Tennyson: Ulises
ULISES
De poco sirve que como un rey ocioso,
junto a este hogar en calma, entre riscos yermos,
junto a una esposa anciana, yo dicte e imponga
leyes desiguales a una raza salvaje,
que acumula, y duerme, y come, y no me conoce
No hay reposo para mí del viaje; apuraré la vida
hasta las heces: en todo tiempo he gozado
grandemente, y he sufrido mucho,
solo o con aquellos que me amaban; en la orilla
o cuando con raudas rachas las lluviosas Híades
azotaban el oscuro mar: me he ganado un nombre;
vagabundo eterno de corazón hambriento,
he visto y conocido mucho; ciudades humanas,
costumbres, climas, concejos, gobiernos, y de todos
antes que menosprecio obtuve honra;
y allá en las planicies de la ventosa Troya
bebí delicias de batallas con mis pares.
Soy parte de todo cuanto he tenido ante mí;
pero toda experiencia es un arco a través del cual
destella el mundo aún no recorrido, cuyo margen
no deja de desvanecerse a medida que me muevo.
¡Qué insulso es detenerse, terminar, acumular
óxido sin ser bruñido, sin relucir por el uso!
Como si respirar fuera vivir. Las capas de vida
apilada fueron pocas, y de la postrera poco
me queda: mas cada hora algo se salva del silencio,
algo que es portador de cosas nuevas;
y sería una vileza encerrar, aun por el lapso
de tres soles, a mí y a este gris espíritu
anhelante de deseo de perseguir el saber
como una estrella que se hunde allende
los confines del pensamiento humano.
Alfred Tennyson
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d 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 enjoy’d
Greatly, have suffer’d greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro’ scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext 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,
Myself not least, but honour’d of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’
Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ 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; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
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 sceptre and the isle—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro’ soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
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.
There lies the port: the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, 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 hath yet his honour 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:
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
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
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.
Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and tho’
Alfred Tennyson, Ulysses (fragmento)
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NOSTOI
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