Ozymandias, King of Nothing In "Ozymandias", Percy Byshe Shelley recounts the description of a mysterious devastated land told to a man by an anonymous traveler. True, the poem was written after Shelley saw the ruins of the ancient Egyptian empire being imported to England, but in the poem there is something greater, the portrait of a man who was built over the course of of his life to rise to a position of great power, only to be discovered centuries later with nothing but weathered stone to his name. The particular words that Shelley chose to describe a lost, grand, and ruined kingdom are all words with powerful connotations. Each adjective, each noun constructs the image of something big and strong, of something enormous and indestructible. The emphasis on physical appearance is blatant. The first thing that surfaces, above the duality and symbolism of the poem, is the immediate call for attention to the physical size and orientation of the statue. This is notably presented in lines 2 through 4. Although only two words, "vast" and "half", are specific in their size relationship, "stand" and "near" connect to project exactly how the "... two vast and trunkless stone legs" and the "broken face" lie. The word vast is not as common as a tired word such as "great", and helps describe the monstrosity of the statue's base of the great king Ozymandias Having simply two "vast" legs, without the trunk, indicates how imposing the statue must have been when intact. The head of Ozymandias, somewhat fragmented and rotting. with the sand, is half-cast. Half-cast, but clearly still capable of eliciting a deep emotional response with its "sneer of cold command." Although the word "half" is not as impressive as "vast" and carries. almost achieved the imposing...... middle of paper ...... the sculptor, as described by Shelley, sculpted both of these aspects of Ozymandias' work. persona in stone. “Look at my works, you Mighty Ones, and despair,” shouts the platform from which Ozymandias has been reduced to speaking. What pride, what arrogance, what kind of (apparently) falsely heightened sense of self-esteem did the vast trunkless stone legs once support? The answer comes directly from Shelley: "...the lonely, flat sands stretch far away, boundless and bare; encircling the whole of a lifeless wreck, nothing remains." This is the kingdom of Ozymandias; the king of nothing, like a playground bully whose rug was pulled out from under him years after his defeat. With careful wording and well-chosen words, Shelley created a powerful ruler, whose hand managed and governed with care and severity an unknown, invisible and dead nation..