INTRODUCTION....
Ode on a Grecian Urn expresses the poet’s love of romance, deep delight in nature and his interest in the Greek mythology.
"Ode on a Grecian Ode" is based on a series of paradoxes and opposites:
the discrepancy between the urn with its frozen images and the dynamic life portrayed on the urn,the human and changeable versus the immortal and permanent,participation versus observation, life versus art.
Thou still unravish’d bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring’d legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Summary of the first stanza:
The poet stands before an ancient Grecian urn and addresses it. He is preoccupied with its depiction of pictures frozen in time. He expresseshis sense of wonder through a string of questions. Keats calls the beautiful urn the“still unravish’ed bride of quietness”, the “foster childof silence and slow time”. He also calls it “sylvan historian”because the pictures on the urn are able to tell their stories more beautifully than any poet can.It tells the tales of gods and men inTempe or the valleys of Arcadia in Greece. He wonders about the figures on the side of the urn and asks what legend they depict and from where they come. He looks at the picture that seems to depict a group of men pursuing a group of women and wonders what their story could be: “What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal- yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Summary of the second stanza;
The poet looks at another picture on the urn, this time of a young man playing a pipe, The poet feels that heard melodies are sweet but those unheard are sweeter. This means that imagination is more powerful than reality. The piper on the urn will go on playing on the pipe forever because art has immortalised him. His tunes are meant for the spiritual ear. Then he sees a fair youth beneath a glade of trees with his lover. Keats consoles the bold lover who is about to kiss his sweet heart saying that he should not grieve because her beauty will never fade and she will be young forever.
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Summary of the third stanza :
The poet looks at the trees surrounding the lovers and feels happy that they will never shed their leaves. The trees can never bid farewell to spring because eternal spring will keep them happy forever. The piper will go on piping ever fresh melodies without feeling weariness. The lovers on the urn will keep on loving. The passions experienced by the lovers in the pictures are above real human emotions. Human passions end up in sad satiety whereas the love depicted on the urn will remain fresh and young forever.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e’er returne..
Summary of the fourth stanza :
The poet now turns to a scene of a ritual, an animal sacrifice on a pagan altar. A heifer being led by a priest to the altar is lowing at the skies. He wonders where they are going and from where they have come. He imagines the empty streets of their little town.All the people have gone to the sacrifice. The streets of the town will be silent and desolate forever, for those who have left it, frozen on the urn, will never return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwroughte
With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,- that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
of the last stanza :
The poet again addresses the urn itself. The urn is Greek and looks beautiful. The marble urn is embroidered with human figures, branches and grass. He says that the urn diverts us away from rational speculation and it does not yield to thought. Like eternity it too cannot becomprehended in rational terms. He thinks that when his generation is long dead, the urn will remain, telling future generations its enigmatic lesson. “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” This is the great message of the urn to mankind.
Citation..........
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