Ozymandias" (pron.

: /ˌɒziˈmændiəs/,[2] also pronounced with four syllables in order to fit the poem's meter)
is a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in 1818 in the 11 January issue of The Examiner in London.
It is frequently anthologised and is probably Shelley's most famous short poem. It was written in competition
with his friend Horace Smith, who wrote another sonnet entitled "Ozymandias" seen below.

In addition to the power of its themes and imagery, the poem is notable for its virtuosic diction. The rhyme
scheme of the sonnet is unusual and creates a sinuous and interwoven effect. [3]

The central theme of "Ozymandias" is the inevitable decline of all leaders, and of the empires they build,
however mighty in their own time.[4]

The 'Younger Memnon' statue of Ramesses II in the British Museum thought to have inspired the poem

Ozymandias represents a transliteration into Greek of a part of Ramesses' throne name, User-maat-re
Setep-en-re. The sonnet paraphrases the inscription on the base of the statue, given by Diodorus Siculus in
his Bibliotheca historica, as "King of Kings am I, Osymandias. If anyone would know how great I am and
where I lie, let him surpass one of my works."[5][6]

Shelley's poem is often said to have been inspired by the 1821 arrival in London of a colossal statue of
Ramesses II, acquired for the British Museum by the Italian adventurer Giovanni Belzoni in 1816.[7]
Rodenbeck and Chaney, however,[8] point out that the poem was written and published before the statue
arrived in Britain, and thus that Shelley could not have seen it. Its repute in Western Europe preceded its
actual arrival in Britain (Napoleon had previously made an unsuccessful attempt to acquire it for France, for
example), and thus it may have been its repute or news of its imminent arrival rather than seeing the statue
itself which provided the inspiration.

The 2008 edition of the travel guide Lonely Planet's guide to Egypt says that the poem was inspired by the
fallen statue of Ramesses II at the Ramesseum, a memorial temple built by Ramesses at Thebes, near
Luxor in Upper Egypt.[9] This statue, however, does not have "two vast and trunkless legs of stone", nor
does it have a "shattered visage" with a "frown / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command." Nor does
the base of the statue at Thebes have any inscription, although Ramesses's cartouche is inscribed on the
statue itself.

Among the earlier senses of the verb "to mock" is "to fashion an imitation of reality" (as in "a mock-up"), [10]
but by Shelley's day the current sense "to ridicule" (especially by mimicking) had come to the fore.

This sonnet is often incorrectly quoted or reproduced. [11] The most common misquotation – "Look upon my
works, ye Mighty, and despair!" – replaces the correct "on" with "upon", thus turning the regular decasyllabic
(iambic pentameter) verse into an 11-syllable line.[12]

[edit] Publication history

Both Percy Bysshe Shelley and Horace Smith submitted a sonnet on the subject to The Examiner published
by Leigh Hunt in London. Shelley's was published on January 11, 1818 under the pen name Glirastes,
appearing on page 24 under Original Poetry. Smith's was published, with the initials H.S., on February 1,
1818. Shelley's poem was later republished under the title "Sonnet. Ozymandias" in his 1819 collection
Rosalind and Helen, A Modern Eclogue; with Other Poems by Charles and James Ollier and in the 1826
Miscellaneous and Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley by William Benbow, both in London.

[edit] Smith's poem

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.

– Horace Smith.[13]

Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote this poem in competition with his friend Horace Smith, who published his
sonnet a month after Shelley's in the same magazine. [14] It takes the same subject, tells the same story, and
makes a similar moral point, but one related more directly to modernity, ending by imagining a hunter of the
future looking in wonder on the ruins of an annihilated London. It was originally published under the same
title as Shelley's verse; but in later collections Smith retitled it "On A Stupendous Leg of Granite, Discovered
Standing by Itself in the Deserts of Egypt, with the Inscription Inserted Below". [15]

[edit] Cultural influence

The poem has made numerous appearances in popular culture, and has significantly influenced the
production of new creative works. For example, Terry Carr's science fiction short story Ozymandias was
inspired by the poem, as was the song Ozymandias by Jean-Jacques Burnel. Edward Elgar began setting
the poem to music, but never finished it. The best-known setting appears to be that in Russian for baritone
by the Ukrainian composer Borys Lyatoshynsky. On television, Monty Python's Flying Circus featured a
humorous parody named "Ozymandias, King of Ants", and the Beauty and the Beast episode titled
Ozymandias included a reading of the entire poem. Writer Alan Moore named a superhero in the comic
book miniseries Watchmen after Ozymandias, and the alternative rock group Sisters of Mercy wrote the
song Ozymandias which appeared on the B side of the 1987 single Dominion/Mother Russia from the
album Floodland. Short excerpts of the poem, or references to its title, have appeared in a variety of other
contexts including the set for the Closing Ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games on 12 August 2012

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart. 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]