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| title    = Ozymandias
 
| title    = Ozymandias
 
| image    = ozymandias.png
 
| image    = ozymandias.png
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| titletext = And on the pedestal these words appear: "And on the pedestal these words appear: "And on the pedestal these words appear: "And...
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| titletext = And on the pedestal these words appear: "And on the pedestal these words appear: "And on the pedestal these words appear: "And ...
 
}}
 
}}
  
 
==Explanation==
 
==Explanation==
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[[Ponytail]] is reciting the opening of "{{w|Ozymandias}}" by {{w|Percy Bysshe Shelley}} (see [[#Ozymandias text|text]] below).
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{{incomplete|Please expound upon this explanation.}}
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[[Ponytail]] is reciting the opening of "{{w|Ozymandias}}" by {{w|Percy Bysshe Shelley}}. However, instead of continuing on with the poem, Ponytail is going through a recursion where the information is always being quoted from "a traveler from an antique land" who recounts what they were told by a similar traveler from another antique land. The title text once again plays with recursion, but instead of it being a string of travelers talking about travelers, it is a string of pedestals that are quoting pedestals. (In the original poem, the text on the pedestal is itself recounted as part of the traveler's story, so there are already two levels of quotation.)
  
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The poem Ozymandias is about the last vestiges of a {{w|Ancient Egypt|once-great civilization}} that has since been lost to history. The poem is based on nested quotations: the poet, speaking to the reader, quotes a "traveler", who ultimately quotes words carved in the pedestal of a crumbling statue. When people recite the poem, they add yet another level of nesting, as the reader is quoting the poet, who's quoting the traveler, who's quoting the pedestal.  
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It is possible that a pedestal could be circular and have the quotes going around it, and thus have a never-ending ring of self-quotation.
  
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When Ponytail recites this poem, rather than reciting it normally, she adds more layers of recursive nesting, suggesting that she heard the story from a traveler, who heard it from another traveler, who heard it from another traveler. It's not clear how many layers of nesting this goes through before the rest of the text is cited (or whether the recursion is infinite).  
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The fact that Ponytail is now telling [[Cueball]] the story of this recursion implies that she is yet another layer of this recursion and is herself "a traveler from an antique land."
  
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The title similarly plays with recursion, quoting a pedestal which quotes a string of other pedestals.
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The quotes are not nested properly, as they never end. So there is only the starting quotation mark (") for each quote. If she ever finishes there would be one closing quotation mark for each quote in the recursion at the end of her sentence.
  
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The quotes are not nested properly, as they never end. So there is only the starting quotation mark (") for each quote. If she ever finishes there would be one closing quotation mark for each quote in the recursion at the end of her sentence. See [[859: (]].
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The poem is a sonnet in iambic pentameter, 10 syllables to a line; the fragment quoted is the first line and two syllables of the second. As laid out in the comic, each line is itself an iambic pentameter (hence the hyphenation of an-tique), except that the last is two syllables short, perhaps to avoid finishing in mid word ("a trav-"). The title text quotes exactly one line.
  
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A similar joke was used in [[785: Open Mic Night]]
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The poem "Ozymandias" is mentioned on pages 169 and 170 of the book ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=mjThBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=Ozymandias+recursion&source=bl&ots=atqSnLbGZP&sig=cXeyE-vAQm9UzBh2k7O0ooHrQr0&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAGoVChMI8_echsL_xgIVSZiACh009gnS#v=onepage&q=Ozymandias%20recursion&f=false Recursive Desire: Rereading Epic Tradition]'' by Jeremy M. Downes.
  
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===Ozymandias text===
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==Ozymandias Text==
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:I met a traveller from an antique land<br />
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I met a traveller from an antique land<br />
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:Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone<br />
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Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone<br />
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:Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,<br />
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Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,<br />
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:Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,<br />
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Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,<br />
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:And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,<br />
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And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,<br />
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:Tell that its sculptor well those passions read<br />
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Tell that its sculptor well those passions read<br />
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:Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,<br />
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Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,<br />
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:The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:<br />
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The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:<br />
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:And on the pedestal these words appear:<br />
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And on the pedestal these words appear:<br />
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:'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:<br />
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'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:<br />
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:Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'<br />
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Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'<br />
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:Nothing beside remains. Round the decay<br />
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Nothing beside remains. Round the decay<br />
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:Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare<br />
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Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare<br />
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:The lone and level sands stretch far away."<ref name="Shelley1826">Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias" in ''[https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MZY9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA100 Miscellaneous and Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley]'' (London: W. Benbow, 1826), 100.</ref><br />
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The lone and level sands stretch far away."<ref name="Shelley1826">Percy Bysshe Shelley, "Ozymandias" in ''[https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=MZY9AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en&pg=GBS.PA100 Miscellaneous and Posthumous Poems of Percy Bysshe Shelley]'' (London: W. Benbow, 1826), 100.</ref><br />
 
<references/>
 
<references/>
  
 
==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==
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:[Ponytail, with her arms stretched out, is addressing Cueball.]
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:[Ponytail is addressing Cueball.]
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:Ponytail:
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:Ponytail: I met a traveler from an antique land who said: "I met a traveler from an antique land, who said "I met a traveler from an antique land, who said "I met ...
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:I met a traveler from an antique land
 
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:who said: "I met a traveler from an an-
 
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:tique land, who said "I met a traveler from
 
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:an antique land, who said "I met...
 
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}

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