The Full Text of “Ulysses”
1It little profits that an idle king,
2By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
3Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
4Unequal laws unto a savage race,
5That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
6I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
7Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
8Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
9That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
10Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
11Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
12For always roaming with a hungry heart
13Much have I seen and known; cities of men
14And manners, climates, councils, governments,
15Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
16And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
17Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
18I am a part of all that I have met;
19Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
20Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
21For ever and forever when I move.
22How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
23To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
24As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
25Were all too little, and of one to me
26Little remains: but every hour is saved
27From that eternal silence, something more,
28A bringer of new things; and vile it were
29For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
30And this gray spirit yearning in desire
31To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
32Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
33 This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
34To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
35Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
36This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
37A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
38Subdue them to the useful and the good.
39Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
40Of common duties, decent not to fail
41In offices of tenderness, and pay
42Meet adoration to my household gods,
43When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
44 There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
45There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
46Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
47That ever with a frolic welcome took
48The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
49Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
50Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
51Death closes all: but something ere the end,
52Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
53Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
54The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
55The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
56Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
57'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
58Push off, and sitting well in order smite
59The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
60To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
61Of all the western stars, until I die.
62It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
63It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
64And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
65Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
66We are not now that strength which in old days
67Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
68One equal temper of heroic hearts,
69Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
70To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
The Full Text of “Ulysses”
1It little profits that an idle king,
2By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
3Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
4Unequal laws unto a savage race,
5That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
6I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
7Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
8Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
9That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
10Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
11Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
12For always roaming with a hungry heart
13Much have I seen and known; cities of men
14And manners, climates, councils, governments,
15Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
16And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
17Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
18I am a part of all that I have met;
19Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
20Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
21For ever and forever when I move.
22How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
23To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
24As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
25Were all too little, and of one to me
26Little remains: but every hour is saved
27From that eternal silence, something more,
28A bringer of new things; and vile it were
29For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
30And this gray spirit yearning in desire
31To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
32Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
33 This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
34To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
35Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
36This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
37A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
38Subdue them to the useful and the good.
39Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
40Of common duties, decent not to fail
41In offices of tenderness, and pay
42Meet adoration to my household gods,
43When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
44 There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
45There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
46Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
47That ever with a frolic welcome took
48The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
49Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
50Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
51Death closes all: but something ere the end,
52Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
53Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
54The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
55The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
56Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
57'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
58Push off, and sitting well in order smite
59The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
60To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
61Of all the western stars, until I die.
62It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
63It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
64And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
65Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
66We are not now that strength which in old days
67Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
68One equal temper of heroic hearts,
69Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
70To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
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“Ulysses” Introduction
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"Ulysses" was written in 1833 by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the future Poet Laureate of Great Britain. The poem takes the form of a dramatic monologue spoken by Ulysses, a character who also appears in Homer's Greek epic The Odyssey and Dante's Italian epic the Inferno (Ulysses is the Latinized name of Odysseus). In The Odyssey, Ulysses/Odysseus struggles to return home, but in Tennyson's "Ulysses," an aged Ulysses is frustrated with domestic life and yearns to set sail again and continue exploring the world. Dante seems to condemn Ulysses's recklessness as an explorer, but in Tennyson's poem, there is nobility and heroism in Ulysses' boundless curiosity and undaunted spirit.
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“Ulysses” Summary
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Ulysses expresses frustration at how dull and pointless his life now seems as king of Ithaca, trapped at home on the rocky island of Ithaca. His wife is old, and he must spend his time enforcing imperfect laws as he attempts to govern people he considers stupid and uncivilized. In Ulysses's eyes, all his people do is try to store up wealth, sleep, and eat. They have no conception of who Ulysses really is or what his life has been like. Ulysses still yearns to travel the world like he used to do. As long as he's alive, he doesn't want to stop doing the things that, in his eyes, make life worth living. He found joy, he claims, in every moment he spent traveling, even at the times when he was suffering. He found joy both when he was with his faithful crew members and when he was by himself; both when he was on land and when he was sailing the sea through rainstorms. He has become famous throughout the world as an explorer who was continually traveling and yearning to know more. Ulysses reflects that he has seen and learned a great deal about all the places where people live, about their lifestyles, cultures, and ways of governing themselves. Everywhere he went, he was shown honor and respect. Ulysses also found joy fighting alongside his fellow soldiers, men he honored and respected, when he fought in battles far from home in the Trojan War. Ulysses feels that each person and place he has encountered has been changed by the encounter, as has he himself. But all these experiences have not satisfied his desire for travel; rather, each encounter has only whetted his appetite to see more of the world. No matter how much of the world he sees, there is always still more to see, and it is these unseen regions that he always tries to pursue. Ulysses exclaims that it is boring and unsatisfying to stay in one place and stop doing the activities that defined your life, comparing himself to a sword that has been allowed to rust uselessly away rather than being used gloriously in battle. Merely being alive doesn't mean you are truly living. Ulysses feels that multiple lifetimes would still have been too little time to do all he wishes to do, and he is almost at the end of the one lifetime he has. Still, every hour that he has left to live before he dies has the potential to bring new opportunities for action. It would be disgraceful, he feels, to sit tight at home and just try to eat and stay alive for a few more years, when, even as an old man, his greatest desire is still to explore the world and keep learning more. He wants to go beyond the limits of what humans have seen and known, the way a shooting star seems to go beyond the horizon when it falls and disappears from sight.
Ulysses then starts to describe his son, Telemachus, who will inherit Ulysses's role as ruler of the island when Ulysses dies. Ulysses affirms that he loves his son, who is conscientious and thoughtful about how he will best carry out his responsibilities as ruler. With patience and judgement, Telemachus will work to civilize the fierce, wild people of Ithaca and make them more gentle, and gradually teach them to devote their lives to productive civic activities. Ulysses cannot find any faults in Telemachus; he devotes his life to the responsibilities of his role, he pays proper respect to his people and his parents, and after his father dies, he will continue offering appropriate sacrifices to the gods that Ulysses most honored. Telemachus is well suited for the role of ruler—just as Ulysses is well suited for a different role, the role of explorer.
Ulysses looks out towards the port, where the wind is blowing in the sails of his ship and where he can see the wide, dark sea. He now addresses his former crew, the men who worked alongside him and explored the world and gained new knowledge with him. He reminds them that they always accepted joyfully whatever their travels would bring, whether trouble or good luck, and proudly faced every obstacle with resolution and bravery. Ulysses then acknowledges that both he and they have grown older, but insists that even as old men, they can still work do hard work and earn respect. Soon they will die and their chance to do great deeds will be over; but before they die, they can still accomplish something heroic, something fitting for men that once battled the gods. The people of Ithaca are beginning to light lamps in their homes; night is falling; the moon is rising in the sky; the waves of the sea are murmuring almost as if they are speaking to Ulysses. Ulysses urges his crew, as his friends, to join him on one last voyage—even now, they're not too old to explore some unknown region of the world. He invites them to board a ship, push away from shore, and man the oars so they can beat the waves; because Ulysses still has the goal of sailing past the horizon, as far as he can go, before he ultimately dies. He acknowledges that the waves may sink their ship; but they may also find their way to the place where the souls of the blessed go after death. There, they might even see their old companion, the accomplished warrior Achilles. Many of their heroic qualities have been diminished by old age, but they haven't been lost completely. They don't have the same strength or physical prowess they possessed as younger men fighting epic, world-changing battles; but inside, Ulysses declares, they are ultimately the same men they always were. Their minds and hearts are still brave and composed in the face of danger and obstacles. Their bodies have been weakened by old age, something all human beings are destined to face, but their spirits are as strong as ever. They remain determined to work hard, to pursue their goals and accomplish them, and to never give up.
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“Ulysses” Themes
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Mortality and Aging
From the poem’s beginning, Ulysses unhappily confronts his old age and impending death. He responds not by settling down to rest, but by striving to relive his adventurous younger days. While he admits by the poem's end that age has weakened him, he resolves to use whatever is left of his youthful heroism as he sets out on one last journey. For Ulysses, the honorable response to time and mortality is not to calmly accept old age and death, but rather to resist them—to wring every last drop of knowledge and adventure out of life, even if doing so may result in dying sooner.
Ulysses begins by reflecting discontentedly on the fact that he is now an old man, stuck ruling at home rather than traveling the world. Ulysses finds no joy in being king. It “little profits” him. Rather than finding meaning in serving his people, he merely feels “idle.” He is also less than happy, it seems, to be growing old. He speaks of his wife dismissively as “aged,” and if he dislikes her growing older, he probably dislikes growing older himself. Finally, he is discontented because he “cannot rest from travel.” Rather than embracing his duties as king—essentially, putting away his youthful ambitions—he wishes he was still exploring the world as he did when he was a young man. For Ulysses, settling down isn’t restful and restorative but rather stifling, an unwelcome reminder of his impending mortality.
Common wisdom would suggest that the aging Ulysses take it easy in order to prolong his life, but this isn’t what he wants. Ulysses declares that it is disgraceful to “store and hoard” himself, sitting safely in one place just to extend his life “[f]or some three suns.” Such a dull life isn’t worth living. Thus although Ulysses’s spirit is “gray,” or aged, he still wishes to travel and “follow knowledge” as much as ever.
At the poem’s end, Ulysses calls on his former crewmates to join him on a final, dangerous voyage to see the “untravell’d world.” He admits that they are older and weaker but insists that the only noble response to time and mortality is to defy them both. If he must die, he will die with as much of his youthful heroism as he can. Ulysses acknowledges, “you and I are old,” but insists that age does not mean the end of heroism: “Old age hath yet his honor.” Honor doesn’t come from accepting a new way of life in old age, he argues; it comes from doing all you can to recapture your youth. These men “strove with Gods” when they were young, and Ulysses now wants to find “[s]ome work of noble note” that is similarly heroic.
Likewise, although he acknowledges that “much is taken” from their abilities, Ulysses emphasizes more that “much abides.” He and his crew members have lost some of their strength, but their character is still the same: “that which we are, we are.” And that character is defined by their determination to “strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” Ulysses is determined to remain the heroic figure that he was as a young man, even if, on this voyage, the gulfs may “wash them down.” Still, Ulysses implies, it is better to die trying to reclaim one’s youthful bravery, than to accept old age and live an idle, sheltered life. He refuses to yield, not just to enemies on the battlefield, but to time and age itself.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Adventure and Knowledge
In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus/Ulysses struggles for years to return to Ithaca. In Tennyson’s poem, however, Ulysses has discovered that home is not enough to make him happy. Paradoxically, his years spent traveling to return home did not make him love that home; it made him love travel and adventure. Ulysses urges his crewmates to join him a last, great voyage so he can reclaim what he considers his true identity: an explorer who is continually striving for more, especially to learn more. In this way, Ulysses recognizes that the quest for knowledge is never complete. In spite of this—or perhaps because of this—it is the quest for new experiences and new knowledge that, for Ulysses, defines a meaningful life.
When the poem begins, Ulysses is agitated and discontent in Ithaca. He is restless for adventure. Ulysses feels “idle,” even though he rules as king, because this role keeps him trapped by a “still hearth.” He feels he “cannot rest from travel” and is also frustrated that his people do not “know” him. This frustration suggests that, in Ulysses’s mind, his true identity is an explorer rather than king of Ithaca. Indeed, when he says he has become famous—“I am become a name”—for “roaming,” he suggests that his entire sense of self does not come from his life on Ithaca but rather from his travels. Merely being alive—simply “breath[ing]”—is not enough to make his life meaningful, if he has “pause[d]” and “ma[de] an end” in one place.
For Ulysses, the yearning for adventure and exploration can never really be sated, because there are seemingly endless things to discover; he realizes that his knowledge of the world—all human knowledge, really—touches on just a small piece of all that there is to know. His years spent trying return home only increased his appetite to travel more, because each experience he has had reminded him that there are still “untravell’d world[s]” to explore. And in particular, Ulysses hopes to learn more from his explorations. His desire is to “follow knowledge like a sinking star / Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.” The point of going where no one else has gone is to understand things no one else has understood.
Ulysses urges his crewmates to join him in one final voyage to unknown lands, reclaiming their identity as explorers who never stop searching. His quest for knowledge can never be completed, but that, he argues, is part of what makes it worth pursuing. Ulysses wants to do some “work of noble note,” and, for him, that means finding some “newer world.” This newer world may even include “the Happy Isles,” where the souls of the blessed dead reside. Here he could truly gain knowledge beyond what (living) humans know. Ulysses intends to keep searching for newer worlds “until [he] die[s].” The fact that Ulysses will never complete his quest for knowledge also means he will never again pause and “make an end.” He will always be on a journey, and that, for him, is what defines a meaningful life.
At the poem’s end, Ulysses articulates what he sees as his true identity: a man determined always “To strive, to seek, to find.” Only when you have a goal that can never be fully accomplished can you spend the rest of your life striving for it. Seeking new worlds and new knowledge is that kind of goal, one that allows Ulysses to be the kind of man he wishes to be.
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Caution vs. Recklessness
Ulysses describes his son, Telemachus, as a cautious and conservative man. Ulysses seems to scorn his son for lacking the daring, curiosity, and imagination that Ulysses has himself. However, Telemachus’s prudence might seem more admirable when contrasted with Ulysses’s irresponsibility and recklessness. Although a king, Ulysses shows little respect for his people and is willing to abandon his responsibilities as ruler to go on a voyage with his former crewmates. And even for those beloved crewmates, Ulysses does not express much concern; he admits that the journey might kill them. But because he would rather die adventuring abroad than quietly at home, he is willing to put them all at risk. Thus even while the poem portrays Ulysses as a heroic figure, it also reminds the reader of the recklessness and selfishness that can go along with his brand of heroism.
At the start of the poem, Ulysses shows little respect for the people of Ithaca. He describes them in terms that would describe a herd of grazing animals: they are “savage[s]” who do nothing but “hoard, and sleep, and feed.” Ulysses does not see it as important or ennobling to serve as their king—it “little profits” him. Similarly, when Ulysses introduces his son, Telemachus, he shows little respect for Telemachus’s character. Telemachus takes his duties to the people seriously; he is determined to “fulfill this labour” of ruling, however long and “slow” the process might be. In this, he shows “prudence” and reliability in “common duties,” rather than imagination and boldness. Yet Ulysses does not respect Telemachus very highly for his prudent devotion to duty. His terms of praise are faint: Telemachus is “blameless” rather than praiseworthy; rather than succeed, he will “not … fail.” Ulysses does not see Telemachus as carrying on his own legacy but as taking a different path: “He works his work, I mine.”
Ulysses shows more daring and imagination than Telemachus, but these qualities also lead Ulysses to act recklessly and irresponsibly as a ruler. Ulysses relates how he has traveled the world “hungry” to see and know things and found “delight” in battle. He still wishes to explore the “untravell’d world” where no one else has gone. When Ulysses asks his former crewmates to join him on another voyage, though, he shows that he is willing to abandon his responsibilities as ruler of Ithaca to fulfill his own personal goals.
Ulysses is also reckless and irresponsible towards his crewmates. He is willing to expose them to the risks of danger and death—risks that became real in Tennyson’s source texts, Homer's The Odyssey and Dante's Inferno. In the poem, Ulysses tells his crewmates that “the gulfs [may] wash us down,” meaning it’s possible that this journey may kill them all. The risk of death seems all the greater if readers know other stories of Ulysses. In The Odyssey, several of Odysseus’s crewmates do indeed die because of Odysseus’s ambition and pride. In the Inferno, Ulysses also urges his crewmates to join him on a voyage into unknown seas, and the sea does swallow the ship and drown them all. These source texts suggest to the reader that in this poem, too, Ulysses’s dreams of travel and glory could cause the deaths of his men. He is not just brave and daring, then: he can also be selfish and reckless with others’ lives.
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Heroism and Overcoming Limitations
Ulysses shows frustration with the limitations imposed on him by his role as a ruler and by old age. He misses the glory days of his youth when he fought heroically in battles and traveled the world. He urges his former crewmates to set out on a voyage with him to overcome the limitations imposed by time and age and reclaim some of their youthful heroism. But throughout the poem, it becomes clear that their heroism actually emerges from these limitations. What makes Ulysses and his men admirable is the fact that they are older and weaker than they used to be and yet are still willing to undertake tasks as difficult and dangerous as the ones they faced in their prime. It is because they see their own limitations and persist in spite of them that they emerge as heroic figures at the poem’s end.
Ulysses is impatient with the constraints of life on Ithaca. Ulysses finds no joy in living among people who do nothing but “hoard, and sleep, and feed.” Being king of such a people offers no mental stimulation—certainly no opportunity for heroic deeds. Worse, his role as king keeps him in one place so that he almost falls into the same trap as his people, tempted to do nothing but “store and hoard [himself].” Ulysses then reflects on his younger days and how he “enjoy’d / Greatly” his early days spent traveling and found “delight” in the heroic deeds of battle. If he can escape Ithaca and go on one more voyage, it will be like reliving the glorious heroism of his youth.
As such, Ulysses invites his former crewmates to go on a last voyage with him. He acknowledges that they are older and weaker, but believes that they can still accomplish heroic tasks. In fact, their courage and bravery are due, at least in part, to being are older and weaker, as they continue to strive in spite of these limitations. Even as he wishes they could return to their younger, heroic days, Ulysses acknowledges they cannot: “you and I are old,” he admits, and are “made weak by time and fate.” But these very limitations make possible a new kind of heroism. They do not have that strength that they had in “old days” but they have another kind of strength: the weakness of their bodies reveals that they are “strong in will,” because they refuse to let their limitations stop them. In spite of age and weakness, they will continue “To strive, to seek, to find.” It is when you have limits that might tempt you to yield and give up the fight that it becomes most heroic, as Ulysses says, “not to yield.”
- See where this theme is active in the poem.
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Ulysses”
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Lines 1-5
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.The poem's opening lines vividly introduce the speaker—Ulysses, the king of Ithaca—and establish that he isn't too happy with his situation. These lines also make it clear that the poem is a dramatic monologue, a speech uttered by a particular character in a particular context, similar to a monologue delivered by a character in a play. Ulysses's name isn't actually mentioned in the poem. Instead, the poem's title indicates who the poem is about: Ulysses, the protagonist (with his Greek name of Odysseus) of Homer's ancient Greek epic The Odyssey. The Odyssey is one of the most well known works of world literature, and so Tennyson would have expected his readers to be familiar with Ulysses/Odysseus and his story.
In Homer's tale, Odysseus spends 10 years fighting in the Trojan War and 10 years in adventures at sea struggling to return to his island home of Ithaca, and to his wife, Penelope, and his son, Telemachus. Odysseus's driving motivation throughout The Odyssey is to get home, so readers might be surprised by the opening lines of Tennyson's poem—which describe how unhappy Ulysses is with life on Ithaca. Ithaca is not a beloved homeland, it is merely "barren crags"; Penelope is not the woman he fought for years to return to, she is simply "an aged wife." The strong contrast Tennyson draws between the reader's prior idea of Ulysses and this new image presented in the poem is one of his strategies for engaging the reader's curiosity and interest: if Ulysses spent years traveling the world attempting to reach home, why has his home left him so unhappy?
The opening lines start to present an answer to that question. Ulysses seems to be unhappy with the idea of growing old. He does not directly call himself old—almost as if he cannot stand to admit it—but he calls his wife "aged," and if he is "Match'd" with her, then he must be aged as well. He also complains that he is "idle" and that he is stuck by a "still" hearth. He is frustrated because he does not feel he is doing satisfying work and because he is trapped in one place.
This dissatisfaction comes partly because Ulysses feels little connection to the people he rules. He describes them in terms that are often applied to animals or beasts. They are "savages" who do nothing but sleep and eat and "hoard" goods, like animals storing up food for hibernation. Worst of all, they "know not" Ulysses. That is, they do not understand the kind of man he is. He has traveled the world, while they have only ever seen the "barren crags" of Ithaca. He is also dissatisfied because, while his people are content to live and die on this island, Ulysses cannot stand being "still."
The diction of the opening lines creates an audible sense of Ulysses's frustration. There are many harsh and cacophonous consonants that could be voiced almost as one were spitting them out—the /t/ sound in "little profits," "Match'd," "mete," and "not," the /p/ in "profits" and "sleep," the /k/ in "king," and, to a certain extent," the /d/ sound at the end of "hoard" and "feed."
These opening lines suggest that, deep down, Ulysses does not feel his true identity consists in being king of Ithaca. Ulysses does not say "sit idly by this still hearth"; he says "an idle king, / By this still hearth," almost as if the king were a person other than himself. He distances himself from the role. But when he speaks of how little his people understand him, he uses an emphatic first-person pronoun: "and know not me." His true identity lies in this side of him that his people (and perhaps even his wife) do not see or understand—the part of him that cannot stand being "still."
The poem's meter serves to emphasize Ulysses' strong emotions. The poem is written in unrhymed iambic pentameter (blank verse). This is the meter used by probably the most famous epic poem in English, John Milton's Paradise Lost, so it is a fitting meter for a poem about the hero of one of the greatest epic poems in Greek. There are frequent irregularities in the meter, however, that serve to enhance the meaning of particular lines. For instance, line 2 could be scanned:
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
There is an irregular stress on "still," creating a spondee. The spondee slows readers down, forcing them to linger longer on the phrase "by this still hearth," almost reproducing the feeling of being still. There is another spondee at the end of line 5:
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
The wholly regular meter in the first three feet creates an impression of a regular, repetitive pattern, just as the people of Ithaca fall into a repetitive pattern of doing nothing but hoarding and sleeping and eating. The spondee, coming at the end of the first sentence in the poem, breaks the pattern, just as Ulysses wishes to break the pattern of daily life on Ithaca. It also gives strong emphasis to the idea that Ulysses feels misunderstood by his people, as if he cannot be his true self among them. Ending the line and the sentence on the word "me" indicates that an important theme of the poem will be Ulysses's exploration of his true nature and his true identity.
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Lines 6-11
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: -
Lines 11-17
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. -
Lines 18-24
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! -
Lines 24-28
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; -
Lines 28-32
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. -
Lines 33-38
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. -
Lines 39-43
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. -
Lines 44-49
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 -
Lines 49-53
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. -
Lines 54-59
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; -
Lines 59-64
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. -
Lines 65-67
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; -
Lines 68-70
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.
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“Ulysses” Symbols
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Stars
In the poem's only simile, Ulysses explains that he wishes to "follow knowledge like a sinking star, / Beyond the utmost bound of human thought." The sinking star could serve as a symbol for Ulysses himself, reflecting both his weaknesses and his strengths. A sinking star refers to a shooting star that appears to fall or sink into the horizon when it crosses the sky. The specific term "sinking" suggests a process of decline, just as Ulysses himself is growing old and declining from his former strength. But Ulysses insists that even as an old man, a "gray spirit," he still wishes to sail "beyond ... the baths / Of all the western stars." In other words, he wishes to sail past the horizon where the stars appear to fall, to explore the "untravell'd world." The lands he wishes to explore are lands that no other human has ever reached—they are only reached by the stars. The image of the sinking star, then, is an appropriate symbol for Ulysses as an ambitious explorer.
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“Ulysses” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Allusion
Tennyson’s “Ulysses” is about a character who features prominently in two other great works of Western European literature: Homer’s Greek epic The Odyssey and Dante's Inferno, the first part of Dante’s Italian epic the Divine Comedy. Tennyson adds layers of meaning to his poem by alluding to what the reader may already know and expect about the character of Ulysses. Sometimes the poem reinforces the reader’s existing impression of Ulysses, sometimes it goes against it.
Tennyson’s Ulysses has certain key features in common with Homer’s Ulysses (called “Odysseus” in the Greek poem). Both are clever, adventurous men who are defined by their travels around the world. At the opening of Homer’s Odyssey, the narrator says, “Many cities of men [Odysseus] saw and learned their minds” (Book I, trans. Robert Fagles). Tennyson seems to allude to this line when he has his Ulysses say, “Much have I seen and known; cities of men / And manners, climates, councils, governments.”
But the two stories differ about what Ulysses/Odysseus most desires. In Homer’s story, Odysseus has been gone from home for 20 years, fighting in the Trojan War and then getting lost at sea, and his greatest desire is to return home to Ithaca, to his wife and his son. At one point, the goddess Calypso holds Odysseus captive on her island and offers to make Odysseus immortal and allow him to stay with her as her lover, saying that Odysseus’s wife cannot be nearly as beautiful as she is. Odysseus replies, "All that you say is true … Look at my wise Penelope. She falls far short of you, / your beauty, stature. She is mortal after all / and you, you never age or die ... / Nevertheless I long—I pine, all my days— / to travel home and see the dawn of my return.” Odysseus shows affection and loyalty to his wife; he doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that she will have aged. He rejects Calypso's offer because his greatest desire is to return home.
In Tennyson’s poem, by contrast, Ulysses dismisses Penelope as “an aged wife” and Ithaca as “barren crags.” Far from desiring to be home, he declares, “I cannot rest from travel.” He even misses the days of the Trojan War, when he “drunk delight of battle.” Readers most familiar with Homer’s version of Ulysses will be surprised at these changes in Tennyson’s version.
Readers might be less surprised, however, if they are most familiar with the version of Ulysses in Dante’s Inferno. In this poem, Dante and his guide Virgil travel through the nine circles of Hell. In Canto XXVI, they come to the Eighth Circle, where fraud is punished, and find Ulysses. Ulysses’s soul has been condemned for the fraud that he perpetrated during the Trojan War. But Ulysses may also have been condemned for wishing to have knowledge beyond what is appropriate for human beings. In explaining how he died, Dante’s Ulysses says, “not tenderness for a son, nor filial duty / toward my agèd father, nor the love I owed / Penelope that would have made her glad, / could overcome the fervor that was mine / to gain experience of the world / and learn about man's vices, and his worth” (trans. Robert Hollander). These lines reflect the sentiments of Tennyson’s Ulysses, who wishes “[t]o follow knowledge like a sinking star.”
In Dante’s story, as in Tennyson’s, Ulysses then urges his former crewmates to join him on another voyage, telling them, “do not deny yourselves the chance to know — / following the sun — the world where no one lives … you were not made to live like brutes or beasts, / but to pursue virtue and knowledge.” Tennyson’s Ulysses also rejects the beast-like lifestyle of the Ithacans who do nothing but “hoard, and sleep, and feed.” He urges his crewmates in similar terms to accompany him to “untravell’d world,” sailing “beyond the sunset,” in his quest for knowledge.
But just as Tennyson’s Ulysses wishes to follow knowledge “[b]eyond the utmost bound of human thought,” Dante’s Ulysses also trespasses past the pillars of Hercules, a landmark at the Strait of Gibraltar which was understood in antiquity to “mark[] off the limits, / warning all men to go no farther.” Both men want to test the limits of human possibility. In Dante’s version, this leads to disaster: after sailing past the pillars, Ulysses and his men encounter a storm, and the sea sucks their ship down. In Tennyson’s version, the reader does not see the outcome of Ulysses’s voyage, but Ulysses does say, “It may be that the gulfs will wash us down.”
For a reader familiar with Dante’s story, this line is an ominous foreshadowing of the death that Ulysses and his men may very well encounter on this voyage. The reader may also wonder if Ulysses will end up condemned, as in Dante, for his recklessness, or whether he will be honored in “the Happy Isles” (a realm like heaven in Greek mythology) for his courage and daring.
These allusions add layers of meaning and interest as readers question Ulysses’s values: is it better to cherish home and family, or to seek glory and adventure abroad? Is it admirable or pridefully ambitious to test human limits? Is it reckless or heroic to risk your life and others’ in a quest to test those limits? The different stories of Ulysses suggest different answers, and so Tennyson’s allusions force readers to struggle with these questions for themselves.
The entire poem constitutes an extended allusion to other works of literature, in that the character of the speaker is drawn from those other works. We have highlighted those portions of the poem discussed here, which provide particularly important parallels to the source texts.
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Metaphor
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Synecdoche
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Understatement
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Assonance
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Climax (Figure of Speech)
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Diacope
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Enjambment
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Simile
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Consonance
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Alliteration
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"Ulysses" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Crags
- Mete
- Dole
- Lees
- Scudding
- Drifts
- Hyades
- Vext
- Margin
- Unburnish’d
- Vile
- Suns
- Sceptre
- Discerning
- Prudence
- Meet
- Wrought
- Frolic
- Unbecoming
- Wanes
- Smite
- Sounding
- Furrows
- Gulfs
- Happy Isles
- Achilles
- Abides
- Temper
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Steep, rugged rocks.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Ulysses”
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Form
"Ulysses" does not have regular stanzas. Instead it is divided into three sections of different lengths:
Section 1: Lines 1-32
Section 2: Lines 33-43
Section 3: Lines 44-70Each different section has a different focus and addresses a different audience, and each helps to develop Ulysses's character in a different way.
Section 1 focuses on Ulysses's present and past, and seems to be addressed to Ulysses himself. He begins by expressing discontent with his present situation as ruler of Ithaca. The reader then learns why Ulysses is so discontent when Ulysses shares memories from his past: it is because Ulysses enjoyed fighting in battles and traveling the world as a younger man that he is so frustrated at his current situation.
In Section 2, Ulysses introduces his son, Telemachus. (Telemachus may or may not be present as the actual audience for this section.) In this section, Ulysses's character is further illuminated through contrast with Telemachus. Telemachus responds to his future role as king by submitting himself to his public duties. That is not how Ulysses chooses to respond to his role as king.
Section 3 turns to focus on Ulysses's future, and it is addressed to his former crewmates. Ulysses responds to his present frustrations by planning a voyage that will help him relive his past glories. The reader can understand why Ulysses chooses this path in Section 3 because of what he or she has learned about Ulysses from the previous sections.
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Meter
The poem is written in iambic pentameter. This means there are five iambs—poetic feet with an unstressed-stressed syllable pattern—per line.This is the meter used by John Milton in what is perhaps the most famous epic poem in English, Paradise Lost, so it is an appropriate meter to use for a poem about the hero of one of the Greek epic poems. The poem frequently deviates from the meter, however, and especially makes use of spondees (a foot with two stresses in a row, stressed-stressed) to add emphasis or to slow the poem down. Line 5, for instance, could be scanned this way:
That hoard, | and sleep, | and feed, | and know | not me.
The three stressed syllables in "know not me" create climactic emphasis at the end of the line, reinforcing for the reader how alienated Ulysses feels from his people. Line 43 similarly ends with a spondee in "I mine" that indicates to the reader how Ulysses feels alienated from his son.
The meter also breaks to create a sense of slowness that replicates Ulysses's sense of old age. Line 66, for instance, describes how Ulysses has grown weaker with age, and almost every syllable could be read as stressed:
We are | not now | that strength | which in | old days
The spondees ("not now," "old days") slow the line down just as age has slowed Ulysses down, sapping the strength he had "in old days." But then, the meter becomes regular iambic pentameter again so that the last line scans perfectly regularly:
To strive, | to seek, | to find, | and not | to yield.
The regular meter, not slowed down with additional stresses, reads with more speed and energy, reflecting the kind of determination that Ulysses is describing in this line. Generally, the poem uses the meter—the regular pattern and deviations from the pattern—to reflect the mood and sentiments of the speaker.
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Rhyme Scheme
There is no regular rhyme scheme in the poem, which is written in blank verse. There is, however, some internal rhyme, including slant rhyme, that serves to link key words and ideas together throughout the poem. For instance, in line 1, in line 5, the /ee/ sound creates a slant rhyme in "sleep" and "feed." In line 11, the /m/ sound at the end of "am," "become," and "name" creates an extended slant line through the phrase "I am become a name." By linking the sounds of words together, these partial rhymes also help link their sense. For instance, the slant rhyme with "am" and "name" helps reinforce the idea that Ulysses finds his identity in the heroic deeds that made him famous.
Internal rhyme also creates a more musical, harmonious sound. In the last line, assonance creates slant rhymes in the four verbs. The long /i/ sound repeats in "strive" and "find," and the /ee/ sound repeats in "seek" and "yield." The patterned sound of these internal rhymes add to the sense of confidence and finality in the line.
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“Ulysses” Speaker
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The speaker in this poem is Ulysses (a.k.a. Odysseus), the hero of Homer's Greek epic The Odyssey. The poem is spoken in the first-person point of view as a dramatic monologue—a poem that purports to be spoken by a specific character in specific circumstances, much like a character giving a monologue in a play. The poem proceeds first by revealing Ulysses's present circumstances, then reflecting on his past, then expressing his hopes for his future. Ultimately, he reveals that his greatest desire is to continue traveling and learning as an adventurer and explorer.
Ulysses is speaking in the poem as an old man, some years after he has returned to Ithaca from his wanderings at sea following the Trojan War. At the beginning of the poem, Ulysses expresses his frustration with his quiet, sedentary life on Ithaca. He then finds pleasure in remembering the glory days of his youth, when he learned about many different lands and was honored around the world as a brave warrior and explorer. After reflecting on these memories, Ulysses acknowledges that he still wants to explore and learn.
The question is what to do with that desire. Ulysses then looks at his son Telemachus, who handles the duties of a ruler so responsibly. He acknowledges Telemachus's strengths, but ultimately decides that he must pursue a different path.
He ends the poem by deciding to pursue his desire for travel and to set sail again for unknown lands. In this final section, especially lines 65-70, he reveals what he considers to be the most important or fundamental traits that make him who he is: courage, persistence, and determination.
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“Ulysses” Setting
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The setting of the poem most generally is Ithaca, the small Greek island where Ulysses is king. In The Odyssey, Odysseus expresses great fondness for Ithaca, telling those he meets on his travels, "Mine is a rugged land but good for raising sons— / and I myself, I know no sweeter sight on earth than a man’s own native country" (Book IX, trans. Robert Fagles). But Ulysses shows contempt for Ithaca at the start of Tennyson's poem, calling it a place of "barren crags." Later in the poem, the reader learns that Ulysses is situated specifically near the shore of the island. The port and the ships docked there are within his view. Evening falls and the moon rises while Ulysses narrates the last section of the poem.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Ulysses”
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Literary Context
The title of “Ulysses” comes from a character who first appears in the epics of the ancient Greek poet Homer, The Iliad and especially The Odyssey, in which he is the main protagonist. Ulysses appears in works by several other authors, including Euripides, Horace, William Shakespeare, and Alexander Pope. But the most important source for the character in Tennyson’s poem is the Inferno, the first part of the Divine Comedy, an epic poem by the medieval Italian poet Dante.
Dante presents Ulysses in quite a different way than does Homer. While Homer’s Ulysses (a.k.a. Odysseus) yearns for home, Dante’s Ulysses (Ulisse) longs to travel. And while Homer’s character is the protagonist and hero of the poem, Dante’s character is condemned to hell for fraud and evil counsel. These two versions of Ulysses—admirable and condemnable—are reflected in the two main ways that critics have interpreted the poem since Tennyson composed it. Some critics read the poem “affirmatively”: they see Ulysses as he sees himself, as heroic in his perseverance. Other critics read the poem “ironically”: they see Ulysses as a flawed hero in spite of his noble-sounding words because of his rejection of political responsibility and his scorn for his family and his people.
Tennyson's poem was one of the earliest modern adaptations of the character of Ulysses. Since then, numerous other authors have adapted the character or the story of The Odyssey in poems, novels, and films. An interesting example to compare to "Ulysses" is "Ithaka" (1911) by the Greek poet C.P. Cavafy. One of the most important adaptations is James Joyce's Ulysses, an epic modernist novel that follows the Odyssean "wanderings" of a man named Leopold Bloom across the city of Dublin over the space of a single day.
“Ulysses” is also an important poem in English literary history because of its form. Written in 1833 and published in 1842, the poem has been identified by some scholars as the first true dramatic monologue. A dramatic monologue is a poem that purports to be spoken by a specific character (who is not the poet) in a specific place and circumstances, similar to a monologue delivered by a character in a play. The 1842 volume in which it was published contained several other dramatic monologues, and Tennyson used the form in his later poetry as well. Other major Victorian poets, including Matthew Arnold, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Christina Rossetti, and Algernon Charles Swinburne, used the dramatic monologue form. Especially well known for his dramatic monologues is Robert Browning. Some of his most famous include "My Last Duchess" and "Caliban Upon Setebos."
Historical Context
Alfred Lord Tennyson composed “Ulysses” in 1833 and published it in a volume of poetry in 1842. “Ulysses” was a significant poem in the context of Tennyson’s own life. His closest friend, Arthur Hallam, died in 1833. Tennyson said of the poem, “‘Ulysses’ was written soon after Arthur Hallam’s death, and gave my feeling about the need of going forward, and braving the struggle of life.”
At the time of Hallam’s death, Tennyson was, like Ulysses, confined to domestic life. His father had recently died, and he had to return home and help care for his mother and ten siblings. His frustrations may have been reflected in Ulysses’s own frustrations with home life. Tennyson had also enjoyed traveling Europe with Hallam in his younger days, just as Ulysses enjoyed traveling the world with his men, whom he addresses warmly in the poem as “friends.” While writing the poem, Tennyson may have yearned, just as Ulysses does, to relive his younger days of travel and companionship with his lost friend Hallam.
Since its publication, many readers have found the poem inspirational when facing “the struggle of life,” especially its final lines. Schools have taken the lines as a motto. The last three lines were inscribed on the cross commemorating the explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his team, who died while returning from the South Pole in 1912. “Ulysses” was a favorite poem of John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy, and Senator Edward Kennedy quoted the poem’s final lines in 1980 in a speech withdrawing from the race for Democratic presidential nominee. The final lines were inscribed on the walls of the Olympic Village when London hosted the Olympic Games in 2012, and Prime Minister David Cameron also quoted them in his welcoming speech for the Olympics.
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More “Ulysses” Resources
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External Resources
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Homer's Odyssey — An English translation from a website specializing in ancient Greek and Roman literature.
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Dante's Inferno — An English translation (alongside the original Italian) of Canto 26 of Dante's Inferno, in which Dante and Virgil meet Ulysses.
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Tennyson's Biography — A detailed introductory biography of the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson.
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Helen Mirren Reads "Ulysses" — Acclaimed actress Helen Mirren reads the last portion of "Ulysses" on the Late Show.
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"Ulysses" in Skyfall — The last lines of "Ulysses" are featured in a dramatic scene in the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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