ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Ozymandias

Oh, hi there! Let me tell you about Ozymandias. Ozymandias is a poem written by a man named Percy Bysshe Shelley. It tells a story about a great king, also called Ozymandias, who wanted everyone to remember how powerful he was. He built these huge statues of himself in the desert, hoping that people would see them for thousands of years to come.

But even though Ozymandias was once a really powerful king, the poem says that all those great things he built won't last forever. The poem talks about how the statue is cracked and broken, and the words that used to be carved on it have faded away. So even though Ozymandias wanted to be remembered forever, nobody really knows who he is anymore.

So what's the point of the story? Well, it's kind of a lesson about how we shouldn't focus too much on power and fame. Even if we build great things or do amazing stuff, it might not matter in the long run. What's really important is how we treat other people and how we spend our time, not what kind of stuff we leave behind.

So that's Ozymandias in a nutshell! It's a poem about a powerful king who learned the hard way that maybe fame and fortune aren't everything.
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