Tonight’s poem is about my world, Philo: a Greek vase, painted with pictures. A young English poet, John Keats, looked at vases like this in London, and wondered about the people painted on them: who are they? where are they going? They will never grow old.
Learn from Songs · Poetry · C1
Ode on a Grecian Urn
Keats’s great poem about a painted Greek vase whose figures will never grow old: questions to an object (What men or gods are these?), comparatives (Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter), never… yet / for ever, and the famous ending, Beauty is truth, truth beauty, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
SOPHIA
PHILO
A poem about a pot? From a Greek’s point of view, that’s very flattering.
SOPHIA
A poem about time, and art, and beauty. And it ends with two of the most famous and puzzling lines in English: Beauty is truth, truth beauty.
MARCOS
What does that mean?
Before you listen: the song
London, May 1819
John Keats (1795–1821) trained as a doctor before giving his life to poetry. In the spring of 1819 he wrote five great odes in a few weeks, including this one and “Ode to a Nightingale”. He died of tuberculosis in Rome two years later, aged twenty-five, believing he had failed.
In London, Keats had seen the Elgin Marbles, sculptures from the Parthenon, and Greek vases in the British Museum and in books. The urn in the poem is imaginary, a mixture of many. On it there are scenes: a lover chasing a girl, a piper under the trees, a priest leading a heifer to sacrifice, a little town emptied of its people.
In the poem, the speaker asks the urn questions it cannot answer. The figures on it will never move, never grow old, never reach what they are chasing; their joy and longing will last for ever. At the end, the urn itself seems to speak.
Art can hold a moment for ever.
Ode on a Grecian Urn
John Keats (1795–1821)
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?
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!
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.
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 return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
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.
Words in the poem
unravish’d: untouched, unspoiled
foster-child: a child raised by someone who is not its parent
sylvan: of the woods
legend: story; also the words around a picture
Tempe, Arcady: beautiful valleys in Greece, ideal countryside
loth: unwilling
timbrels: tambourines
ditties of no tone: silent little songs
bliss: perfect happiness
adieu: goodbye
cloy’d: sick from too much sweetness
heifer: a young cow
lowing: mooing
flanks: sides of an animal
citadel: a fortress
pious morn: holy morning
desolate: empty, abandoned
Attic: from Athens
brede: embroidery, decoration
overwrought: decorated all over
Cold Pastoral: a cold (marble) country scene
Read and listen: the scenes on the urn
PHILO
Read the poem slowly. What scenes are painted on the urn? Which questions does the speaker ask? What does the urn “say” at the end?
SOPHIA
This is a C1 text. Use the glossary, read one stanza at a time, and then listen to a reading. Then answer Section A.
🏺 Listen to the song: “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (John Keats, 1819).Find a reading →
Questions to an object
MARCOS
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth? What pipes and timbrels? Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
SOPHIA
Speaking to an object or an absent person is called apostrophe. The questions build excitement, but the urn never answers. Notice the short questions without verbs: What mad pursuit?
Comparatives and paradox
DEMETRIA
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.
SOPHIA
A paradox seems impossible but contains a truth: the music we imagine is sweeter than the music we hear, because it is perfect. Those replaces melodies: those unheard = the melodies that are not heard.
Never… yet, for ever
PHILO
Bold lover, never, never canst thou kiss, though winning near the goal, yet, do not grieve; she cannot fade. For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
SOPHIA
The lover will never kiss the girl, but she will never grow old, and he will love her for ever. canst thou, wilt thou = can you, will you (old forms for thou).
Beauty is truth, truth beauty
MARCOS
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.
SOPHIA
Critics have argued about these lines for two hundred years. Is the urn speaking, or the poet? Is it true? Some say it means that what is truly beautiful must also be true; others say it is only what art can tell us, not life. What do you think?
Sophia’s comparison: Achilles’ shield and Bezalel
SOPHIA
In the Iliad, the god Hephaestus makes a shield for Achilles, and Homer describes the pictures on it, a wedding, a harvest, a dance, a city at peace and a city at war, as if they were moving and alive. Keats is doing what Homer did.
PHILO
And the Torah tells of Bezalel, filled with wisdom to make beautiful things for the Tabernacle: carved cherubim, woven curtains, gold and blue and purple. Beauty made by human hands, to the glory of God.
Sophia’s summary
| Words and forms | Use | Example |
|---|---|---|
| What / Who + noun…? | questions to an object (apostrophe) | What men or gods are these? |
| comparative + those + past participle | paradox | Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter. |
| never… yet | what will never happen, but… | Never canst thou kiss, yet do not grieve. |
| for ever | eternity | For ever wilt thou love. |
| thou / canst / wilt | old forms of you / can / will | canst thou = can you |
Practice
Listen to the song for Section A, then do the rest. Press “Check my answers” at the end. You can try again as many times as you like.
A · Listen: the song
Listen to the song and choose the best answer.
1. What is painted on the urn?
2. Will the lover ever kiss the girl?
3. Which melodies are sweeter, according to the poem?
4. What does the urn “say” at the end?
5. How old was Keats when he died?
6. Is the urn in the poem a real one?
B · Grammar and vocabulary
Write the missing word or words.
7. men or gods are these? (question)
8. Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are .
9. Never thou kiss. (old form of can)
10. She cannot , though thou hast not thy bliss. (lose her beauty)
11. wilt thou love, and she be fair! (always)
12. Beauty is truth, truth .
C · Right or wrong?
Is the sentence correct English?
13. “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are more sweet.”
14. “What men or gods are these?”
15. “Canst thou to kiss her?” (old English)
16. “She will love him for ever.”
Talk and write
Discussion and writing
Describe a picture. Choose an old painting or photograph. Write five questions to it, like Keats: Who are these? Where are they going? Why…? Then imagine the answers.
Discuss. 1. Is a moment captured in art better than life, because it never ends? 2. What do you think “Beauty is truth, truth beauty” means? Do you agree? 3. Why do people make beautiful things?
Write (150–200 words). Ode on an object. Write a short poem or prose piece speaking to an object you love (a photo, an instrument, a ring). Use questions, a comparative paradox, and for ever.
Now play the gamebook: a painted urn in the Museum, and the secret in its pictures.Play the gamebook →