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.

About the Poem

Shelley's friend, Horace Smith, was visiting over Christmas of 1817. They had been discussing the impending arrival of antiquities taken after Napoleon's Egyptian defeat. In particular, the remains of a statue of the Pharaoh, Ramesses II.

Neither had actually seen the statue, but had read a Greek description with the inscription "King of Kings Ozymandias am I. If any want to know how great I am and where I lie, let him outdo me in my work."

The Greek historian, Diodorus Siculus, is Shelley's "traveller from an antique land."

As was common, Shelley and Smith made friendly challenge to write and publish competing sonnets on a subject.

About Ramesses II

Ozymandias is Greek for the Egyptian throne name, Usermaatre Setepenre, of Ramesses II.

Ramesses II was arguably the greatest Pharaoh of Egypt's 3,000 year Pharaohnic history.

He reigned 66 years, dying in his 90's, expanding Egyptian dominance up into Canaan and down into Nubia.

He created cities, and built more temples than any other Pharaoh, 1,000 years after the Great Pyramids.

Of the statue in Shelly's poem, only his bust, in the British Museum, and his feet, standing in the desert, remain.

About Nefertari

His Great Royal Wife, or principal wife.

Who read and wrote hieroglyphs (extremely rare for a non-priest) and conducted diplomacy with the Hittites and other great kingdoms.

They married in their early 20's before he took the throne, and were together over 25 years.

They had at least six children.

One of Ramesses' names for her was "The one for whom the sun shines."

He reigned 40 years beyond her death.

About Percy Bysshe Shelley 1792 - 1822

Shelley was 26 when he wrote Ozymandias, four years before he died.

Son of a minor noble. An atheistic social radical in a country without First Amendment rights. Expelled from Oxford for preaching atheism. Eloped and married sixteen-year old Harriet Westbrook. Disinherited, fleeing to Italy from creditors, inheritance from a rich grandfather. Babies, seductions, adultery, abandoned wife, marriage to another sixteen-year old, Mary Godwin (Frankenstein). More pregnancies, more debts, dodging bailiffs, adulteries by and with. Delusional episodes, Communism, free love, shared lovers. Pistol shooting, scientific experiments often involving gunpowder, subversive activities.

Hanging out with Byron, Leigh Hunt, and similar radical literati.

All the while producing poems, prose, essays. Much of which was not published in his lifetime.

On July 1, 1822,
Shelley and two others,
in an ill-constructed boat,
with scant seamanship skills.
sailed out of Livorno for Lerici,
a journey of 90 km,
ran into a severe storm,
and drowned.

After his death, and with the editing of his wife, Mary,
his works influenced great writers including:
Robert Browning, Yeats, Hardy, Swinburne, and George Eliot, and English Romanticism in general.

Special

The third line of the second stanza often comes to mind when I meet (Self) Important People.

Special 2

Despite their fine words, the actions of Shelley and the English Romantics in general strike me as of a selfish, self indulgent lot.