"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings"
Originally published 17 September 2000
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings"
Originally published 17 September 2000
Some people ask me how Ozy got his name. I understand there is a character in some video game or other called Ozymandias. But that's not the origin. (I have nothing at all against video games, but I'm wasting enough time every day as it is.)
No, Ozy is named for the actual poem "Ozymandias," by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The title character is a ruler; I believe "Ozymandias" is what the Greeks called Pharaoh Rameses II of Egypt. The point, of course, is that all things, however great, are transitory.
There are two possible answers, when people ask what that has to do with our little gray fox:
1. The idea that all things are transitory is essential to zen. So even if this Ozymandias himself bears no resemblance to the other, its central point is essential to his philosophy.
or
2. Nothing at all, really.
Ozy and Millie™, and everything related, © 1997-2006 D.C. Simpson.
