November 12
Two trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert, and beside them a shattered face in the sand. On the pedestal is written: “Look on my works, you mighty, and despair!” Nothing else remained — only endless, bare sand.
Ozymandias (freely rendered)
Listening mode
Two trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert, and beside them a shattered face in the sand. On the pedestal is written: “Look on my works, you mighty, and despair!” Nothing else remained — only endless, bare sand.
In a crate of second-hand books you find a dedication: “For J., so that you never forget who always believed in you.” The handwriting is careful; the sentence was clearly meant in earnest. Now the book lies among old travel guides, priced at one euro.
Perhaps nothing sad happened. Perhaps J. moved house and had too many boxes. Still, you read the sentence differently from the way it was written. It has stayed unchanged, word for word, and precisely because of that it now says something nobody put into it.
That is often how it goes with words that last. Lasting does not protect their meaning. The more definite a sentence sounds, with “never”, “always” or “for all time”, the more sharply any departure from it stands out later. A cautious sentence would have had less to lose. Then again, nobody would have written it to reach a particular person on a particular day.
You put the book back or take it with you. Either way, you have now read the dedication without knowing J.
