He feels as though his wife is too old, and he governs the people with no respect, "Matched
with an aged wife, I mete and dole / Unequal laws unto a savage race, / That hord, and sleep,
and feed, and know not of me"(Lines 3-5).
Ulysses condescends his own son by describing his timidness to rule the people and how his son
is more capable of the common duties. Ulysses boasts with a sense of superiority in trying to
reassure himself. "This is my son, mine own Telemachus, / To whom I leave the scepter and the
isle- / Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill / This labor, by slow prudence to make mild / A
rugged people, and through soft degrees / Subdue them to the useful and the good. / Most
blameless is he, centered 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 33-43). Being a life long traveler prevented Ulysses from learning any of
the responsibilities of being a father and a husband. Instead, he was traveling abroad consoling
with kings, generals and gods, traveling to "cities of men / And manners, climates, councils,
governments"(Lines 13-14). The only thing he gained from his travels was the unending quest
for more. Retiring home is an unsatisfying dull life, which is impossible for Ulysses bear. After
all the battles and fame he has won Ulysses realizes his old age and feels required to "pause, to
make and end, / To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! / As though to breathe were
life!"(Lines 22-24) Ulysses reveals on lines 25-31, his old age and fear of dying, but rejects
death’s attempt to muscle its way into his 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; and vile it were/For some three suns to store and hoard myself, /And this grey spirit
yearning in desire /To follow knowledge like a sinking star,".
Ulysses directs this next verse toward his mariners, who have been with him through the bad
times unlike his wife who was unable to. "Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with
me-"(Line 46). At this point both the bad and the good side of Ulysses can be identified and
we are called to join in on the final journey ..."Come my friends, ‘Tis 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./It may be the
gulfs will wash us down:/It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles." (Lines 56-61). Tennyson
seals the bond to the readers and gives us a sence of connection to Ulysses courageous mission.
We are left with the encouraging idea that no matter how old we might be physically the soul
lives on. "We are not now that strength which in old days/Moved earth and heaven, that which
we are, we are-/One of 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 66-70). This awakens the hero at
heart for everyone and makes us feel proud and motivated to take on life.
