'How are the mighty fallen' :"OZYMANDIAS" a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley

 

The poem given below, 'Ozymandias' is a sonnet, a 14 - line poem written in 1817 and published in1818 by the British Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose name is synonymous with radical social and political change. It is among his most famous poems.

 

Ozymandias

 by 

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.

                            ---

As one can read, the poem depicts two trunkless legs along with a half sunk shattered visage, the 'frown', 'wrinkled lip' and 'sneer of cold command' clearly etched out by the sculptor who carved the statue. The wrecked statue belongs to a long dead powerful king, Ozymandias, ruthless and arrogant. The broken statue lies in a desert surrounded by nothing but sand all around, both the ruler and the land he ruled over utterly consumed by the havoc of time. The words on the pedestal speak with deadly irony of the futility of arrogance of power. Time does not spare anyone.

Shelley's poem encapsulates metaphorically the outcome of the tyrannical wielding of power – no leader, king, despot, dictator, or ruler can overcome time. Overall, this sonnet paints a picture of an egotistical character who thought himself without rival but who was cruel to his people. Ozymandias is a commentary on the ephemeral nature of absolute political power. Monarchs and dictators and tyrants are all disappear sooner or later. Only their misdeeds and cruelties survive in history. Shelley's language reflects his dislike for such rulers.

The poem seems so relevant to our times when democracies world-over are transforming into dictatorships, ironically through elections, democracy seeming to be turning out the midwife of dictatorships.

T C Ghai