I’m not one for much poetry but Shelly’s sonnet blows me away every time

… 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

Then this story pops up. Beautiful.

Has it got the wrinkled lip, the sneer of cold command?

I dunno but you can see his bum in the third pic.

Lying face down in the mud – couldn’t be more poetic.

I dunno,

Three thousand years after his death we still know enough and care enough about him to write poetry, dig up his old statues and put them in places of honour.

I reckon old Percy Bysshe was a bit wide of the mark there.

some fun facts

He was actually a ginger

His mummy was flown to Paris and issued with a passport, his occupation listed as King (deceased) 🙂

considering its been a few millenia his body isnt in too bad shape either

Three thousand years after his death we still know enough and care enough about him to write poetry, dig up his old statues and put them in places of honour.

That’s down to us, not them.

Shelly’s point was that they expected their civilization to still be ruling the world for all time and their statues continually revered – not ending up face down in the mud for millenia. We call Egypt a ‘developing nation’ now. I think Ozymandias would be horrified by that.

Plus Shelly’s poem isn’t honouring him, it’s the opposite.

Shelly’s point was that they expected their civilization to still be ruling the world for all time and their statues continually revered

Not sure I agree with that. But then I suppose that’s part of the point of poetry – it means whatever the reader wants it to mean!

Not sure I agree with that.

Interesting. You read it as honouring his greatness?

I thought it was saying ‘he thought he was great, now look at him, just a pair of legs in the desert’.

Wonderful poem, one of my favourites too.

I would wonder as is often the case, is the poem actually about Ramesses? I would suggest that looking at the British Empire in the 1810’s might actually be helpful.

Nothing lasts forever, what was great is no more.

My favourite, (also Shelley) is the Masque of anarchy, particularly:
Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you-
Ye are many – they are few.

Ozymandias, is what the Greeks called Ramasses the Great

I always took it to mean that all empires fall, no matter how mighty they must have seemed at the time

Or, a vision in a dream. A Fragment.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

I would wonder as is often the case, is the poem actually about Ramesses? I would suggest that looking at the British Empire in the 1810’s might actually be helpful.

It’s about empire and power in general, IMO.

Apparently it was inspired by a previous statue of Ramses II/Ozymandias that was found and brought to London at the time. According to Wiki his friend Horace Smith also wrote a poem at the same time, which is more direct but nowhere near as good 🙂

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

Best poem ever IME – wonderfully crafted & a real challenge to absorb.

Top thread Mols!

Look upon my works ye mighty! My really really great works, the best works…

I thought it was saying ‘he thought he was great, now look at him, just a pair of legs in the desert’.

I’ve not read any lit crit about it but that’s the obvious surface reading I’d’ve thought. Certainly how it struck me reading it as a kid, kind of how the mighty fall.

But reading it now it seems a lot more universal than that. We’re all a big deal to ourselves but will come to nowt. In the poem the remains of the statue are as much a memorial to the skill of the sculptor in his/her pisstake of the king, as much as of the king. But the sculptor’s gone too.

Good post johnx2.

…yeah here we go:

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;

the three lines immediately above are all about the sculptor, seeing, making sense of and capturing stuff about Ozzy. These days it’d be a gif, init?

First time I heard it was when my big bro bought “Freddy Laker” on 7″ by JJ Burnell.
I nicked it off him and still have it 🙂
The b-side was this:

[video]https://youtu.be/N36gYQ3mgnE[/video]

Apparently it was inspired by a previous statue of Ramses II/Ozymandias that was found and brought to London at the time. According to Wiki his friend Horace Smith also wrote a poem at the same time, which is more direct but nowhere near as good

Won’t argue that, just often you find these things are written with a meaning beyond the surface. I would agree it is about all empires fail, don’t forget the US war of independence was only just over, Battle of Waterloo etc. those sorts of things always colour writing.

So i would wonder if there is a subtext the British empire might be great but it will fail.

I used to tag line “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair” any really good code I was proud of.

Then I finally read the rest of the poem :-0

sic transit gloria mundi

(since we’re going classical all up in the house)

But reading it now it seems a lot more universal than that. We’re all a big deal to ourselves but will come to nowt.

We are the lead actor in one film only, a supporting actor in a few, an extra in many and make no appearance what so ever in millions.

Or not

https://m.phys.org/news/2017-03-egyptian-statue-ramses-ii.html

So i would wonder if there is a subtext the British empire might be great but it will fail

Except we basically gave it up, handed power back, rather than allowing it to fall apart. Something other would-be empire builders, like the Soviets, would have done well to take note of.

I dunno but you can see his bum in the third pic.

Thats an armpit. Talk about not knowing your arse from your elbow!

We are the lead actor in one film only

I sometimes think that depression is not being the hero of your own life story.