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ozymandias
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
-P.B. Shelly
For more information on who ozymandias really was, go here: http://expat.savagenet.com/the-real-ozymandias/.
User Comments:Who: greenback
When: February 1st, 2005
Says: what's all that about then? It's too late a night for me to get deep in poetry.
Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Pepper.
How's that then Shelly Eh?! stick that in your pipe and smoke it, you deep thinker you!!
Who: cheapshot
When: June 2nd, 2005
Says: Well i quite like it you skunkasoures
Who: randomer
When: May 13th, 2006
Says: this is so confusing! i dont understand ozymandias of egypt at all!! it would be nice if there was a sumery at the end or something!!! i dont understand it because i am only 12!! this is some quite hard homework!! make it better!!
Who:
When: June 14th, 2006
Says: I just wrote a summary for you and my internet connection cut off and I lost the whole thing. when do you need it for? It's a wonderful poem. Don't want to repeat it all again now
Who:
When: June 14th, 2006
Says: Randomer I'm a teacher of English living in Russia if you want to discuss the poem make another posting. I'm too pissed off at my internet company to do it all again immediately
Who: tassle
When: June 20th, 2006
Says: Hi could you(pardu50@hotmail.com) please do another summary I also need help with my project =) I can't find any good, informative sites yet...
Who: Andrew
When: June 20th, 2006
Says: The poem is for me about the trancience and ephemoral nature of power ( it is shortlived. and the poem has direct parallels with what has happened in Eastern Europe during the late 20th century and throughout history . Let's go line by line and I'll give you my thoughts. "I met a traveller from an ancient land who said two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert." so we have a pair of legs in the desert without a body" and near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies" so we also have the broken head of the statue ( visage is a word from French which means, face) The face expresses our emotions and the body is the place where our heart is. The heart is the symbol of the source of our emotions( of course in the biological sense it is only a pump and may react to our emotions but does not create them). Now when we look on the statue of Ozymandias we see he has no body thus no heart, he is literally heartless. The poet reinforces and backs up this idea in the next lines." whose frown and wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command, tell that the sculpture well those passions read." What is the poet telling us about Ozimandias? When do we frown? when we are angry. Sneer? When we hold people in contempt, when we think other people's ideas are not as good as ours or basically when we think WE are superior. The words "cold command" other collocations of cold: cold hearted coldblooded. Again there is an emphasis on the lack of emotion. But Ozymandias didn't fool everyone. He had the statue built to glorify himself, to satisfy his own ego and vanity,but the sculptor was not taken in by the king, and found a way of showing everone the true nature of Ozimandias. "the hand that mocked and the heart that fed" Full of his own importance Ozimandias does not see that the sculptor is making fun of him. His heart fed on his own importance and vanity, but everybody else could see what a tyrant he was, thanks to the sculptor
" my name is Ozymandias King of Kings, look on my works ye mighty and despair"
Ozymandias is setting himself up as the best of the best, there is no competition and THAT, he believes is why other mighty, strong people should despair. but the phrase is a two edged sword. Nothing remains of his kingdom except this broken statue. "Nothing beside remains"Nobody remembers him and the statue he built to glorify himself actually vilifies him ( shows him in a very bad way)
. "Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away." We have the words decay, wreck. Which things decay? what is a wreck? The only constant in this poem is the limitless desert, nature. There have been many examples of self glorification through the building of enormous statues, whether Nebucabnezza in the Bible or the statues of Nazi Germany or the so called socialist realism art of the former Soviet Union . You can find pictures on the internet of statues of Lenin being pulled down. Unfortunately I can't post a pic here, but there is one which would well illustrate the poem "Osymandias"
I hope this helps you a bit. All the best
Who: tassle
When: June 21st, 2006
Says: thanks that gave me a few more thoughts, ideas for my annotation :) But i'm still confused as to what these lines mean:
"tell what its sculptor well those passions read/ Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,/ The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,"
What, whose are 'those passions'? And what is the thing that survives, and what are "these lifeless things"? And who does the "hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed," belong to?
Who: Andrew
When: June 23rd, 2006
Says: The sculptor made the statue with a wrinkled lip and a sneer because he thought it showed the kings real character/ feelings ie passions, he understood the king was a tyrant" tell that its sculptor well those passions read" = show that the sculptor understood the kings character (kings passions),and although the king is long dead and his empire/ kingdom gone, the work of the sculptor remains to show us how this king was disliked by his people we too can read those passions"which yet survive" = which still survive. "These lifeless things" = the broken pieces of the statue.(remember the head is broken ) Stamped here really means carved.
"The hand that mocked them" the hand of the sculptor, he made the statue by hand and was really making fun of the king remember, the king had the statue made to glorify himself it should have shown him as the perfect monarch, the skilled artist has shown the negative side of the king but the king is too full of his own importance to see this. " the heart that fed" the heart symbolises the centre of passion and emotion. The king's biggest/ greatest emotion is his vanity/ love of himself. Seeing the statue made the kings heart swell with pride. The sight of it fed and nourished his passion/ vanity. this vanity stopped him seeing that the sculptor was taking the piss out of him ( to use a modern expression)
Sorry this is very badly written but I hope it helps you a bit more Andrew
Who: Andrew
When: June 23rd, 2006
Says: http://www.egyptsites.co.uk/upper/luxorwest/temples/rameses2.html Ozymandias was based on Ramses ii of Egypt. Here's a link to pictures of the statue which inspired the poem. Andrew
Ramses ii was the son of Seti I and Queen Tuya the third king of the 19th Dynasty. Called Ramesses the Great, he lived to be 96 years old, had 200 wives and concubines, 96 sons and 60 daughters
Who: tassle
When: June 23rd, 2006
Says: Ah thanks a lot. Now I get that part. That part confused me the most... :)
Who:
When: June 25th, 2006
Says: Félicitations pour votre travail!
Who: Karl
When: September 27th, 2006
Says: Andrew,
Well explained.
One of my all time favourite poems.
I quoted it today with regard to the western worlds forced "democracy" in South Africa and what has happened to this, once beautiful, now destroyed, Country and its people.
Who: Annesha
When: November 7th, 2006
Says: can anyone please draw a parallel between ozymandias and the state of the enivironment today...please
Who: E & A
When: November 7th, 2006
Says: i thought it was hard & difficult
Who: Sandy
When: December 1st, 2006
Says: OMG! Andrew rocks! thank you so much. You helped me with my homework AND that I have an exam about this! thank you sooooooooooooooooooooo much :D:D:D:D
Who: tasha
When: December 3rd, 2006
Says: thankyou soooooooo much andrew! my english literature teacher sets really hard homework and even though i am in the top english group, i and all my frends find it really hard and you helped me through with it! you are brilliant! thankyou!
Who: re: "the passions"
When: December 3rd, 2006
Says: 'passions' in this case is the antiquated usage originally meaning something like "faults", but probably here meaning more like "emotions"/"traits"/"characteristics" etc.
Who: correction
When: December 3rd, 2006
Says: actually, it meant "suffering" originally, not faults (hence the passion of the christ)
Who:
When: January 24th, 2007
Says: this poem is stupid
Who: Andrew
When: March 20th, 2007
Says: I haven't looked here for a very long time and came across it again inadvertently. You are right Fire_mann the poem is stupid. It shows the stupidity of ...............?
---
from u24:
It shows the sheer futility of mankind's greatest efforts. It reminds us we are mortal.
Who:
When: March 21st, 2007
Says: Yes it reminds us we are mortal. But are you sure about the first part? The result of mankind's efforts is that many people can see these posts. For me the poem is about one man's effort to seek immortality, with no concern for any other person other than himself and maybe that is his downfall, he didn't carry other people with him (for better or worse). That may be a characteristic of people whose memory is passed down through the ages. Thinking about that I'm not sure it's true but I'll post it anyway:)
---
from u24:
Damn. I just tried to write a response, but my connection expired. Argh!
thanks for your comments.
My response went into how I thought it was more about the fact the time/nature makes no distinctions whether you're a mighty king or not. I also mentioned that I found the poem interesting due to it's being a precursor to the Victorian morbidity, and I invited you to compare Ophelia and the poetry of Shelley, Yeats and Poe with that of Keats.
Who: Aubrie
When: March 24th, 2007
Says: i have 3 days to completely understand his poem inside and out and that is not going to happen! this is so stupid! im 13 and i cant be expected to understand a poem that was meant for adults! this is a big thing to ask of a of someone my age and i really need help understanding it
---
from u24:
don't worry. Just describe the poem. Describe how the rhyming scheme changes, and how the tone of the poem changes. Express what it means to you, and how the choice of words evokes certain feelings. You'll be fine.
Who:
When: July 31st, 2007
Says: Hi,
My daughter is reciting this peom (Ozimandias) for a speech and drama eistedfod this week. We have tried to research the basic story behind the poem to help her deliver it with feeling.
Please help
Thanks
Madonna
Who:
When: August 25th, 2007
Says: God, what is wrong with people? If they think Ozymandias is difficult to decipher, what on earch would tjey do with Paradise Lost or Beowulf?
Who:
When: September 29th, 2007
Says: heEy andRew just want t0 thanK you f0r helpinG c0nfused pe0ple like I am,with that p0em 0zymandias! y0ur explanati0n helped a l0t on 0ur rep0rt , really*** thanks a bunch pal !=)
Who:
When: October 31st, 2007
Says: Andrew is great! It helps me a lot to understand this beautiful poem.
Who:
When: November 14th, 2007
Says: thanks a lot Andrew your summary was well written & halped me a lot for my mid- term exams
Who: nerd
When: December 27th, 2007
Says: personally i think going onlin for help with a poem is cheating, but on the other side, the only difference than if andrew told you personally is that it is recorded and can be reviewed, but you still should figure it out on your own. research the guy's history via wikipedia, which is mostly accurate ( it auto-fixes vandalism), and try thinking abstract. it really isn't too difficullt. then again i am a 14 year old male. and males are better abstract thinkers and more creative while females are more mature and responsible. scientificily proven in a 2000-something study done by the government, don't feel like checking physchology textbook for exact date. I had no point to prove here.
Who: nerd
When: December 27th, 2007
Says: oh, and andrew? brilliant work deciphering/figuring the poem out. may i have your e-mail address in case i feel like discussing literature? mine is dr_ff_ds@hotmail.com. sorry for triple post, U24 and all other anti-spammers such as I
Who:
When: January 9th, 2008
Says: this poem is really hard to understand. i do not like poems. there are also connotations under the lines, it takes too many efforts to read~xd.
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