A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg
Ozymandias
PRONUNCIATION:
(oz-uh-MAN-dee-uhs)
MEANING:
noun:
1. A megalomaniac tyrant, especially one whose arrogance is undone by time.
2. A symbol of the impermanence of power and pride.
ETYMOLOGY:
After Ozymandias, the first part of the throne name of Ramesses II of
Egypt (1279-1213 BCE). Earliest documented use: 1878.
NOTES:
The modern sense of the word comes not from Egyptian hieroglyphs,
but from English verse. In his 1817 sonnet “Ozymandias”, Percy Bysshe
Shelley describes a shattered colossal statue in a desert. The statue’s
pedestal bears an inscription boasting of the ruler Ozymandias’s might
and achievements (“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works,
ye Mighty, and despair!”).
However, these “works” have long since vanished, leaving only the decaying
broken statue surrounded by “lone and level sands,” a potent symbol of the
transience of power and the ultimate futility of human pride.
I propose that when someone is sworn into any position of power, from some
future president of the planet to the mayor of a village with more goats
than people, they be presented with a copy of this poem. Framed in a gilded
frame, if that helps.
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!”
No thing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
USAGE:
“Tweaking the collective nose of the [NHL] league has usually invited
a biblical wrath of the Ozymandias on Sixth Avenue.”
Bruce Dowbiggin; Morning Sickness Plagues Toronto Station; The Globe
and Mail (Toronto, Canada); Sep 3, 2010.
“Many start to believe that they are invulnerable even as their mortal
powers begin to fade. The Ozymandias of Oz [Murdoch].”
Great Bad Men as Bosses; The Economist (London, UK); Jul 23, 2011.
