TITHONUS

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892), was an
English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In
1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of
his first pieces, "Timbuktu". He published his first solo collection of poems, Poems,
Chiefly Lyrical, in 1830. "Claribel" and "Mariana", which remain some of Tennyson's
most celebrated poems, were included in this volume. Although described by some
critics as overly sentimental, his poems ultimately proved popular and brought
Tennyson to the attention of well-known writers of the day, including Samuel Taylor
Coleridge. Tennyson's early poetry, with its medievalism and powerful visual imagery,
was a major influence on the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

Tennyson also focused on short lyrics, such as "Break, Break, Break", "The Charge
of the Light Brigade", "Tears, Idle Tears", and "Crossing the Bar". Much of his verse
was based on classical mythological themes, such as "Ulysses". "In Memoriam
A.H.H." was written to commemorate his friend Arthur Hallam, a fellow poet and
student at Trinity College, Cambridge, after he died of a stroke at the age of
22.[2] Tennyson also wrote notable blank verse, including Idylls of the King,
"Ulysses", and "Tithonus". During his career, Tennyson attempted drama, but his
plays enjoyed little success.

A number of phrases from Tennyson's work have become commonplace in the

English language, including "Nature, red in tooth and claw" ("In Memoriam A.H.H."),
"'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all", "Theirs not to
reason why, / Theirs but to do and die", "My strength is as the strength of ten, /
Because my heart is pure", "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield", "Knowledge
comes, but Wisdom lingers", and "The old order changeth, yielding place to new". He
is the ninth most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations.
POEM
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,

The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,

Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,

And after many a summer dies the swan.

Me only cruel immortality

Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms,

Here at the quiet limit of the world,

A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream

The ever-silent spaces of the East,

Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.

Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man—

So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,

Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd

To his great heart none other than a God!

I ask'd thee, 'Give me immortality.'

Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,

Like wealthy men, who care not how they give.

But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills,

And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me,

And tho' they could not end me, left me maim'd

To dwell in presence of immortal youth,

Immortal age beside immortal youth,

And all I was, in ashes. Can thy love,

Thy beauty, make amends, tho' even now,

Close over us, the silver star, thy guide,

Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears

To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift:

Why should a man desire in any way

To vary from the kindly race of men

Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance

Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?

A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes

A glimpse of that dark world where I was born.

Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals

From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,

And bosom beating with a heart renew'd.

Thy cheek begins to redden thro' the gloom,

Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,

Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,

And shake the darkness from their loosen'd manes,

And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.

Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful

In silence, then before thine answer given

Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek.

Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,

And make me tremble lest a saying learnt,

In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true?

'The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.'

Ay me! ay me! with what another heart

In days far-off, and with what other eyes

I used to watch—if I be he that watch'd—

The lucid outline forming round thee; saw

The dim curls kindle into sunny rings;

Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood

Glow with the glow that slowly crimson'd all

Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay,

Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm

With kisses balmier than half-opening buds

Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd

Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet,

Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing,

While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.

Yet hold me not for ever in thine East:

How can my nature longer mix with thine?

Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold

Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet

Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam

Floats up from those dim fields about the homes

Of happy men that have the power to die,

And grassy barrows of the happier dead.

Release me, and restore me to the gro0075nd;

Thou seëst all things, thou wilt see my grave:

Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn;

I earth in earth forget these empty courts,

And thee returning on thy silver wheels.

‘Tithonus‘ by Lord Alfred Tennyson is written in the form of a dramatic monologue in

which only one speaker is used to tell an entire story. There is no consistent rhyme
scheme or pattern of meter in the piece, meaning that it is written in blank or free
verse.

‘Tithonus‘ was first written under the title “Tithon” in 1833. It did not appear to a wide
readership until 1859 when it was published under its full name. While not one of
Tennyson’s most popular or well-known pieces, ‘Tithonus‘ is characteristic of the
poet’s style and a wonderful example of his ability to expand on already
existing myths and legends.
SUMMARY
‘Tithonus‘ by Lord Alfred Tennyson describes the plight of Tithonus who is cursed to
an immortal life in which he continues to age.

The poem begins with the speaker, Tithonus, desiring how sorrowful the naturally
aging woods make him. Unlike all the other elements of the world, he is unable to
die. He cannot, as they do, return to the earth and become something new. He is
slowly being consumed by the hours of his life that will never end. He is stuck in the
“East” with his once beloved Eos who is the cause of his wretched state, (see About
the Myth for more details).
The speaker describes himself as no longer being a man, but a mere shadow who is
forced to see the never-aging face of his beloved every morning. In the next few line,
he quickly outlines how he came to be this way. He describes asking Eos for
immortality and her granting it to him without considering his youth. He will never
pass beyond the

“goal of ordinance” or reach death, as other men do. It is obvious to him now the
mistake he has made. Every morning of Tithonus’ life he is forced to see the sunrise
and observe Eos’ chariot take her into the sky where he once adored her. Every day
he asks her to take back what she has given but receives no answer. He fears that
she is unable to retract something she has given out.

In the next section of the poem, the speaker is remembering an old lover he used to
have and the simple times they were together. It is this life that he should have had.
They lay together, touching mouths and eyelids without pretense or the pull of
immortality.
The poem concludes with the speaker asking that Eos free him from the East where
he has been trapped and allow him to die. If he was to do so, he could join the other
men in the earth and she could always look down on his grave.

ABOUT THE MYTH

Tithonus is a character that features in Greek mythology and is the son of the King of
Troy, Laomedon. His mother was born of the river Scamander. In the story, Eos, or
Aurora, the embodiment of dawn, fell in love with Tithonus. Together they had two
children.

After this, in an effort to stay with her beloved forever, Eos asks the god Zeus to
grant Tithonus eternal life. Zeus agreed to this proposition but Eos had not been
specific enough. Tithonus was to live forever, but also continue aging. He would not
retain his youth as Eos would. Throughout his long life, Tithonus continued to age,
never reaching the threshold of death. In Tennyson’s version of this myth, it is not
Zeus that grants immortality but Eos herself.

Synopsis and structure

[edit]
The poem begins with Tithonus speaking to Eos "at the quiet limit of the world" (line
7) where he lives with her. Confronted with old age and its attendant pains, he
meditates upon death and mortality, and mourns the fact that death cannot release
him from his misery. He recounts how Eos, choosing him to be her lover, had filled
him with so much pride that he had seemed "To his great heart none other than a
God!" (14). Though she carelessly granted him immortality at his asking, he could
not escape the ravages of time. The Hours aged him and his youth and beauty faded
away−-"But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills / And beat me down and
marr'd and wasted me" (18–19). He asks Eos to set him free−-"Let me go; take back
thy gift" (27)−-and questions why anyone should desire that which is unattainable.
Dawn (1881) by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Eos was the Greek goddess of the
dawn.

Eos departs at dawn without replying to his wish that she take back the boon of
immortality. As she leaves, her tears fall on his cheek. This fills him with the
foreboding that the saying he had learnt on earth, that even "The Gods themselves
cannot recall their gifts"(49), might be true. He remembers his youth when he would
feel his whole body come alive at dawn as Eos kissed him and whispered to him
words "wild and sweet" (61), which seemed like the song Apollo sang as Ilion (Troy)
was being built. In the final section, weary of life and immortality, he yearns for death
to take him. He feels that "men that have the power to die" (70) are happy and
fortunate. Since his "immortal age" (22) can no longer be reconciled with Eos'
"immortal youth" (22), he once more begs her:

Release me, and restore me to the ground;

Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave:
Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn;
I earth in earth forget these empty courts,
And thee returning on thy silver wheels.

THEMES
Old Age and Death
In “Tithonus,” Tennyson examines the legendary figure of that same name: a prince
of Troy who became the lover of the dawn goddess Eos (a.k.a. Aurora). Eos made
Tithonus immortal so that the two could be together forever; sadly, she forgot to
specify that he should be immortally young. Tithonus thus became impossibly
ancient. The miserable Tithonus is this poem’s speaker, and his reflections capture
the dreadful pain of old age—and the mercy of death. Death, in this poem, is kindly:
humanity simply wasn’t meant to live forever, and to one day become “earth in earth”
is no terrible doom, but a natural relief.

The aged Tithonus feels horribly out of place in the “gleaming halls of morn”—the
celestial palaces he shares with his lover Eos. “Marr’d” (or disfigured) and “wasted”
(or shrivelled) by the long, merciless passage of time, he’s a “shadow” of his youthful
self. He can no longer enjoy the pleasures of love in his broken old body. Where
once he used to share in Eos’s mysterious “change” as she glowed and renewed
every morning (like the dawn of which she is the goddess), now he feels alienated
from that gorgeous eternal youth; the only embrace he shares with his one-time lover
these days is one that leaves his face wet with Eos’s guilty tears. His impossible,
endless old age, in other words, has robbed him of all life’s pleasures, leaving him
marooned in a world that can no longer make him happy.

Most mortals escape the pains of their later years the old-fashioned way: by dying.
For the immortal Tithonus, however, that simply isn’t an option. Though he begs Eos
to “take back [her] gift” and let him die, she doesn’t seem able to do so. Tithonus is
thus robbed of his only possible release. His longing for death and envy of “those
happy men that have the power to die” reminds readers that death, so often
imagined as a terror to be fled, is in fact a necessary, natural, even merciful part of
human life. Old age, with its frailty and loss, is far more unkind.
Perhaps the poem even suggests that this embrace of death is a kind of wisdom that
only comes with age. The arrogant young Tithonus could never have imagined
wanting his glorious life to be over. The elderly Tithonus wants nothing more than to
be among the “happier dead.”

Grief and Memory

The story of “Tithonus” can be read, not just as a haunting tale of a wish gone bad,
but as an extended metaphor for the experience of grief. The juxtaposition of the
eternally aging Tithonus with the eternally youthful Eos mirrors the experience of a
person mourning a loved one who died too young. The survivor keeps getting older,
but the lost one seems trapped in amber, never aging. (This was an experience all
too familiar to Tennyson: he drafted this poem shortly after his beloved friend Arthur
Henry Hallam died at the age of only 22.) Part of the pain of grief, the poem
suggests, is the sense that a happier, more beautiful time remains frozen in one’s
memory: always present, but just out of reach. Perhaps such memories, no matter
how lovely, can even start to feel like a prison.

Every day, the withered Tithonus is confronted with the sight of his beloved Eos
lighting up with the sunrise. Like the dawn of which she is the goddess, she shines
brighter as night turns into morning: her eyes “brighten,” her cheek “redden[s],” and
her “bosom beat[s] with a heart renew’d.” In other words, she’s the very picture of
fresh and glowing youth, always as beautiful as she was when Tithonus first loved
her. Her “renew[al]” only keeps her the same: she’s an eternal vision of “immortal
youth.” Tithonus,

meanwhile, gets older and older, sadder and sadder, wasting away into a tragic
“shadow” of his former self Eos’s youth and beauty thus become an inescapable
torment to Tithonus—just as the unchanging memory of dead loved ones might
torment those who survive them. Trapped in Eos’s "gleaming halls of morn," unable
even to escape his suffering through his own death, Tithonus can be read as an
image of a mourner paralysed by changeless images of the person they’ve lost.
Perhaps only the mourner's own death can free them from the prison of memory.

Death
For many people, death is terrifying. It is something unknown that reaches into every
human life, steals loved ones, and eventually catches up with each person. Many
view it as an enemy to be defeated or held off as long as possible.

Yet Tennyson presents a very different perspective on death in "Tithonus." The title
character has gained what many literary characters want the most until they actually
get it: immortality. Tithonus no longer wants his immortality; he longs to die. His life
has drawn out to infinity, but his youth has failed him. He is old and miserable.

Now, death seems like Tithonus's best friend. He realizes that it is the natural state of
human beings. It is what is supposed to happen to people when they grow old, and it
eliminates their suffering. It is an end, but to Tithonus, it no longer carries any fear; it
is just release, calm, and peace.

In fact, Tithonus looks upon the people who can die and calls them happy. Death is
impossible for him, yet he longs for it, and he envies those who can have it, viewing
it as a gift that he does not have the privilege of possessing.

Desire
Human life is filled with desires. People want all kinds of things: money, love, honor,
glory, material possessions, and friendship. These longings seem endless. But
Tennyson, in "Tithonus," reflects on the negative effects of human desire, how
people get what they want only to discover that it is not what they truly need.

Tithonus himself offers a prime example of desire gone wrong. In his youth, Tithonus
fell in love with the goddess Eos, and she with him. Their desire was such that they
became wrapped up in each other, and their good judgment faltered. He asked her
for immortality to fulfill his desire for her forever. She granted that desire in response
to her own desire for him.

Their desires blinded them to reality and led Eos to make a critical mistake when she
granted her lover immortality without perpetual youth to go along with it. Within the
span of a few years, Tithonus learned that his desire was not what he truly needed. It
did not correspond with his human nature. Desire led only to misery.
At the time of the poem, Tithonus is focused on another desire; he wants his
goddess to take back her gift and allow him to die. The withered old Tithonus has
discovered that humans often want exactly what is worst for them. Now, he is
trapped, for Eos cannot give him what he wants the most: death. His desire will
remain forever unfulfilled.

Nature

Nature plays many roles in Tennyson’s poetry. Occasionally she is beguiling and
sensuous, as in “The Lotos-Eaters.” In that poem the men sojourning on the isle are
entranced by their natural surroundings and do not want to return to their normal
lives. Nature is also an ever-present reminder of the cycle of life from birth to death;
existing outside of that cycle can bring grief and separation from one’s mortal
humanity, for better or for worse. Occasionally Nature is a reminder of the vitality of
life and existence; other times Nature is used as a metaphor for death (see “Break,
break, break” for the former and “Crossing the Bar” for the latter). Finally, Nature can
also be chaotic, hostile, and indifferent to Man. The casual way she discards species
and wreaks havoc leads the poet to conclude that life might be meaningless.

Artistic Isolation

Tennyson struggled with the question of whether great art had to be produced in
artistic isolation or if engagement with the world was acceptable and would not cloud
artistic vision. In “The Lady of Shalott” he examines this question. Her island is a
safe haven for artists, and she creates her magic web in contentment. However, she
is not actually creating reality, since she only sees things reflected in the mirror, and
she eventually tires of her estrangement from life and love. When she chooses to
look out the window and leave her tower, thus breaking the rule in the curse, she
chooses to embrace a full and passionate life. However, this life is actually death,
and her art is destroyed as well. The poem suggests that the end of artistic isolation
brings a loss of creativity and artistic power.

Spirituality

Tennyson adhered to a Christian faith that can most vividly be seen in “In
Memoriam,” but he was not wary of expressing his difficulties with that faith and
religious belief, particularly in the wake of the death of Hallam. He engages with the
scientific findings of the Victorian era, wondering whether Nature is truly indifferent to
Man and whether death only brings obliteration of the soul. He finds it difficult to be
optimistic and positive that he will be reunited with Hallam after death and that there
is any purpose in living. The poet’s lapses in faith, however, are reconciled by the
end of the poem. He moves from doubt to acceptance, certain once more that the
spirit is not gone after death but lives on and progresses to a higher state. He
believes that God does have a plan for human beings and that one’s presence on
earth is not accidental or unheeded.

Time
Many of Tennyson’s works reflect his working through the implications of time.
Growing old and lingering on are laborious and enervating in poems like “Tithonus”
and “The Two Voices,” while in “Ulysses” the title character wants to keep
adventuring as long as he can. Life on earth can be very sad because one is
separated from loved ones who have died and because knowledge is limited. Time is
also complicated by the tensions between science and religion; science reveals that
time stretches on for a very long time, and religion asserts but does not prove what
happens after death. Generally, the poet’s reflection is that life is fleeting and short,
wasted if one dwells merely in sadness or in hope, and worth savouring while it lasts.

Courage

Many of Tennyson’s greatest poems feature individuals displaying great courage,

especially under duress. Courage is a universally admired virtue, but during the
Victorian age and for the British in particular, it was extremely important. “The
Charge of the Light Brigade” features the “noble” six hundred soldiers who rush into
a battle even though they know they will probably perish; their courage and
willingness to follow orders are exemplary. Similarly, Tennyson creates a highly
sympathetic character in Princess Ida from “The Princess: A Medley.” She is firmly
committed to her vision and does not yield to those who wish to dissuade her from
her noble goal of securing gender equality. In “Morte d’Arthur,” one of the most
heroic men in legendary history, King Arthur, is depicted demonstrating his courage
not in the heat of battle but in his willingness to face death; much like Ulysses.
Courage is perhaps the greatest Tennysonian virtue.

The Reconciliation of Religion and Science

Tennyson lived during a period of great scientific advancement, and he used his
poetry to work out the conflict between religious faith and scientific discoveries.
Notable scientific findings and theories of the Victorian period include stratigraphy,
the geological study of rock layers used to date the earth, in 1811; the first sighting of
an asteroid in 1801 and galaxies in the 1840s; and Darwin’s theory of evolution and
natural selection in 1859. In the second half of the century, scientists, such as Fülöp
Semmelweis, Joseph Lister, and Louis Pasteur, began the experiments and work
that would eventually lead to germ theory and our modern understanding of
microorganisms and diseases. These discoveries challenged traditional religious
understandings of nature and natural history.

For most of his career, Tennyson was deeply interested in and troubled by these
discoveries. His poem “Locksley Hall” (1842) expresses his ambivalence about
technology and scientific progress. There the speaker feels tempted to abandon
modern civilization and return to a savage life in the jungle. In the end, he chooses to
live a civilized, modern life and enthusiastically endorses technology. In
Memoriam connects the despair Tennyson felt over the loss of his friend Arthur
Hallam and the despair he felt when contemplating a godless world. In the end, the
poem affirms both religious faith and faith in human progress. Nevertheless,
Tennyson continued to struggle with the reconciliation of science and religion, as
illustrated by some of his later work. For example, “Locksley Hall Sixty Years After”
(1886) takes as its protagonist the speaker from the original “Locksley Hall,” but now
he is an old man, who looks back on his youthful optimism and faith in progress with
scorn and skepticism.

The Virtues of Perseverance and Optimism

After the death of his friend Arthur Hallam, Tennyson struggled through a period of
deep despair, which he eventually overcame to begin writing again. During his time
of mourning, Tennyson rarely wrote and, for many years, battled alcoholism. Many of
his poems are about the temptation to give up and fall prey to pessimism, but they
also extol the virtues of optimism and discuss the importance of struggling on with
life. The need to persevere and continue is the central theme of In Memoriam and
“Ulysses” (1833), both written after Hallam’s death. Perhaps because of Tennyson’s
gloomy and tragic childhood, perseverance and optimism also appear in poetry
written before Hallam’s death, such as “The Lotos-Eaters” (1832, 1842). Poems such
as “The Lady of Shalott” (1832, 1842) and “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (1854)
also vary this theme: both poems glorify characters who embrace their destinies in
life, even though those destinies end in tragic death. The Lady of Shalott leaves her
seclusion to meet the outer world, determined to seek the love that is missing in her
life. The cavalrymen in “The Charge of the Light Brigade” keep charging through the
valley toward the Russian cannons; they persevere even as they realize that they will
likely die.

The Glory of England

Tennyson used his poetry to express his love for England. Although he expressed
worry and concern about the corruption that so dominated the nineteenth century, he
also wrote many poems that glorify nineteenth-century England. “The Charge of the
Light Brigade” praises the fortitude and courage of English soldiers during a battle of
the Crimean War in which roughly 200 men were killed. As poet laureate, Tennyson
was required to write poems for specific state occasions and to dedicate verse to
Queen Victoria and her husband, Prince Albert. Nevertheless, Tennyson praised
England even when not specifically required to do so. In the Idylls of the King,
Tennyson glorified England by encouraging a collective English cultural identity: all of
England could take pride in Camelot, particularly the chivalrous and capable knights
who lived there. Indeed, the modern conception of Camelot as the source of loyalty,
chivalry, and romance comes, in part, from Tennyson’s descriptions of it in the Idylls
of the King and “The Lady of Shalott.”