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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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[[Ponytail]] is reciting the opening of "{{w|Ozymandias}}" by {{w|Percy Bysshe Shelley}} (see [[#Ozymandias text|text]] below). 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. The inscription on the pedestal describes Ozymandias as the "king of kings", which, being itself a recursion, gives rise to the comic's joke.
  
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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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The poem Ozymandias is about the last vestiges of a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Egypt once-great civilization] that has since been lost to history. However, the poem itself, like the statue it describes,can be thought of as a pinnacle of achievement for its civilization- in this case, English civilization. So it is entirely possible that one day, after the fall of this civilization, the poem will fill the same role for it that the statue filled for Ozymandias' civilization, and would therefore be referenced by a traveler from an antique land who stumbled across it.
  
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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. See [[859: (]].
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The poem is a {{w|sonnet}} written in {{w|iambic pentameter}}, 10 syllables to a line (note that traveler should be read as trav'ler with only two syllables. Also note that it was originally written in British English where it was spelled with two l's as ''traveller''). The fragment quoted in the comic consist of the first line and two syllables of the second line of the original poem. The way Ponytail recites her version of the poem in the comic, each line continues to be iambic pentameters (which is the reason for the hyphenation of an-tique between 2nd and 3rd line). However the fourth and last line stops two syllables short, but would have continued as indicated by ... Perhaps Randall did this to avoid finishing in mid word ("a trav-").
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The title text quotes exactly one line, the 9th line or the first line of the second part of the poem, also stopping during the fourth repetition, although after just one word the fourth time, also with ... to indicate that this goes on and on and...
  
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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 "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.
  
 
A similar joke was used in [[785: Open Mic Night]]
 
A similar joke was used in [[785: Open Mic Night]]
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==Transcript==
 
==Transcript==
 
:[Ponytail, with her arms stretched out, is addressing Cueball.]
 
:[Ponytail, with her arms stretched out, is addressing Cueball.]
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:Ponytail:
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:Ponytail:  
 
:I met a traveler from an antique land
 
: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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: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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:-tique land, who said "I met a traveler from  
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:an antique land, who said "I met...
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:an antique land, who said "I met ...
  
 
{{comic discussion}}
 
{{comic discussion}}

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