Who is Ulysses from Selected Poems and what is their importance?

Ulysses appears in the poems, The Self and the Other and The Unending Rose.
Ulysses was the hero of Homer's ancient Greek epic poem, The Odyssey. Ulysses traveled the world, saw amazing sights and had perilous adventures. Borges, who led a relatively quiet life, identified strongly, and perhaps vicariously, with the hero.