Ulysses

Forty-six lines of this 70-line poem meditate on Ulysses’ desire to travel (Lines 6-21, Lines 30-32, Lines 44-70). That’s more than half the poem, thus travel is an important motif. In the first stanza, travel is compared to life. Ulysses says, “I cannot rest from travel: I will drink / Life to the lees” (Lines 6-7). These lines equate traveling to drinking life like wine. Also in the first stanza, Ulysses says his name and reputation have become synonymous with travel: “I am become a name; / For always roaming with a hungry heart” (Lines 11-12). These lines equate constant travel, or “always roaming,” with Ulysses’ identity. Finally, in the last stanza, travel is compared to death:

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 62-64).

In these lines, Ulysses imagines their ship sinking will transport him and his crew to the “Happy Isles,” or afterlife, where they will reunite with Achilles, who died during the Trojan War. What he feels is that he can only continue to expand his mind through travel, and remaining on Ithaca would be a kind of death in itself, so the dangers of sailing again is a much preferable demise.