Although this information is not explicitly contained in the poem itself, we can look to another text—Homer's Odyssey—to learn these facts, which do inform the content of this poem. In the poem, Ulysses's crew sings about their "island home" and how it is "far beyond the wave[s]." This island home is called Ithaca, and they have been laboring in vain, trying to return home, for a very long time.

They are now, in short, tired of the labor and the pain of never actually reaching home—they say that they make "perpetual moan" (they are crying all the time)—and so they make the decision to remain in the Land of the Lotos-Eaters. Ulysses and his men left Ithaca to fight in the Trojan War, which lasted ten years. Then, according to the Odyssey, he spends another three years sailing with his crew and stopping at myriad places, some of which are quite dangerous and result in the death of at least a few of the crew.

They are trying to make their way home, but they have some bad luck, and, when Ulysses angers the god of the sea, Poseidon, it results in even more obstacles. After these three years, the remainder of his crew perishes, and Ulysses ends up on the island of the sea nymph, Calypso, who keeps him there as her lover for seven years. According to this timeline, by the time of the poem, Ulysses and his crew have likely been away for approximately eleven years (including the time spent fighting the war).