Telemachus responds to Ulysses
(from L.A. Tennyson's poem: "Ulysses")

Mother and I knew that when you returned
you'd not stay idle for long, bored quickly
by the sphere of common duty, which is
somehow fitting for your own son, your own
Telemachus-- I work my work, you yours.
Am I not capable of heroics?
Have you forgot when I fought beside you,
valiantly `gainst the many suitors?
It was not so long ago my father--
mine own Ulysses. I too crave for more
than the scepter and the isle. I want to
drink life to the lees, leave all to the fates
and dance, with a merry band of sailors,
an adventure that will awe even the
immortal gods, so all will know the name
Telemachus, of god-like Ulysses,
leader of men, aspiring beyond the
mortal scope of land and water, beyond
air itself, to some new place unknown.
But you, not I, are the great explorer.

Father your words are full or grandeur but
are empty. You are an old man. Look now
as you and your gray-haired sailors scatter,
foreheads down and wrinkled with thoughts of
the waiting odysseys, struggles, surely
you will be striving with the gods soon.
You are set to voyage back to the land,
you oft told me about, where you forgot;
the land of the wondering lotos-eaters,
but now the land is traveling with you,
on your noble, on your final voyage.
The impetus and purpose of your quest
you say is to remember your stature
of long ago, but it is really to
forget; to return to the state of blind
escapade; to walk on the sandy beach
of nowhere and give onto it a name.

As ever your eyes are looking through this
moment. Even as you say goodbye to
Mother and I, taking her roughly in
your arms, the glassy stare is fixed elsewhere,
over her shoulder, over my head, over
this happy isle. What do you think you see?
One last chance for greatness, to push further
than men one third your age to prove somehow
that you are, and always were, favoured by
the gods? Father as you sail away, think:
some men are made great through common duty.

Unbeknownst and regretfully I have
revealed my own inferiority.
You, father, could always rise to any
challenge. Mine is to rule this land fairly,
to be strong, just, tender, and unyielding.
Needs must I forge my own heroic path,
which differs from yours, but is still noble;
commanding so many men and women
is a task fit for a king such as I;
a king, Ulysses, you could never be.