Ozymandias

[kev67]

The latest poem I have been attempting to memorize is Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Since it was composed before 1923, I can reproduce it here:

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 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 on my words, 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

The best bit is "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works ye mighty and despair!" I was aware of Ozymandias as a character from Alan Moore's graphic novel Watchmen, but I thought he was based on a historic figure, not a poem. I guess Ozymandius is an amalgam of an ancient Egyptian Pharoah and an ancient Persian emperor such as Cyrus the Great, and that the land kingdom was in North Africa or the Middle East somewhere. Something that interests me is that when Ozymandias was around, his kingdom must have been reasonably fertile, but has now long since turned to desert. I gather in ancient times, North African countries such as Carthage and Egypt were greener,but since then climate change or environmental degradation led to the deserts encroaching. I was also reminded of a documentary I watched about an ancient middle eastern civilization that collapsed because the irrigation they depended on gradually increased the salinity of the soil until it was impossible to grow their crops. I wondered how much Percy Bysshe Shelley would have been aware of this sort of thing when he wrote the poem in 1818.

I have a couple of other queries about the poem. Why does he say "antique" land rather than "ancient" land? Antique usually applies to artefacts, not civilizations. The line, "The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed," does not make perfect sense. Whose hand, the sculptor's or Ozymandias'. Was the sculptor mocking Ozymandias' features or was it Ozymandias mocking his court and subjects? Whose heart was it, and who was it feeding and with what? Was it, in fact, just a duff line than scanned nicely?

Here is the best recital I can find on YouTube.

[Charles Darnay]

First off, Ozymandias is another name for Ramses II of Egypt - a real pharaoh c. 1300BC. Shelley's poem is largely based on the famous obelisk he would have seen in the British museum.

The poem is centred around layers. As well as the shifting sands of Ozymandias' kingdom, you have the shifting 'persons in the poem. You have the narrator telling of the traveller telling of a sculptor making a sculpture of a pharaoh.

Many of the lines reflect two or more of the levels of the poem. The hand that mocked.... is a brilliant line because it speaks to most of the levels of the poem. It refers to Ozymandias who was both a great provider and destroyer. It tells of the sculptor giving both life and artifice to his work. It tells of time, the creator and destroyer of all.

I am not sure why an antique land instead of ancient land - maybe more antiquated.

[MementoMori]

I think it's interesting to compare Shelley's Ozymandias to the poem that it was in competition with: Horace Smith's Ozymandias. Both poems concern the transitory nature of power, but Shelley's is much more subtle and effective. It's a good way to highlight the difference between mediocre poetry and great poetry.

IN Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg, which far off throws
The only shadow that the Desert knows:—
"I am great OZYMANDIAS," saith the stone,
"The King of Kings; this mighty City shows
"The wonders of my hand."— The City's gone,—
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon.

We wonder,—and some Hunter may express
Wonder like ours, when thro' the wilderness
Where London stood, holding the Wolf in chace,
He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Brilliant poem!! Another classic. My admiration to you for committing these great poems to memory by the way, what a great idea!

This is another poem that always gets me almost every time I read it.

I'm not up on the exact biographical details of the poem (or the state of the biology/ecology of Africa!) it is the meaning of the temporary nature of life that really hits me with this poem. Even the great and powerful become just dust' just like Shakespeare's Cymbeline - 'Golden lads and girls all must/As chimney sweepers come to dust' - (I don't know if that is the correct line breaks there I'm just guessing, that's another great song).

It is also another poem where you could see the power of nature over human civilization, in that no matter how powerful, it all comes to decay in the end, which is where the most powerful line is most effective in this poem I think (though as you say the opening is also powerful).

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

'Decay' is also pretty harsh here too don't you think? We are talking about a statue but 'decay' clearly signifies death here which is contrasted obviously in the last line where nature's power and scope is all too evident in the 'level sands which stretch far away'.

Great poem.

What were the questions?

"I was also reminded of a documentary I watched about an ancient middle eastern civilization that collapsed because the irrigation they depended on gradually increased the salinity of the soil until it was impossible to grow their crops. I wondered how much Percy Bysshe Shelley would have been aware of this sort of thing when he wrote the poem in 1818."

I have no idea. I suspect though that Shelley is not coming at this poem from such a directly realistic point of view. I suspect that Shelley is looking upon this poem as more as I suggested - that of the decay of great civilizations and all in regards to nature and time. I don't know, I may be wrong, but this is my feeling.

"Whose hand, the sculptor's or Ozymandias'. Was the sculptor mocking Ozymandias' features or was it Ozymandias mocking his court and subjects?"

I think it is the sculptor's getting his own back on the cruel Ozymandias, but perhaps both readings work?

Antique or ancient?

Again I don't know, but which to you sounds more beautiful and apt in the situation here?

Personally, antique gets my vote. There's a bit more 'tinged colour' in that for me to go with the overall feel of the poem. It's just a feeling, not a science - maybe look to poems also in terms as feeling as in science? Though again, my respects for posting such great poems and learning them by heart.

All the best.

[MorpheusSandman]

I guess I'll cover the only question Charles didn't in his fine post

Why does he say "antique" land rather than "ancient" land? Antique usually applies to artefacts, not civilizations.

I'm guessing what you say about "antiques" applying to "artifacts" is what Shelley also had in mind; all that remains behind of the land and the civilization ARE artifacts, so our entire knowledge of them are reduced to what we learn from "antiques".

[kev67]

First off, Ozymandias is another name for Ramses II of Egypt - a real pharaoh c. 1300BC. Shelley's poem is largely based on the famous obelisk he would have seen in the British museum.

Correct, Ozymandias was the Greek name for him. According to Wikipedia, he lived till he was 90 and reigned for 66 years. He fought numerous campaigns and founded cities. He seems to have held himself in very high regard and erected a lot of statues of himself.

His mummy can still be seen in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. He had red hair.

[Lokasenna]

Ozymandias is a great poem. I memorised it myself many years ago, and it is one of my favourites to recite when called upon to perform.

I always took the reference to the hand as referring to Ozymandias himself, who perverts the natural function of the ruler by mocking and feeding where he should be supporting and sustaining. Also, 'antique' is a perfectly suitable adjective to describe anything old, not just objects. We do, after all, refer to 'antiquity' when dealing with the past.

[kev67]

'Decay' is also pretty harsh here too don't you think? We are talking about a statue but 'decay' clearly signifies death here which is contrasted obviously in the last line where nature's power and scope is all too evident in the 'level sands which stretch far away'.

I was puzzled by the word 'decay'. I tend to think of things made from organic materials decaying, such as dead bodies, old manuscripts, wooden shipwrecks, even teeth. However, the statue of Ozymandias was carved from stone, so I can think of it breaking up or wearing away, but not decaying.

Strangely enough, his body is in not too bad condition for a 3300-year-old.

[Charles Darnay]

The word decayed can be used to describe stone. You often hear about decayed buildings. It also signifies the decaying of his empire.

And yes, the craft is embalming is a wonder.

[Eiseabhal]

I read the hand as being the hand of the sculptor who has carved the Pharaoh. I feel that "mocked" does not quite mean the same as we usually take it to mean now and that Shelley is exploiting its meaning as "copied". I read the words "and the heart that fed" as the heart of the Pharaoh feeding on the vulgar passions visible in the features of the statue. Or alternatively the pharaoh did nothing to restrain those passions, gave free rein to them. The sculptor has gone, the pharaoh too but the artist's work remains as evidence.
I like Smith's poem and do not see it as mediocre.

[MorpheusSandman]

I like Smith's poem and do not see it as mediocre.

It would be interesting to take these two poems and pose the question of what, exactly, makes one better than the other, or at least what makes one more remembered than the other. I do think Smith's poem is significantly lesser than Shelley's, and I think I could voice some reasons why. For one thing, it seems Smith's has a tendency to repeat itself too often. EG, early on he says: "In Egypt's sandy silence, all alone, / Stands a gigantic Leg..." but then feels the need to state that: "Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose..." He repeatedly hammers on the idea that "this is all that's left." Shelley's seems to suggest the same thing more powerfully by the accumulation of detail. It takes longer getting to what it's aiming at, but when it gets there, it implies everything that Smith's states outrightly. Smith's entire sestet, eg, is implied in Shelley's, and it leaves us in precisely the same desolation we began in, as opposed to switching to imagining us in contemporary society. One could go into more detail as well, such as some of the soundplay in Shelley ("STAND... SAND" poised at the beginning and end of the same line), or the line divisions (The might words of Ozymandias ending one line, and "Nothing beside remains" immediately following on the next line).

[Charles Darnay]

Smith's has no subtlety. The second half (post volta) is stronger than the first, but there is nothing much happening here.

[MorpheusSandman]

Smith's has no subtlety.

Well, that's putting it bluntly and generally, but I was assuming we should try to parse a bit deeper as to why.

I'll list another interesting contrast: Shelley keeps "zooming in" on his subject in greater and greater detail, really taking his time in the way he lays out the landscape and each part of the sculpture; from its legs, to its shattered visage "beside it, on the sand, half-sunk," to the features on the visage itself, until it finally ends by having us picture the sands stretching far away. This juxtaposition between extreme detail of the artistic artifact, and the blank barrenness of the desert in response to what the sculpture states, is quite effective. In comparison, Smith's seems rather monotone in terms of these spatial cues.

[Emil Miller]

As good an example of the space–time continuum as one is likely to get.

[Charles Darnay]

Ah, but geernally is exactly it. When in competition to write a sonnet about this Egyptian statue, Smith does just that.

"IN Egypt's sandy silence, all alone,
Stands a gigantic Leg"

"Here I am, writing a sonnet about a decayed statue." He does not consider anything beyond the statue itself (until post-volta). By that point Shelley has introduced the vast expansion of space and time that exists between him and the statue. Smith's poet stands in front of the statue as if removed from time and space, Shelley's poet insists on separating himself from time and space.

"I met a traveller from an antique land"
"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,"

Shelley captures organically what Smith says so bluntly

"The City's gone,—
Nought but the Leg remaining to disclose
The site of this forgotten Babylon""

The last six lines are interesting - placing London in the same context as the once mighty Egypt, saying that some day London too will lie in ruins - that nothing, despite how great - remains. But here too he expresses it so matter-of-fact,

"He meets some fragment huge, and stops to guess
What powerful but unrecorded race
Once dwelt in that annihilated place. "

I wonder what Shelley would have done with this through - hinted at in the last line of his sonnet, but not expressed.