To seek, to find, to design and not to yield.

Design Some­thing Every­day 14/365

This was a design based on one of my favorite poems, Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Ten­nyson. The poem is very mov­ing, and has the great hero Ulysses (Odysseus in Greek) at the end of his life feel­ing the urge to strive, explore and set sail once again. That is an urge we have and should cher­ish, that lit­tle voice that tells us there is still much more to see and do. It is a human qual­ity that we need to heed, espe­cially when our boat has waited to0 long in the har­bor. Here’s the com­plete poem (don’t worry it’s in the pub­lic domain):

Ulysses
by Alfred Lord 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 enjoyed
Greatly, have suf­fered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scud­ding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed 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 hon­oured 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 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; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey 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 through 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 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.

Poem Source

Just for fun here’s a YouTube video of a per­for­mance of the poem:

Polyphemus Gives Odysseus’s Men a Hand

Design Some­thing Every­day: 12/365

Here’s a lit­tle sketch for my design some­thing every day project. Imag­ine your­self as one of clever Odysseus’ men in the cave of the Cyclops, and one-eyed Polyphe­mus, son of Posei­don, reaches down to devour you, or as Samuel But­ler grue­somely put it in his translation:

The cruel wretch vouch­safed me not one word of answer, but with a sud­den clutch he gripped up two of my men at once and dashed them down upon the ground as though they had been pup­pies. Their brains were shed upon the ground, and the earth was wet with their blood. Then he tore them limb from limb and supped upon them. He gob­bled them up like a lion in the wilder­ness, flesh, bones, mar­row, and entrails, with­out leav­ing any­thing uneaten.” — Homer, The Odyssey Book 9, trans. Samuel Butler.

Links:

The Odyssey, by Homer Trans­lated by Samuel But­ler via the Clas­sics Archive at MIT.
Free online audio ver­sion of the But­ler trans­la­tion of They Odyssey at Lib­rivox. Although it is great to read Homer, one should lis­ten to a good read­ing of his epics. Con­sid­er­ing that’s how most in the ancient world were exposed to them, I find it fun to lis­ten to them being read. It makes me feel like I am walk­ing in their shoes, er sandals.

Doodle of the Day for February 19, 2009

The witch Circe tempts the crew of wily Odysseus.

Click for the full image.

Doodle of the Day for February 15, 2009

Helen of Troy and Menelaus rem­i­nisce about the golden age of heroes.

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Doodle of the Day for February 14, 2009

A moment of peace on the Island of the Cyclops. Before the dark times, before the com­ing of Odysseus. Polyphe­mus idyll.

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Doodle of the Day for February 10, 2009

Polyphe­mus has a late night snack, con­sist­ing of two slices of bread, mayo and the crew of clever Odysseus.

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Doodle of the Day for February 9, 2009

Odysseus hears the com­plaints of the dead while vis­it­ing the under­world to get direc­tions. Elpenor let’s Odysseus know, in no uncer­tain terms, that he needs a proper bur­ial, Odysseus is unmoved.

Click for the full image.

O Devine Poesy…

Mosaic of the Muses, Roman Museum of Sabratha, Libya. by Sebastià Giralt

Make this site live for us in its many bear­ings, O Muse…

In the great book “The War of Art” by Steven Press­field he details how he begins any cre­ative ven­ture by call­ing on the muses for suc­cess. He does this by recit­ing the open­ing lines from the T.E. Lawrence trans­la­tion of The Odyssey; when Homer calls on the muses to speak through him and aid him in recit­ing the tale of the return of clever Odysseus to Ithaca. This seems like a good idea to me, espe­cially for my first post. So here is my call on the nine muses for aid and inspi­ra­tion for this blog, port­fo­lio and podcast.

“O Divine Poesy, god­dess, daugh­ter of Zeus, sus­tain for me this song of the various-minded man, who, after he had plun­dered the inner­most citadel of hal­lowed Troy, was made to stray griev­ously about the coasts of men, the sport of their cus­toms, good and bad, while his heart, through all the sea­far­ing, ached with an agony to redeem him­self and bring his com­pany safe home. Vain hope-for them. The fools! Their own wit­less­ness cast them aside. To destroy for meat the oxen of the most exalted Sun, where­fore the Sun-god blot­ted out the day of their return. Make this tale live for us in all its many bear­ings, O Muse…”

- from the Odyssey, by Homer; Trans­lated by T.E. Lawrence