Ozymandias

This morning I bought a plane ticket from Luxor to Sharm El-Sheikh for early tomorrow morning. Then I hope to catch a bus to Dahab in the Sinai. In the afternoon I took the ferry to the west bank of the Nile and then hired a driver to take me to a few places. Went to the Ramesseum Temple and Medinet Habu Temple -- both something like 3300 years old. Fantastic! Darn, got to leave the hotel by 5:30 AM tomorrow to catch the flight.

The famous sonnet Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley was inspired by the Ramesseum Temple of Ramses II:

OZYMANDIAS

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 shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd 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.