Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. For ever and forever when I move. To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life. Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. Subdue them to the useful and the good. When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. For ever and for ever when I move. To rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As though to breathe were life! Life piled on life. Beyond the utmost bound of human thought. Subdue them to the useful and the good. When I am gone. He works his work, I mine. There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,

In this poem, Tennyson attempted to come to terms with the loss. Taking one of the most famous characters from one of the oldest stories ever told – Ulysses (otherwise known as Odysseus) from Homer’s epics, the Iliad, and the Odyssey – and repurposes the story to fit certain themes.

These opening passages function like a summary of what lies ahead in this epic poem. We haven't seen Odysseus with the nymph Calypso, nor have we seen the Greek gods decide to free him, but all of these things will come to pass. In that sense, these lines foreshadow the events to …

From Tennyson's powerful monologue to Glück's reimagining of encounters and Bogan's poignant portrayal of reunion, these poems bring forth the timeless allure and complexity of Odysseus' legendary journey.

Ulysses applies to himself the simile of “rusty mail,” or rusted armor, deployed by Odysseus in Troilus and Cressida, a Shakespearean tragedy written in approximately 1602. In the play, Odysseus tells Achilles that “perseverance...Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang/ Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail/ In monumental mockery.”

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns. The opening line of The Odyssey introduces Odysseus by his epithet, “the man of twists and turns.” Odysseus is “the man of twists and turns” because his journey, and his story, are anything but straightforward.