power

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.”

In “Ozymandias,” Percy Shelley points out that power, no matter how great, is often only temporary. He discusses a commanding leader, Ozymandias, but contrasts his greatness with the decay of a toppled statue. The name Ozymandias refers to Ramses II, the third pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Egypt and one of the most powerful and most influential of the Egyptian pharaohs. As the poem itself says, Ozymandias describes himself as the “King of Kings,” almost as if to put himself above human power in saying that he was even above the rulers of the humans, the kings. This attitude if further displayed in the following line of the inscription. Ozymandias took pride in his “works,” as can be seen by his flaunting of them on his statue. These works are representative of his mark on the world – his power.

However, the traveler shows how completely that power has vanished in his description of the statue’s state. He starts at the base of the statue, describing the legs as “trunkless,” suggesting that they have no solid base, a description extended to the power of Ozymandias. Although the statue was once stable standing tall and capable of holding its own weight, like the empire and leader it was meant to celebrate, it has crumbled to the ground, inevitably worn down by the ruthless minions of nature and time.

The traveler continues with the face of the statue, mentioning its “shattered visage.” Just as the head of a government or country is thought to be the embodiment of that government or country, this visage does the same. The head of the statue can be associated with all of the power that Ozymandias and his empire possessed. However, like the visage shattered on the ground, the power has also fallen to pieces. What used to look down on others, flaunting a high position above them, has fallen, both figuratively and literally, to the ground, the lowest of the low. However, it’s important to note that the visage has not disappeared completely, merely been shattered. The power the Ozymandias wielded has been shattered, unable to hold its original authority, but it a shadow still remains. The shattered face is not the same as a face, but it still brings back the memory of the face and everything that the face represented. In the same way, Ozymandias’ power lives in the influence it had on modern culture, but it continues in such a way that cannot be considered true power, regardless of how fearsome it may have been before.

By drawing on Ozymandias’ statue to bring out the essence of Ozymandias’ power, Shelley makes an important connection. Power is just like any other material good. At the moment, it may be exquisite, enviable, unrivaled. Despite this, very few material goods can withstand the ultimate power of time unscathed. In the same way, power very rarely withstands time. Whether it be power within a household, school, city, state, country, or planet, time changes and authority changes constantly, an endlessly ticking clock that never stays in the same place for long.