Blanchot (commenting on Priam's supplication of Achilles) says the choice in Homer is violence or speech. In Vergil, in the modern state, our choice is only violence or the silence, whether of Dido or Ajax, imposed upon us by our isolation within the emptiness of our dreams (Milton).

Poetry has long been fascinated with describing the dislocating effects of sea travel and still serves as a conceptual refuge for those lost at sea in a contemporary world.