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.”
– Percy Bysshe Shelley
The words of Percy Bysshe Shelley take us back to a bygone era, when the sands of Egypt still held secrets of mighty kingdoms now eroded by the onslaught of ages. This is a tale of hubris, of the impermanence of power, and a stark reminder of the transient nature of all human ambition and achievement.
The traveler’s account describes the crumbling remnants of a once grandiose statue, dedicated to the hubris of Ozymandias, a ruler who proclaimed himself “king of kings.” This was a sovereign so consumed by vainglory that he sought to etch his supposed greatness into stone for all eternity.
And yet, as the traveler discovers, time has a way of humbling even the mightiest of rulers. The colossal statue lies shattered, the once-sneering visage now a broken relic half-buried in the desert. It’s as if the very sands themselves have risen up to swallow the arrogance of this “king of kings.”
The grand inscription boasting of his works remains, but it now rings painfully hollow amidst the shattered remains. “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!” it challenges, but there is only ruin as far as the eye can see. The “colossal wreck” stands as a sobering metaphor for the ephemeral nature of power and conquest.
Shelley’s words cut to the core of one of history’s most enduring lessons – that for all of mankind’s striving for immortality through edifices of stone and brass, it is in the end merely an exercise in fleeting vanity. The desert winds will outlast the hubris of kings, empires will crumble to dust, and the only certainties are the ebbs and flows of the eternal sands.
So let the tale of Ozymandias serve as a poetic memento mori to those who would cast themselves as masters of eternity. For even the most mighty are destined to become nothing more than broken ruins scorned by the shifting dunes. A chastening meditation for us all.
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