-
Ozymandias
Percy Bysshe Shelly
I met a traveler 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 wrinked 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 besides remains. Round the
decay
Of that colossal
Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch
faraway.
”
奥兹曼迪亚斯
我遇见一位来自古国的旅人
他说：有两条巨大的石腿
半掩于沙漠之间
近旁的沙土中，有一张破碎的石脸
抿着嘴，蹙着眉，面孔依旧威严
想那雕刻者，必定深谙其人情感
那神态还留在石头上
而私人已逝，化作尘烟
看那石座上刻着字句：
“我是万王之王
,
奥兹曼斯迪亚斯
功业盖物
,
强者折服”
此外，荡然无物
废墟四周，唯余黄沙莽莽
寂寞荒凉，伸展四方。
（杨绛译）
PS
：英国文学讲到浪漫主义时期了，讲到
John
Keats
的诗歌了。
这意味着让我头疼的诗歌部分终于要告一段落了，天知道我有多么
厌恶英诗，我实在不知道它们好在哪里。我没有耐心去赏析它
们，
在我的眼里，它们全被术语化
，留给我的只有
stanza,verse,foot,
lyric rhyme.
虽然每次老师要做诗歌分析欣赏的时
候我都能讲出点
东西来，但是我真的对英诗很不感冒。
这首诗是
Percy
Shelley
的，我想了两个星期了，还是没有找
到老师所说的这里面的
parado
x
。我可以看出这首诗想说的是什么，
也可以找出
irony
，但是真的不知道哪一句是
paradox
。想了两
个星
期，我都要怀疑老师是不是耍我们的了。真是让人沮丧。
最喜欢那句“
I am the king of
kings
”了，显示出了无限的
傲气与目空一切的自信。虽然
Shelley
< br>想用石碑上的话和现今比照来
说明国王的傲慢与自大，想显示其愚蠢，因为最后他所建立的功业
全都归于尘土。
Shelley
想说自负的人类想要不朽都是可笑的，谁都
无法抗拒时间和历史，只有艺术才是不朽的。但是我还是很欣
赏国王
奥兹曼迪亚斯的狂妄。
Analysis on Ozymandias
As we read the poem, a picture of
desolation and ruins forms itself in our
mind
s, an image depicting a decaying
state in the midst of the barren waste of the
desert.
Ozymandias is
the Greek name for Ramses II, the powerful ruler
of Egypt duri
ng the thirteenth century
BC He ruled for over 60 years and brought great
pro
sperity to the people of Egypt. He
was also extremely vain with respect to his
deeds.
The face of the
statue embodies a frown, wrinkled lip, and a
“sneer
of cold
c
ommand”,
Shelley sees these
emotions as characterizing people in power as
“its
sculptor well those
passions
read”
. The sculptor
correctly interpreted the c
haracter of
the king, the one in power, as he made the statue.
Through the sc
ulptor, Shelley airs two
qualities of vanity and greatness. He had done
great w
orks and ruled a long time.
However, he thought too highly of himself. Power
a
nd renown
don’t
last forever. He called himself the
“king
of
kings”
but like all
ot
her kings, he was popular for a while
and then forgotten when the new king
ca
me round.
As the
“two
vast and trunkless legs
of stone/stand in the
des
ert”,
they
suppo
rt nothing, which is all that
remains of the
“king
of
kings”
and his works. This
is
further emphasized as
“
Nothing beside remains.
Round the decay/of that col
ossal
wreck”
there exists nothing
but
“the
long and level
stands”
The
oxymoro
n of
“colossal
wreck”
again establishes the
once great power of the king to ha
ve
dissipated with his death. The statue like the
king had been great and impo
sing,
colossal, but in time, the
king’s
power and memory were
buried along wit
h him and the statue
decayed to the level of wreck. The
“shattered
visage”
ap
pears
“
half
sunk”,
again symbolizing the
memory of the once mighty king to b
e
forgotten and put aside. The decayed statue shows
the futility of Ozymandia
s’
feelings. His works
didn’t
incite anyone to do greater deeds than he had
don
e. Instead everything was left to
decay. All that survives are those passions
et
ched on the face of lifeless stone,
so we can understand that time will
obliterat
e all memory of the great
ruler and his works just as the desert will do to
the st