“Ulysses” Summary

“Ulysses” Themes

• 

  Mortality and Aging

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• 

  Adventure and Knowledge

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• 

  Caution vs. Recklessness

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• 

  Heroism and Overcoming Limitations

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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Ulysses”

• 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. 

  

  

  

  

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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:

  

  

  

  

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• 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.

  

  

  

  

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• 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!

  

  

  

  

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• 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;

  

  

  

  

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• 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. 

  

  

  

  

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• 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. 

  

  

  

  

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• 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. 

  

  

  

  

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• 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

  

  

  

  

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• 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. 

  

  

  

  

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• 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;

  

  

  

  

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• 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. 

  

  

  

  

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• 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; 

  

  

  

  

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• 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

• 

  Stars

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“Ulysses” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

• Allusion

  

  

  

  

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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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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Ulysses”

• Form

• Meter

• Rhyme Scheme

“Ulysses” Speaker

“Ulysses” Setting

Literary and Historical Context of “Ulysses”

More “Ulysses” Resources

• External Resources

  • Homer's Odyssey — An English translation from a website specializing in ancient Greek and Roman literature.

  • Dante's Inferno — An English translation (alongside the original Italian) of Canto 26 of Dante's Inferno, in which Dante and Virgil meet Ulysses.

  • Tennyson's Biography — A detailed introductory biography of the poet Alfred Lord Tennyson.

  • Helen Mirren Reads "Ulysses" — Acclaimed actress Helen Mirren reads the last portion of "Ulysses" on the Late Show.

  • "Ulysses" in Skyfall — The last lines of "Ulysses" are featured in a dramatic scene in the 2012 James Bond film Skyfall

• LitCharts on Other Poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson

  • Break, Break, Break

  • Crossing the Bar

  • Tears, Idle Tears

  • The Brook

  • The Charge of the Light Brigade

  • The Eagle

  • The Kraken

  • The Lady of Shalott

  • Tithonus