Question

Give a summary of the poem Ozymandias

Answer 1

It is an Italian sonnet written by P.B. Shelly and once he met  traveler who narrates his Egypt visit to the poet. The traveler tells that he saw a trunk-less statue of a might ruler; and the statue face was in the sand and sculpture was full of emotions while creating it. He tried to interpret the feeling of king and as per the traveler, the king even didn’t like the sculpture.

The traveler saw the word inscribed OZYMANDIAS on the pedestal. The traveler tells to the poet that the ruler is King of kings and he is not going to be defeated by anyone and none can surpass him.  Poet tell the traveler that nothing is immortal and the ruler and his kingdom will not be forever.

Answer 2

The speaker recalls having met a traveller from an ancient land who told him a story about the ruins of a statue in the  desert of his native country. The traveller said that two vast legs of stone stand without a body and near this, a massive  crumbling and broken stone-head lies, which is half sunk in the sand.

The statue has a bitter and cruel expression of  ‘sneer and cold command’ and this indicates that the sculptor had understood the passions of his subject really well.

It was obvious that the statue was of a man who sneered with contempt for those who were weaker than himself, yet  fed his people because of something in his heart. On the pedestal of the statue these words are inscribed, ‘‘My name is

Ozymandias, I am the king of kings. If anyone wishes to know how great I am, then let him surpass any of my works.”

Around the decaying ruin of the statue, nothing remains, only the ‘lone’ and level sands’ which stretch out around it,  far away.