ULYSSES – Alfred Lord Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Matched with an aged wife, I mete out and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and fed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea, I am becoming 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 honoured 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 wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all to 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 grey 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 labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through 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 toiled, and wrought, and thought with me–
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and 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,
'Tis 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 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.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
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.
Ulysses (Latin) or Odysseus (Greek) was the king of a small island kingdom of Ithaca, a short man of high stature. His wisdom, cunning for strategy and his heroic exploits as a fearless warrior were already legendary by the time he joined the other princes to wage war against Troy on the side of Agamemnon, king of Argos. The war was not for territory but for the honour of Menelaus, brother of Agamemnon and the king of Sparta, whose
wife Helen, was stolen by Paris, the young prince of Troy, and was returned after the fall of Troy. It was Ulysses who gave the Greeks the idea of building the ‘Trojan horse&’ to bring about the defeat of the unconquerable Trojans. The war lasted several years. When it ended, Ulysses headed home, but was lost at sea for ten more years, due to the designs of Poseidon, the Greek God of the seas, whose favour he had fallen out of. He reached home, aged and fatigued, to find it in trouble, due to his absence.It was for Tennyson to creep under the skin of Ulysses where Homer left him, and peep into the brave heart to tell the yet untold story of being cursed to being, forever a seeker.
It was for Tennyson to creep under the skin of Ulysses where Homer left him, and peep into the brave heart to tell the yet untold story of being cursed to being, forever a seeker.
What was it that made Ulysses unique? Although every character in Homer’s magnificentepic does embody a certain human trait – including the Gods of Olympus- that any human being can identify with, yet it was always Odysseus who enchanted me. He embodies a certain mix of traits that some of us are born with and consider it a curse we have to live with, as do those close to us – ‘a hungry heart’, a yearning for new experiences, adventure and certain unconcern for the laid down rules of social or filial commitments; a laissez aller – the capacity to remain unconstrained – so to say. And even more admirable is the will and the wherewithal to try the untried and take the consequences in his stride.
Though he was a king, the boundaries of his kingdom seemed too small to hold him; a warrior who fought many a battle until the great war of Troy, which itself lasted several years, the desire to push the boundaries of valour some more; a man who stood up to Gods and their power over the great forces of nature that they turned against him, yet he displayed the confidence, and good humour, which ultimately brought him victory and he
could be one of the ‘men that strove with Gods.’ He returns home after being lost at sea for years after the Trojan War and quickly brings order to the affairs of his country and his family. His conquests, his exploits, his achievements, his experiences, his long travels, are not what will last him to the day’s end. He has moved on. They are only ‘only an arch wherethrough gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move’. He frets at the constraints of his royal duties and of age and temper ‘made weak by time and fate’, but what is lost in strength, is gained in will and experience. The travel, of course, is both literal and figurative. Therefore, he must ‘sail beyond the sunset, the baths of western stars’, ‘to follow knowledge like a sinking star, beyond the utmost bound of human thought’ and with the most unconquerable spirit, ‘To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield’.
What Ulysses represents, is in one word, Heroic temper. He has nothing to prove to the world. Even in old age, it is to follow his undying dream that he sets forth on the uncharted seas. Perhaps three thousand years ago, he had the opportunity to discover new frontiers, to display his valour in wars, to conquer new territories, to reach new heights. But what of us – many of us – the common men, not to forget women (who particularly, are not permitted to dream, leave alone fructify their desires), who are in an age where there are few, if any, causes to die for, opportunities to display heroism, to conquer fear, to chart new seas and push new frontiers? We, who are constantly harried for time, who rush about our mundane tasks, just to keep our bodies and souls together, who are so focused on driving the immediate, that we do not know where we are driving ourselves to; who cannot find the dream we once cherished and have long since abandoned as fanciful and immature; we who know not the value of a dream; we, who have never tried to break the fetters of conventional thought, prescribed laws of relationships, stereotypes of ‘success; we, who are fearful of leaving our comfortable, familiar ‘shells’ to step out of thought cocoons and think differently; we, who are terrified of realizing our real selves, for it may lead to difficult decisions or unsavoury consequences; we, who like to sit in the uninspiring comfort of our living rooms and keep our minds on the immediate and the urgent, to escape the need for introspection, to evade looking at our naked selves, to delay the natural urge to break bonds and free our minds, our hearts, our dreams; we, who find every excuse in the book – old age, time, resources, health, just about everything – to subvert their own innermost desire; yes, what of us?
In these times of crazily careening down life’s narrow lane, there are those few lazy souls, who pause to ask themselves, “Who are we? Are we really the image we built or the face that others see? What do we want from life – this life that we are living or another life, we are afraid of living? What is our dream – however fantastic it seems to others? Can we make it come true? Are we afraid to break from the familiar to reach for the adventurous?Are we too comfortable in this shell to come out of it into the unforeseen, unknown, uncharted world of our secretly cherished dream? Are we afraid of ‘hurting’ our dear ones or really afraid of ‘hurting’ our image and their expectations from our image?”;Even fewer are those who will arrive at the answers in all their sharp truths and decide to throw the gauntlet to fate and say to themselves,
“Let me take away the many mantles I wear to deceive myself and others. Yes I have a dream. Yes I have the capacity to bring it to fruition. Yes I will, at last, follow my heart.Let me dare to do what I most want to. If I fail, I would have at least given myself the chance to have attempted it at all.”
These are the blessed ones But those who live under the curse of being Ulysses of today, are the ones who do not have a dream to realize, clearly defined frontiers to push, tangible barriers to cross. Their curse is the eternal restlessness to go on to find new dreams; their greatest temptation is unknown to themselves; their heart urges them to plunge into the unknown, to plumb the
But those who live under the curse of being Ulysses of today, are the ones who do not have a dream to realize, clearly defined frontiers to push, tangible barriers to cross. Their curse is the eternal restlessness to go on to find new dreams; their greatest temptation is unknown to themselves; their heart urges them to plunge into the unknown, to plumb the depths of a new world; their mind rejects the familiar and the unfamiliar is yet not known. To think, to act, to move, to travel, to reach – not towards an objective, but towards a constantly moving Siren of the undiscovered, unperceived and the untried. The soul forever pushes one over the precipice, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield’.That precisely, is the curse of being Ulysses.