, a reflection on previous glories, a laudable effort to find the bold and the good in his son, followed by the final desire to set sail again is a brilliant narrative device to power the poem forward, if slightly confusing from the ‘who is the audience’ perspective.
That said, the clever use of the pathos at the end is probably what gives the poem its memorable, stirring and eminently quotable nature, and though the transition to it does seem slightly strange, it is so majestic, it is easy to forgive.
Tennyson as a Poet
Tennyson is simply the master of these longer, narrative, interrogative and rousing poems.
Evidently Tennyson drew much from his life in the composition. His best friend Arthur Henry Hallam’s death (at age 22) evidently affected its composition. Indeed, the much longer Tennyson epic on Arthur Henry Hallam’s death, In Memoriam AHH was originally going to be the subject of this analysis, but we decided it was probably too much, even for The Latent Book Club.
In Memoriam AHH, however, is worthy of a long read, and is also oft-quoted, particularly notably by
who adopted the well known phrase ‘Nature red in tooth and claw’ as an allegory to describe the survival of the gene, in one of his masterworks, The Selfish Gene.Another Stanza of In Memoriam AHH reaches the absolute apotheosis of melancholy, which is relatable to anyone who has ever lost someone:
Dark house, by which once more I stand Here in the long unlovely street, Doors, where my heart was used to beat So quickly, waiting for a hand, A hand that can be clasp'd no more- Behold me, for I cannot sleep, And like a guilty thing I creep At earliest morning to the door. He is not here; but far away The noise of life begins again, And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain On the bald street breaks the blank day.
It is easy to prefer Ulysses’ overall more optimistic tenor, in comparison - but only a savant of language could have capture a feeling this well.
Overall
Tennyson did reach similar heights to Ulysses, which have similarly captured the public imagination, like The Charge of the Light Brigade. But in our view, none are as exquisitely rendered as Ulysses, and make this poem in particular such an abiding classic.