In 1818, Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote a poem entitled "Ozymandias," a thinly veiled, satirical homage to the long-dead Egyptian pharaoh, Ramesses II. Shelley's speaker invites the listener to stand with him and observe the remains of a colossal statue that the narcissistic king had erected as tribute to his glory.
However, the ravages of time have dishonored Ramesses by reducing the statue to a heap of rubble. Only an ironic inscription remains: "Look on my works ye Mighty and despair!"
Ramesses' psychopathic arrogance calls to mind the self-centered construction of certain "monuments" today: a gilded tower on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, the bankrupted Taj Mahal Casino in Atlantic City, and, not least, the obscenely opulent Mar-a-Lago Resort in Palm Beach.
If Shelley were here today, he would advise us to look upon these works and realize that they, too, will be ravaged and forgotten by time -- as will their essentially insecure, egomaniacal creator and those who continue to worship at the short-lived shrine of wealth and privilege.
Fred Rawe
Kula
