Ulysses

印象中，Odysseus是備受歌頌的英雄，但最近聽完的電子書The Song of Achilles，當中有稍為不同的詮釋。

這本書的主角是兩位王子，Patroclus和Achilles，他們的成長和相愛的故事。Aristos Achaion靈巧的手指除了殺人了得外，彈琴也特別擅長。

Odysseus縱使不算是老奸巨猾，至少也是巧言令色之輩，為求目的不擇手段，最重要的是維護自己的利益，犧牲他人在所不惜。特洛伊戰爭延宕十年，他近乎沒露骨地問Achilles，怎麼你還不趕快殺掉Hector，然後自己去死？

毫無疑問，他也是龐大的希臘軍團中智謀手段最高的人，而且看來真心愛着妻子。

大學的時候，花了不知多久看完荷馬史詩Odyssey的英譯本，同學送的書，現在還保存在書架上。內容當然是完全忘掉，也許再次封城借不到書的話可以再看一次。

Cochem from the South

Image Credit: Joseph Mallord William Turner c.1839

Ulysses

By Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

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 forever 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.

For complete text and analysis, click here.