Ozymandias

Percy Bysshe Shelley

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.

1. "[S]urvive" (7) is a transitive verb with "hand" and "heart" as direct objects. Whose hand? Whose heart? What figure of speech is exemplified in "hand" and "heart"?

The hand and the heart are Ozymandias'.

2. Characterize Ozymandias.

Cold, callous, power-hungry, never satisfied, narcissistic.

3. Ozymandias was an ancient Egyptian tyrant. This poem was first published in 1817. Of what is Ozymandias a symbol? What contemporary reference might the poem have had in Shelley's time?

Ozymandias is a symbol for the decline of powerful leaders and their empires.

4. What is the theme of the poem and how is it "stated"?

All great leaders, and their empires, decay. This is made perfectly clear by the words on the pedestal of Ozymandias' statue: "Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Everything "Mighty" sooner or later falls into ruin.