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 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”.
Perhaps every politician in the world should read this poem on a weekly if not daily basis, just to re orientate themselves in the scheme of things.
Yet how near are we all to Ozymandia’s hamartia as he attempts to preserve his imprint upon the world through the grand artifice of his own monument!
This poem offers a sorry reading of pride and egotism, and reveals starkly that however much we may try to thwart mortality, however important we may feel we are, we cannot halt the inevitable march of time with its skulking companion, forgetfulness!
The uncertain origin of the poem adds to the grotesque comedy of the poem. It is a poem created out of a poetic game of Chinese whispers and we never know the identify of the traveller, nor indeed the speaker either. Everyone including Ozymandias, and even Shelley of course, is lost among the swirling sands of time and dis-remembrance!
Shelley’s dismembering of Ozymandias through the broken bits and pieces of his time destroyed monument, uses synecdoche to heighten the feeling of alienation. Human ego is littered about the desert, and the parts that do remain legible serve to testify to the fallibility of the dictator himself.
What do portraits and biographies conceal and yet reveal?
And what is the role of the artist or the friend when asked to provide a version of another?
How far can we read Ozymandias as an unsettling elegy to all human nature? Is Ozymandias’ grandiosity, just a louder version of our own voice, attempting to leave a mark upon a world, that simply and devastatingly disposes of us at will?