To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield

I recently learned that, according to BBC online, "The last line of Tennyson's monologue Ulysses, 'to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield', will serve as inspirational words for the world's athletes when they come to London for next year's [Olympic] games." As it turns out, that famous line is also the quote on our geocaching stamp. For those of you who aren't high-tech treasure hunters, geocaching involves using a GPS to track down caches that people have hidden. The main point, for us, is the adventure. So the quote, while inspirational, is a bit tongue-in-cheek in the context of geocaching.

In the context of marathon running, however, it is not. Striving and never yielding are critical throughout the training and race. But what about seeking and finding? Because of the taper this week, I've had more time to reflect on just what exactly it is that I am looking for when I strap on my shoes and pound the pavement for several hours every week. Those of you who know I'm an English literature graduate student will probably not be surprised that I turned to the rest of the poem to find an answer. This post is going to be a little dense, but I hope you come along with me on the journey--and maybe even read the whole poem! (For my Victorianist friends, please forgive any misreadings.)

The poem's a dramatic monologue about the last days of the famous Greek hero, Ulysses, known for fighting heroically in battle, encountering wild adventures on the way back to Ithaca, and arriving home after a long and tiring 10-year voyage only to find his wife hotly pursued by several suitors--whom he shoots dead with a bow and arrow before revealing himself to her. Tennyson's telling of this story features Ulysses in his old age, still filled with the desire to travel and to have adventures, despite his failing health and his happy reunion with his wife and son. In the following passage, Ulysses reflects on his desire to explore:

I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled 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
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.

Tennyson's portrayal of Ulysses is vexed. Is Ulysses heroic? Or is he foolishly dissatisfied with the life he fought to retrieve? Is his striving meaningless and problematic? Or is his desire to explore the "untravelled world" and to keep moving until the end of his days admirable? Many people choose to read his character in a negative light, or with pity. Yet I can't help but identify with his yearning to fill his life with movement and "new things." Why pause just because you're old, or tired, or sore, or suffering? Why not live every moment beyond the bounds of your everyday "experience"? Why not "shine in use"? I see Ulysses as trying to stave off stagnancy and even death ("eternal silence") with his desire to "move." Ulysses also sees this desire to "work"--even at the "end" of one's energy or life--as "noble":

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:
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."

Ulysses's belief that something noble can be done before "the end" inspires me. And the series of sentences that begins, "The long day wanes," is just so beautiful I can't stand it. The day, the moon, and therefore time are all active, while he's forced to be still yet to long for movement, for "a newer world." His will to "seek" is tragic, yet beautiful; sad, yet noble. He is not defined by his suffering or by his stillness, but by his ability to transform them into beauty. He may not be moving in this poem, but he moves us.

The poem ends with an acknowledgment of loss that becomes a swan song; true to his warrior character, he will not go down without a fight. He turns his moment of struggle into a moment of transcendence:

Tho' 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.

The poem does not allow us to pity Ulysses. He is too "strong in will," even though he no longer has the strength to move "earth and heaven." We know that even though he reflects on the past, he does not dwell in it; instead, he recognizes, "that which we are, we are." The strength of his "heroic heart" is the driving force of the poem. He refuses to be defined by the limitations of his body or his age. He is unyielding, unapologetic. He does not pity himself or ask us for pity.

So, I'm not yet old (although my students might beg to differ), and I was never a hero, so what does this poem have to do with this race? I'm inspired by his ability to push beyond his physical limitations, and more, to find beauty in them. Part of the allure of running for me is in taking pleasure in struggle, enjoying the friction of bumping up against my physical limitations, of locating my will as the source of my true strength.

The other half of this equation is my mom. Her "heroic heart" inspires me. She will never "rust unburnished, not to shine in use." She moves others even when she struggles to move herself. And she has always instilled in me the desire to pile life on life, to live fully and meaningfully every day.

Only a few days remain, and I'm fighting off a cold--and, worse, so is Cora. I hope that our strong wills can push aside these cooties. We will not yield!