Read the following poem about the epic hero Odysseus (Ulysses is his Roman name) and answer the questions that follow. “Ulysses” by Alfred Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,

By this still hearth, among these barren crags,*

Matched with an aged wife, I mete and dole

Unequal laws* unto a savage race,

That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink

Life to the lees*: all times I have enjoyed

Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those

That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when

5

Through scudding* drifts the rainy Hyades

Vest the dim sea: 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,

10

Myself not least, but honored of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers; Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy*.

I am part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough

15

Gleams that untraveled world, whose margin fades For ever and for ever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life

20

Were all to 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,

25

And this gray spirit yearning in desire

To follow knowledge like a sinking star,

Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,

To whom I leave the scepter and the isle-

30

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

35

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.

40

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:

45

There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,

Souls that have toiled, and wrought, and thought with me-

That ever with a frolic welcome took

The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed

Free hearts, free foreheads- you and I are old;

Old age had yet his honor 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.

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:

50

The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

Push off, and sitting well in order smite

55

The sounding furrows*; for my purpose holds

To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths 60

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.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though 65

We are not now that strength which in the 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. 70

2 barren crags: here, the rugged landscape of Ithaca, the Greek island where Ulysses lives

4 unequal laws: rewards and punishments

7 lees: sediment found at the bottom of wine and other liquids; to “drink to the lees” is to drink to the last drop.

10 scudding: wind-driven; Hyades: a cluster of stars; when they rose, it was believed that rain would soon follow

16-17 battle … Troy: the Trojan War, which the Greeks won after a ten-year siege

42 meet: fitting; proper

59 sounding furrows: crashing waves

60-61 baths … stars: reference to the ancient belief that the stars descended into a sea or river that encircled the earth.

63 Happy Isles: in Greek mythology, the place where mortals favored by the gods are sent to dwell after they die 64 Achilles: the greatest warrior in the Greek assault on Troy

The attitude Ulysses shows toward yet another voyage is best described as: