What are the pictures depicted on the urn?

Answer

What are the pictures depicted on the urn?

In “Ode on a Grecian Urn” (1819), John Keats (1795-1821) talks about the beauty of an ancient urn by describing the pictures on it. The Grecian urn has four main pictures carved on it. They show scenes from ancient Greek life, myths, or rituals. These pictures are frozen in time.

A Wild Celebration: The first scene is like a festival. There are people, maybe gods or humans, running after each other in a “mad pursuit.” They are trying to catch or embrace each other. Musicians are playing pipes. Everyone seems excited. But because it is a painting on the urn, they will never actually catch each other or finish the song.

A Lover and His Beloved: Under some leafy trees, a young man is reaching out to kiss a beautiful girl. But their lips never touch. The girl is always shy, and the boy is forever chasing her. Keats writes:

“Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss.”

Keats says this is actually better than real life because their love will never fade. As a picture on the urn and frozen in time, the girl will stay “fair” (beautiful) forever and the boy will love her forever.

A Peaceful Village Scene: In the next picture, we see a quiet countryside with trees that never lose their leaves. A man is playing a flute, but we cannot hear the music. Keats says the piper’s “unheard” music is sweeter because we can imagine the song is perfect. Keats says:

“Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter;”

A Religious Ritual: The last picture shows people leading a young cow to an altar for a sacrifice. A priest is there, and a crowd has gathered from a nearby empty town. The streets are silent because everyone is at the ritual. But the cow will never be sacrificed—the moment is frozen, so the ceremony never ends.

Significance: