Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats Summary and Analysis

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Ode on a Grecian Urn
In the first stanza, the speaker stands before an ancient Grecian urn and addresses it. He is preoccupied with its depiction of pictures frozen in time. It is the “still unravish’d bride of quietness,” the “foster-child of silence and slow time.” He also describes the urn as a “historian” that can tell a story. 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 a 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?”
In the second stanza, the speaker looks at another picture on the urn, this time of a young man playing a pipe, lying with his lover beneath a glade of trees. The speaker says that the piper’s “unheard” melodies are sweeter than mortal melodies because they are unaffected by time. He tells the youth that, though he can never kiss his lover because he is frozen in time, he should not grieve, because her beauty will never fade. In the third stanza, he looks at the trees surrounding the lovers and feels happy that they will never shed their leaves. He is happy for the piper because his songs will be “for ever new,” and happy that the love of the boy and the girl will last forever, unlike mortal love, which lapses into “breathing human passion” and eventually vanishes, leaving behind only a “burning forehead, and a parching tongue.”
In the fourth stanza, the speaker examines another picture on the urn, this one of a group of villagers leading a heifer to be sacrificed. He wonders where they are going (“To what green altar, O mysterious priest...”) and from where they have come. He imagines their little town, empty of all its citizens, and tells it that its streets will “for evermore” be silent, for those who have left it, frozen on the urn, will never return. In the final stanza, the speaker again addresses the urn itself, saying that it, like Eternity, “doth tease us out of thought.” He thinks that when his generation is long dead, the urn will remain, telling future generations its enigmatic lesson: “Beauty is truth, truth beauty.” The speaker says that that is the only thing the urn knows and the only thing it needs to know.

Title:
On a Grecian Urn means to or about a Greek urn. The urn is addressed (= talked to). Talking to a thing is a thing that poets do in odes. (You will see that In this ode, the poet also addresses the things he sees on the urn.)
Line 1: THOU still unravish’d bride of quietness,
The urn is the virgin (“unravished” means she has not been touched) bride of quietness. A bride is a woman who gets married. In this case the vase is the bride of quiet.
Line 2: Thou foster-child of Silence and slow Time,
The urn is also the foster-child (= not a biological child but one that is taken care of by someone else than its parent) of Silence and Time. Usually time is fast, but here not, because we are talking about an urn which is not alive, so time passes slowly for it.
Line 3 & 4: Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
Sylvan (or sylvian) means of the woods. The word has a pleasant, peaceful connotation. So sylvan historian means the maker of the urn who presents a pleasant scene in the woods. Maybe one such as this:
Nymphs and Satyrs by Peter Paul Rubens
Canst is an old-fashioned form of can.
Line 5: What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
What legend (= old story) framed with leaves can be found around your shape (= the urn).
         5
Line 6: Of deities or mortals, or of both,
Deities are gods, and mortals are humans (mortal comes from the French mort = dead.)
Line 7: In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
Tempe is a valley in Greece. A dale is also a valley. Arcady is a region in Greece that is associated with a peaceful and simple country life.
 Line 8: What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
A maiden is an old word for girl. Loth means not willing (the girls don’t want to). What don’t the girls want? Well, probably to be kissed or more than that.
Line 9: What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
Mad pursuit may refer to a classic scene where fauns who are always horny pursue (pursuit is the noun, and pursue means chase) the girls or nymphs. The nymphs/girls then struggle (fight) to escape the men’s grabbing arms.
Line 10: What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Pipes are flutes. A timbrel  is an ancient tambourine.
The music is played and the people or gods in the picture are going wild. They’re ecstatic. They’re probably dancing wildly. You get the idea.
Stanza 2:
Line 11: Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Line 12: Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
This stanza speaks of things that are not in the scene on the urn. When we look at the urn, we might hear music in our imagination, but that music isn’t really there. The speaker of the poem draws our attention to this, and he says the music that you can’t actually hear, that imaginary music, is actually better than real music. Quite an interesting statement to make. Do you agree with the poet?
Line 13: Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear’d,
The pipes (= flutes) in the picture on the urn play not to our physical (“sensual”) ears, but to the ears of our imagination. And these are better loved (“more endear’d), or at least the speaker of the poem thinks so, than our real ears.
Line 14: Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
A ditty is a simple song. The flutes are asked to play with the songs, but they are spirit songs = sung by ghosts. The songs don’t exist either; they have no tone, as they exist only in the imagination of the person who is looking at the urn. But hey, wait, even the urn itself doesn’t actually exist, as it exists only in the mind of the poet. After all, the poet didn’t refer us to an existing urn. He never said: “Please go to the British Museum and have a look at the famous Apollo urn.” Or whatever other famous pot. In fact, we have no idea which urn Keats is talking about. Even the urn is in the imagination.
Line 15: Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Line 16: Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
These lines and the ones until the end of the stanza teach us another aspect of art. Visual art captures only one moment, and makes it eternal. The youth are always under the trees. Fair means beautiful. The people are in the scene are always hearing the same song. The trees will never lose their leaves.
Line 17: Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
The lover will never get the kiss he is waiting for.
Line 18: Though winning near the goal—yet, do not grieve;
But the lover still has won a few points. He doesn’t need to be sad.
Line 19: She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
The woman he wants will not fade = she will not grow ugly and old. On the other hand, he will never be happy,
Line 20: For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
His love will be forever, and she will forever be beautiful.
Stanza 3:
Line 21: Ah, happy happy boughs! that cannot shed
Line 22: Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
Boughs are branches of a tree. The branches will never lose (“shed”) their leaves. We knew that already. They never bid the Spring adieu = they never say goodbye to spring. It’s always spring.
Line 23: And, happy melodist, unwearièd,
Line 24: For ever piping songs for ever new;
The happy musician, unwearied (= not tired), is forever playing his flute songs that are also forever new.
Line 25: More happy love! more happy, happy love!
Line 26: For ever warm and still to be enjoy’d,
The word “happy” is overused a little bit in these lines, don’t you think? Does the poet really think that the creatures on the urn are happy? What do you think? I’m beginning to doubt it.
Anyway, everything looks good. The love is forever warm and fresh, on the point of being enjoyed.
Line 27: For ever panting, and for ever young;
The lovers are forever young and out of breath with excitement.
Line 28: All breathing human passion far above,
The lovers are “above” human passion, which means they are at a distance from it; they’re at a better place.
Line 29: That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy’d,
Human passion makes you worried and tired (cloy means wear out because something is too sticky, too heavy, or too sweet).
Line 30: A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Passion can make you feel ill, as if you have a fever, with your forehead burning, and your tongue sticking in your mouth (“parching” means dried out/very thirsty).
So what have we been reading so far?
Let’s stop to try to understand Stanza 3.
This stanza develops the thought from stanza 2 that nothing can change in the world of the picture on the urn. It gives some more examples of that.
Then it stresses the idea that as little as human passion is not a part of the scene on the urn, neither is human suffering “all breathing human passion far above.” Passion and suffering go together, is the idea here, and art is clean of that. Or at least the conventional art in Keats’ time was.
Suffering and/in Art
As I’ve remarked above, before we started reading the poem, today we have plenty of paintings and poems full with suffering. But probably that wasn’t what Keats was looking for in his own art. He was looking for a way to say something meaningful about how art could talk about life and how art can help us tolerate suffering.
Stanza 4: Time for a change of scene.
We’re now looking at another picture on the urn.
Line 31: Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
Some people are coming to a sacrifice = event of animal burning as offer to the gods.
Line 32: To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Altar = the high place where offerings are made to the gods.
Line 33: Lead’st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
The priest is leading a young cow (“heifer) to be sacrificed. The cow is lowing = mooing.
Line 34: And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
Drest = dressed. The cow’s legs (“flanks”) are decorated with flower chains.
Line 35: What little town by river or sea-shore,
Line 36: Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
A citadel is a fort. The people in the scene on the urn are imagined to be from a little town.
 Line 37:   Is emptied of its folk, this pious morn?
Is empty of people, on this morning of worship. Morn = morning. Pious means believing, worshipping.
Line 38: And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Line 39: Will silent be; and not a soul, to tell
Line 40: Why thou art desolate, can e’er return.
The people in the scene are on their way to the sacrifice, so their town will forever be empty and silent. No one (“not a soul”) will ever come back to explain what the reason is the town is empty.
The “you” (thou) is the town here.
Again it’s an example of how the scene on the urn is frozen in time, and is devoid (= empty) of humanity and life.
Stanza 5:
Line 41: O Attic shape! fair attitude! with brede
Line 42: Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
Attic means from Athens, the capital of Greece. “Brede” is an interwoven pattern, like a braid but here it’s in marble. The urn is decorated with marble men and women
Line 43: With forest branches and the trodden weed;
Amongst green trees and plants under their feet.
Line 44: Thou, silent form! dost tease us out of thought
Thou = you. The poet is talking to the urn again. The quiet urn which doesn’t speak challenges our thoughts
Line 45: As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
As much as eternity = endless time. Pastoral = the sweet, peaceful country life.
The speaker calls the scene on the urn cold and not sweet, so cold pastoral is a paradox.
We’ve already discussed why the scene is cold. No real passion is going on; the scenes on the urn are frozen. But they may look sweet and attractive.
Line 46: When old age shall this generation waste,
When people who live now will grow old and die,
Line 47: Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
You (the urn) will stay, in the middle of all kinds of trouble
Line 48:  Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
That is not ours. You’ll be a friend to man, to whom you will say:
Line 49: ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Line 50: Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.’



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