| “ | Né dolcezza di figlio, né la pieta del vecchio padre, né ’l debito amore lo qual dovea Penelopé far lieta, vincer potero dentro a me l’ardore ch’i’ ebbi a divenir del mondo esperto, e de li vizi umani e del valore. (Translation: Not a son's tenderness, nor pity for an elderly father, nor the due love that should have graced Penelope, were able to overpower, inside of me, the burning desire for me to know all of the world, and of human vices and virtues.) | „ |
| ~ Ulysses, starting the tale of his last journey. |
Ulysses is a minor character in italian poet Dante Alighieri's 1320 epic La Commedia (later known as La Divina Commedia, The Divine Comedy in English).
He is based on the eponimous hero and king of Itaca from Ancient Greek Mythology but, unlike Homer's Odysseus, Dante's Ulysses did not return to Itaca after making it out of his journeys throughout the Odyssey but, instead, decided to spend his last years exploring every corner of the Earth, until he eventually ventured beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, reached the Mount of Purgatory and was punished by God for his Hubris with a terrible storm.
In death, Ulysses' deceit, which contributed to Troy's end, is punished for all of eternity as he is forever burning in the VIII Malebolgia of Hell, that of the Fraudolent Advisors, along with Diomedes, his main co-conspirator. There, he is met by Dante and his guide, the Latin writer Virgil, in the XXVI Canto of Inferno and narrates of his death.
What Makes Him Magnificent?[]
- He was the wise king of Itaca and, although he eventually abandoned them to sail the Earth, he deeply cared for his family.
- When the godess Teti, Achilles' mother, tried to hide her son by disguising him as a woman and leaving him in the kingdom of Sciro, as she knew he'd die in the war between Greece and Troy, Ulysses was sent to find Achilles, who was vital to the Greek winning, and tricked the warrior by sneaking some weapons in the gifts he gave to the women and then having his men pretend there was an enemy attack so that Achilles would grab the weapons, forgo his disguise and join the fight.
- He and Diomedes deviced the gambit of the Trojan Horse, arguably the most iconic deceit in History. The Greek presented Troy with a giant wooden horse as a "gift", when, in fact, it was hiding Greece's strongest warriors, who were unwittingly smuggled into Troy's walls by the Trojan and ransacked the city from the inside.
- Although it's unknown how much information Dante had of Homer's Odyssey (and it was likely very little), it can be presumed this version of Ulysses also came up with the multiple brilliant ideas he had in the original poem, such as his deceit of Polifemus the cyclops or outsmarting the Sirens.
- After being let go by Circes, Ulysses decided to embark on one more journey and venture where no man ever had before, determined to know all of the Earth.
- In general, despite having been immoral enough to be damned for all eternity, Ulysses embodies the human virtue of the thirst for knowledge.
- Despite him and his last remaining crewmates all being elderly, Ulysses spurred his crewmates into joining him on the journey with his sheer charisma and oratory skills, and claims to Virgil that he inspired such determination in them that he wouldn't have been able to talk them out of it if he tried.
- Despite being mere mortals, he and his crew manage to defy the limits God imposed on mankind by sailing beyond the Strait of Gibraltar until he got to see the Mount of Purgatory, by which point his Hubris was punished with a storm that killed Ulysses and all of his crew.
- In Hell, Ulysses is still a very dignified and respectable figure despite his condition as a damned soul.
- He provides Virgil and Dante with a very powerful dramatic retelling of his last journey and death, and, in death, he has become wise enough to look back at the expedition as a "mad flight" ("folle volo").
- Ulysses' monologue in the XXVI Canto of Inferno is one of the most famous and iconic chapter in all of La Commedia, to the point more than one professional italian actor has acted it out, such as Vittorio Gassman.
What Makes Him a Baddie?[]
- His strategies greatly contributed to Troy being destroyed with very few survivors, making Ulysses an accesory to genocide. The only thing keeping him from being too heinous under this aspect is the fact that he's not stated to have held outright bigoted hatred towards the Trojans and likely saw them as just enemies of his allies, the Greek.
- Although genocide wasn't considered nearly as heinous in Ulysses' times or even Dante's, Dante still portrays Troy's destruction as fully wrong (as Virgil wrote that the Roman Empire, therefore Italy, was born from the last surviving Trojans) and Ulysses' deceit is punished with eternal damnation in the Malebolgia of the Fraudolent Advisors.
- He helped in the theft of the Palladius.
- Although he deeply loved them and was conflicted at the start, he decided to abandon his elderly father Laertes, his incredibly loyal wife Penelope and dog Argo and his young song Telemacus back at Itaca so he could, instead, explore the world.
- Although a noble cause, his thrist for knowledge overstepped into Hubris when Ulysses ventured as far as the Mount of Purgatory, which lead to his death via devine punishment.
- Since he exposed Achilles when he was hiding in Sciro and helped in making Achilles join the war, in which he would eventually die, Dante considers Ulysses to be indirectly responsible for Achilles' mother Teti and his wife Deidamia's mourning of him.
Trivia[]
- This is, so far, the only version of Ulysses/Odysseus to be a Magnificent Baddie.
- Ulysses is the only Magnificent Baddie to come from La Commedia, as well as the earliest Book Magnificent Baddie.
- As La Commedia was finished by Dante in 1320, Ulysses is the second oldest Magnificent Baddie approved on this Wiki behind Isis.