Saturday, January 05, 2008

Ozymandias

I met a traveller 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 shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on 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.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley, 1818








Ozymandias was another name of Ramses II. The name is a translation into Greek of a part of Ramses’ throne name. The sonnet paraphrases the inscription on the base of the statue as "King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and where I lie, let him surpass one of my works."

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