Said Ulysses in Canto XXVI of Dante's Inferno:
neither love for his son nor Penelope "...vincer potero dentro a me
l'ardore / ch'i' ebbi a divenir del mondo esperto / e de li vizi umani e del
valore; / ma misi me per l'alto mare aperto / sol con un legno e con..."
(could overcome my ardor to renew / experience of that vast world beyond, / of
human vices, and of virtues too; / therefore the open sea I sailed upon, / with
one sole boat...). What is this Ulysses but a mighty king of the ancient
world's vision of Westernesse, for the Romans a vision distant as Númenórë from Gondor? Perhaps the reason I experienced déjà vu when reading "Ulysses" was that I had read this all before in the works of Tolkien on the Elder days;
or perhaps it is a tribute to the power of Tennyson's work that it seems
already present within me prior to reading.
ULYSSES
It little profits that an
idle king,
By this still hearth,
among these barren crags,
Matched with an agèd
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 enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered
greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone;
on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts
the rainy Hyades
Vexed 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
honored of them all;
And drunk delight of
battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains
of windy Troy.
I am part of all that I
have met;
Yet all experience is an
arch wherethrough
Gleams that untraveled
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 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
scepter and the isle—
Well-loved of me,
discerning to fulfil
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,
centered 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 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,
'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 the western stars,
until I die.
It may be that the gulfs
will wash us down:
It may be that 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.
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson
