2nd Saturday's "Thanks-a-gram"

photo provided by FreePik

by Craig Bennett*

ULYSSES 

Regardless of what contemporary comic books, video games, or movies might come up with, when it comes to superheroes, it’s hard to beat those found in the myths of ancient civilizations. One that captured my own imagination many years ago is Odysseus, the blind poet Homer’s hero of the Iliad and the Odyssey. But that was not where I discovered the Odysseus who made a particularly deep impression on me. Where I discovered that Odysseus was in a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, titled simply, “Ulysses.”

Contrary to what one might expect, Tennyson’s poem is not about the wily Odysseus making war on the windy plains of Troy or plying his way, along with his fellow Achaeans, across “the wine-dark sea” on their ten-year journey home. Instead, it’s about Odysseus after he’s returned, resumed his modest throne of Ithaca, and had time enough to realize that the king business was actually pretty dull stuff. He finds himself thinking back more and more on his days at sea with his comrades, when the possibility of both immediate danger and unexpected adventure lay just around every bend in the shoreline, just beyond every horizon, and between every sunrise and the following sunset. Every nerve and fiber of his being was at its height of awareness and primed for action, and he was alive as he had never been before or since. And he knew that those with whom he had shared his adventures would feel the same.

So he called them together not long afterward and said to them, “O.K., men. We’re going out to sea one more time, together… and this time, we’re not coming back. We may all go to the bottom as the result of some terrible storm. We may all wind up as dinner for some cyclops or other horrible miscreant. Or we may all meet our fate, together, at the hands of something as yet unknown, undreamed of. But until we do, we’ll be alive as we never could be here at home, sowing our fields, tending our livestock, and sitting by our hearths in the wintertime, watching ourselves grow old.”

Then, just after sunset, in the cool twilight of day’s end, they went down to the harbor where the ships lay at anchor, waiting for the evening tide to carry them out to sea. And just before boarding, Odysseus turned to them once again and addressed them with the closing lines of the poem:

“Though much is taken, much abides; and though

We are not now that strength which in 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.”

And that’s why I prefer Tennyson’s Odysseus to Homer’s. Homer’s Odysseus is courageous, resourceful, and clever; but Tennyson’s Ulysses is wise. In that closing stanza, he teaches us that life is meant to be lived to the fullest extent possible, even to the very last day and the very last hour. He teaches us also that life will always have purpose, even if that purpose is only to keep on seeking; for as long as we continue to seek, we’ll continue to find. And every little shred of information or fragment of understanding that we discover is one more piece of the puzzle that we didn’t have before. And the more pieces of the puzzle we have, the more meaning the whole picture, of which each piece is merely a small part, will have for us.

* Craig H. Bennett, author of Nights on the Mountain and More Things in Heaven and Earth, available at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and most book stores

Sharing what we're thankful for is a long-held Thanksgiving tradition; The Expression hopes you'll consider us family and share your blessings with our readers.

THANK SOMEONE! EXPRESS YOURSELF!

Learning more about one another is a mission of The Boyertown Area Expression. Knowing one another better will help to create a stronger community. To that end, we hope you'll share your "Thanks-a-gram" with us so that we can publish it for the recipient of your thanks to read.

Send your thanks, in just a sentence or two (or in a longer form if you'd like). Please tell us where, in general, you live .... Bally, Perkiomenville, Boyertown, etc. Tell us which person or group you appreciate. Tell us why you appreciate them.

Send your thanks to janeEstahl@comcast.net or leslemisko@aol.com so that we can share them with our readers between now and Thanksgiving Day.

Join us in inspiring one another to build a more grateful community.

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