Sir Alfred Tennyson, Ulysses, (1842)
Guided reading
What
Lines 1-5
Where
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Lines 6-32
Vocabulary
idle: pigro, ozioso
(inactive)
• still: immobile
• hearth: focolare
• barren: sterile
• crags: dirupo (high, steep
mountain)
• matched: legato a (married
to)
• aged: old
• mete: distribuire, ripartire
• dole: distribuire in piccole
quantità
• unequal: ineguale,
inadeguato
• savage: selvaggio (wild)
• hoard: ammassare (store
up)
• feed: nutrire
• lees: sedimento, feccia,
fondo di vino
• shore: spiaggia, costa
(beach)
• to scud: correre
velocemente
• drifts: turbine, raffica
• Hyades: Iadi (a
constellation of stars)
• to vex: vessare, opprimere
(agitate)
• dim: indistinto, oscuro
• to roam: vagare (to
wander)
• manner: modi (di vita)
• council: consiglio,
adunanza di persone
• least: il meno (sup. di less)
• to honour: onorare
• delight: gioia (joy)
• peer: pari (sost.)
(companions)
• ringing: risuonante
• plain: pianura
• windy: ventoso
These first lines ( the beginning of the monologue) introduce •
the character that is speaking (Ulysses) and his situation.
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Ulysses sees himself as a useless king, living
by an immobile hearth (his home), on sterile
rocks, married to an old woman.
So it is no profit, no use for anyone that he
delivers and administers laws to wild men (the
people on Ithaca) that spend their life only in
storing up things, sleeping, eating, and don’t
know who their king is.
Fom line 6 to 11 he says he can’t stop
travelling: he will enjoy (drink) his life to the
very end. In every moment of his life he has
greatly enjoyed himself and has also greatly
suffered, and he did all this sometimes with the
people (those) who loved him, and sometimes
alone; he did it on land but also when, among
violent winds the rainy (because they bring
rain) Hyades troubled, moved the dark sea: he
is now a name, he is famous.
From line 12 to 17 he also says that wandering
for a long time with a heart wishing to know
and learn, a heart hungry for knowledge, he has
seen and known many things; he has seen cities
and different habits, he has been to places with
different climates, and different ways of ruling
and governing and in all these situations he
himself was not the least considered, but
everybody honoured him; and he also drank the
joy of battle with his friends, far away from his
home on the resounding plains of windy Troy.
In line 18 he says that he is part of all that he
has seen, met, experienced, known.
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From line 19 we have the considerations that make us •
understand why he still desires to travel.
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Lines 33-43
In line 19 he says that all the amount of our
experience is an arch, a window through which
we see the distant light, the gleaming of the
world where no-one has yet travelled, of the
unknown world whose limits disappear farther
and farther when we move, as if it were
impossible to reach these limits, to reach
complete and perfect knowledge.
Lines 22, 23, and 24 express U.’s contempt,
dissatisfaction with his present, inactive life.
• In line 22 he says it is dull, booring to wait, to
say “stop” to all our activities.
• In line 23 he goes on and says it is also dull to
end up like an unused tool tha rusts and loses
its shining because only a tool that is
continuously used can shine.
• In line 24 we have U.’s consideration on life:
simple breathing is not enough to make real
life.
• Even a double life, even if we had a double
amount of the years that are destined to us,
would not be enough, it would be too little to
do what we want to do, and to U. only a small
part remains of one life, and yet every hour of
our life that can be saved from the eternal
silence of death can be something more,
something that brings new things, and it would
be vile, shameful for maybe three years, maybe
the time that is left to him, to stay inactive, to
store up himself, and this (my) gray, old spirit
that wishes to follow, to pursue knowledge like
a sinking, setting star beyond the extreme limit
of human thought.
From line 33 to 43 U. talks about his son
Telemachus.
• He says he will leave the kingdom and the
island to his beloved son, who is good at
fulfilling, doing his job as a king, because he
can, with slow discretion, wisdom, make a
rough, wild people become mild, educated,
and can, with slow, soft steps, submit them to
what is good and useful. Telemachus is
irreprehensible, his central, main interest is in
the sphere, in the area of common, everyday
duties, the tasks of a wise, good ruler; a ruler
that is careful not to make mistakes when he
must be tender, not too hard, gentle, and also
careful to adore, worship properly the gods of
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arch: arco, arcata
to gleam: brillare
debolmente
margin: margine, bordo
to fade: sbiadire
(discolour)
to rust: arrugginire
sceptre: scettro
well-loved: bene-amato
to discern: discernere
to fulfil: portare a
compimento
labour: compito, impiego
slow: lento
prudence: prudenza,
attenzione
mild: mite
rugged: rozzo (rough)
soft: morbido
degrees: gradi
to subdue: sottomettere
U.’s home when he leaves. T. has a work to do, •
U. has another.
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Lines 44-70
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In these lines we have U.’s speech to his mariners and
we see how he persuade them to leave one more time.
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In lines 44 and 45 we have a vision of the ship
which is in the port, while the wind blows in
her sails and the dark, wide seas become dark,
gloom in the distance.
From line 45 to 49 U. describes his mariners.
They are people, souls that have toiled, worked
hard, and thought with him, that have always
accepted with the same happy heart both storm
and sunshine, and have opposed their free
hearts and free minds to every circumstance,
have resistedeverything with free hearts and
minds.
From line 49 to 53 he says they all are old, he
says old age has its honour and its toil, its
fatigues, and then Death puts an end to
everything, but, before the end, something,
some noble action can stiil be done, some work
appropriate to men that fought with gods.
From line 54 to 56 U. describes the moment of
the day. The lights twinkle, shine from the
rocks, and the long day dies, the slow moon
climbs up the sky, the deep sea laments all
around with many voices.
From line 56 to the end he directly addresses
his mariners. He says to them it is now time to
go, it is not too late to look for a new world. He
orders them to hurry, to push off, and, sitting
well in order on the ship, to strike with their
oars the noisy waves, because his purpose, his
desire, his aim is to sail beyond the place where
the sun sets, and where the stars of the west
bathe when they go down the horizon, until he
dies. It may happen that the great waves of the
sea cover them with their waters and drown
them, it may be that they arrive to the Elysium
where they can see again the great Achilles, the
man they have already known in life. Even
though a lot is taken from them, a lot is waiting
for them, and even though they don’t have the
same strength that in the past moved the earth
and the sky, what they are, they are, ( = the
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blameless: irreprensibile
duty: dovere (task)
decent: onesto, adeguato
(careful)
offices: funzioni, servizi
tenderness: tenerezza
to pay (adoration): to give
meet: appropriata (proper)
to lie: giacere
vessel: vascello (ship)
to puff: gonfiare di vento
sail: vela
to gloom: oscurarsi
broad: vasto (wide)
soul: anima
to toil: faticare (to work
hard)
wrought: p.p. di to work
frolic: allegro
to welcome: dare il
benvenuto
thunder: tuono
sunshine: sole, bel tempo
to oppose: fronteggiare (to
face)
toli: long, hard work
ere: before
unbecoming: inappropriate
to strive: lottare (to fight)
to twinkle: brillare (to
shine)
to wane: sbiadire (to fade)
to climb: arrampicarsi
deep: (qui) mare
to moan: lamentarsi
to seek: cercare
to push off: partire in fretta
to smite: colpire (to hit)
sounding: risuonante
furrow: scia della nave
purpose: scopo (aim)
to hold: pensare, ritenere
sunset: tramonto
baths: dove ci si bagna
gulfs: gorghi d’acqa
to wash down: sommergere
to touch: toccare
to abide: attendere
regret for what they have lost must not prevent
them from acting again) and they have all the
same substance in their heroic hearts, a
substance that time and destiny have made
weak, fragile but that is still strong in will, a
will to fight, to search, to find, and never to
give up, never to surrender.
And now, what do you think?
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strength: forza
heaven: cielo
temper: tempra
weak: debole
to strive: lottare (to fight)
te yield: cedere, arrendersi
Who is Ulysses?
Is he an Ancient Mariner who has not learned his lesson ? (G.P.Landow, Professor of English and art
History, Brown University)
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Is Ulysses on his death-bed, and is he simply trying to recapture life that is flying away?
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Is he on his death-bed and trying to figure the last voyages of all: the voyage to eternity?
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Are these the dreams of an old man that has lost contact with reality and imagines an impossible
voyage simply because he is dissatisfied with his own life?