Ulysses

The first stanza reads more like a soliloquy than a dramatic monologue. (A soliloquy is a speech where a character is alone on stage, or believes himself to be alone, and speaks his thoughts out loud to himself.) Ulysses begins:

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 (Lines 1-5).

These lines are not kind to the island of Ithaca, Ulysses’ wife, or his people—Ithaca is described as “barren crags,” Penelope is called “aged” (which implies she’s barren as well), and Ulysses’ subjects are described as “savage” and bestial. Because Ulysses would not say these cruel things out loud to anyone else, he is likely alone and talking to himself.

While not as cruel, the rest of the first stanza also reads like a reflection, not something Ulysses would say in front of an audience. Moreover, while the opening five lines meditate on external things—the island, Penelope, and the people of Ithaca—the remaining 27 lines of the first stanza focus on Ulysses. This solipsistic focus further reinforces the idea that Ulysses is speaking to himself. There are three “I”s in the next two lines:

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd (Lines 6-7)

This reads like a personal reflection, not a call to have others join him on his journey. While recounting the “times” he has enjoyed, Ulysses says sometimes he was “with those / That loved me” and sometimes he was “alone” (Lines 8-9). As Ulysses tells it, his enjoyment was in the journey, and it didn’t matter whether he was alone.

This leads Ulysses to his most profound reflection about himself: “I am become a name; / For always roaming with a hungry heart” (Lines 11-12). In these lines, Ulysses is admitting he is known for his difficult journey home (the journey recounted in Homer’s Odyssey). His mind is not focused on governing Ithaca, and he doesn’t know who he is outside of the stories people tell about him.

Ulysses continues to reflect on all he has “seen and known” and says, “I am a part of all that I have met” (Lines 13-18). Nevertheless, he is captivated by what he hasn’t done:

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move (Lines 19-21).

Perhaps this yearning for the unknown is courageous, but it’s also fruitless. Even if Ulysses continues to travel, he acknowledges he will continue to be restless. This is because the part of the world he hasn’t seen will always be just beyond his reach—this “margin fades / [f]or ever and forever when I move.” Ulysses has an unattainable goal, and he knows it.

Next, Ulysses circles back to the boredom he began with. He says it’s “dull” to stay in one place (Lines 22-23) and “vile” to be in Ithaca “three suns” (Lines 28-29). Ulysses concludes the first stanza with his deepest yearning: “To follow knowledge like a sinking star, / Beyond the utmost bound of human thought” (Line 31-32). This is what Ulysses wants to do. He yearns for knowledge and adventure. He isn’t thinking about what anyone else wants or his responsibilities to his kingdom, his wife, and his son. Thus, the first stanza reads more like a soliloquy (something Ulysses would say to himself) than a dramatic monologue.

In the second stanza Ulysses is not talking to himself and is not alone. The second stanza begins: “This is my son, mine own Telemachus, / To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle” (Lines 33-34). These lines let readers know Telemachus is present, and while Ulysses focuses on himself in the first stanza, in the second stanza he focuses on Telemachus. Ulysses says he loves his son, and Telemachus is “discerning” and will do a good job running the kingdom and keeping the household gods happy while Ulysses is traveling (Lines 35-43). Telemachus is there, as illustrated by Ulysses saying “[t]his is my son,” but Ulysses is speaking about Telemachus in the third person. Ulysses says, “Most blameless is he” and “He works his work, I mine” (Lines 39 and 43). This informs the listener that Telemachus is not to blame for his father’s impending absence—there was no coup or manipulation to remove Ulysses from his throne. Instead, Telemachus is simply better suited to ruling Ithaca than his restless father.

The next stanza makes it clear who Ulysses is addressing. At the beginning of the third and final stanza, Ulysses addresses, “My mariners / Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me” (Lines 45-46). Therefore, Ulysses is speaking to the surviving men who accompanied him on his long journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War (the journey recounted in Homer’s Odyssey). These sailors, like Ulysses himself, have aged quite a bit since they left Troy. They’re all old now, but Ulysses tells them

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 50-53).

Unlike the first and second stanzas, these lines are rousing and inspiring. Though the men are advanced in age, they still have honorable and important work left to do. On their journey home from Troy, they were both helped and hindered by Gods, and they can strive with Gods again.

Ulysses began the third stanza by pointing to the port, a vessel, and the “dark, broad seas” (Lines 44-45). He wants these old men to get on that ship with him and again accompany him on a journey; only this time, they won’t return. Ulysses entreats his mariners:

. . . 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 (Lines 56-61).

Since Ulysses plans to travel “until I die,” neither he nor any men who accompany him will ever see their home again. These sailors have already traveled for years and have only been home for three years. It would be natural for them to be hesitant about leaving again, and Ulysses senses this because his rhetoric soars and rouses once more:

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 (Lines 62-70).

The last line of “Ulysses” is perhaps the most famous line of iambic pentameter ever written: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield” (Line 70, bolding indicates the stressed syllables). Its strong rhythm is effective and hypnotizing for the mariners, suggesting Ulysses’ men will accompany him on this final journey.