This cartoon by Martin Rowson from The Guardian shows two crumbling stone pillars in the midst of a sandstorm. Nearby, half-buried in the sand, lies the head of a statue featuring the scowling face of deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. The stone pillars are marked 'Made in USA'.
At first sight, the cartoon might seem like a fairly obvious metaphor for the demise of the US-backed Egyptian dictator (a fallen statue crumbling in an Egyptian desert storm). However, the title of the cartoon, Ozymandias, suggests there is more to it than meets the eye.
EXPLANATION
"Ozymandias" is a sonnet by English Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, published in 1818. It is frequently anthologised and is probably Shelley's most famous short poem. The central theme of "Ozymandias" is the inevitable complete decline of all leaders, and of the empires they build, however mighty in their own time. (Adapted from Wikipedia)
In fact, the stone pillars are the legs of the statue, as is made clear by the poem below.
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
