Tithonus, reaching for immortality, achieves only a struldbruggian kind of existence; and Ulysses in his infinite search for knowledge sets out with his mariners on that final voyage that leads them only deathward.

She took a spell of grammary, and threw it on the knight: / Still he stood, and moved not: (I tell the tale aright:) / She took from him his falchion, unlac'd his hauberk bright. / Mournfully Wolfdietrich cried, Gone is all my might.[…]

I don't know how the affair will end. Keep me posted up in the governor's symptoms, and write again soon.

The authors have facetiously labeled the contemplated musical as 'Ratfink', after the name of its central character, James J. Ratfink. Its title is not meant in a derogatory sense.