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Here are Alfred Lord Tennyson (in 1833), an English Romantic, and C. P. Cavafy (in ), a modern Greek, each meditating on Odysseus's nostos, his long journey home. By contrast with Homer and the ancients, and, as the modern world will have it, both Tennyson and Cavafy value the journey over the destination. Yet the nature of their valuing is so different each from the other. This difference-and the way that it is created-interests me greatly.
Here is the ending of Tennyson's Ulysses1:
Come, my friends,'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.Push off, and sitting well in order smiteThe sounding furrows; for my purpose holdsTo sail beyond the sunset, and the bathsOf 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,