Allusion in Ulysses

Achilles, or Achilleus, is one of the greatest warriors in Greek mythology. His mother, Thetis, submerged him in the magical waters of the River Styx when he was an infant so that he would become invulnerable. However, she gripped him by the ankle, which remained above water and caused his heel to be the only vulnerable part of his body. Achilles, who grows into a very strong, nearly invulnerable man, dies during the Trojan War when Paris shoots him in the heel with an arrow.

In Greek mythology, Telemachus is the son of Odysseus and a major character in Homer’s Odyssey. In Homer’s Iliad, Odysseus left to fight in the Trojan War while Telemachus was an infant, and two decades later at the start of the Odyssey, he has yet to return to his son and wife. In the meantime, his house has been overrun with suitors who are interested in his wife, Penelope. With the instruction and aid of the goddess Athena, Telemachus sets out to learn what happened to his father. After finally returning home to Ithaca, he learns that Odysseus—in the guise of a beggar—has arrived to reclaim his house. Together, father and son slay Penelope’s suitors and Odysseus resumes his role as the king of Ithaca.

Ulysses applies to himself the simile of “rusty mail,” or rusted armor, deployed by Odysseus in Troilus and Cressida, a Shakespearean tragedy written in approximately 1602. In the play, Odysseus tells Achilles that “perseverance...Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang/ Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail/ In monumental mockery.” For Tennyson’s Ulysses, to become idle is to become dull like unused metal. However, to persevere against idleness offers hope; by sailing into “the western stars,” Ulysses may find paradise instead of the “eternal silence” of the underworld.

Troy was the ancient city where the legendary Trojan War took place. In Greek mythology, Ulysses, which is the Latin name for Odysseus, was a champion in the decade-long siege that began after Paris of Troy abducted Helen from Sparta. Much of the battle took place on the plain of Scamander, across from the city of Troy.

The Hyades is a V-shaped cluster of stars within the constellation Taurus. According to Greek mythology, the Hyades were the five daughters of Atlas and sisters of the Pleiades and Hesperides. The Hyades were believed to have been transformed, weeping, into a group of stars after the death of their brother Hyas. For millennia, the Hyades stars were believed to forecast rain when they rose with the sun.