Ovid on the Midterm Elections

And then by trekking through remote and distant
byways, through fearful forests and rough rocks,
he came at last to where the Gorgon lived.
And everywhere, in fields, along the roads,
he witnessed the sad forms of men and beasts
no more themselves, but changed now into stone,
misfortunates, who'd glimpsed Medusa once.

He too had once looked upon her image,
but it had been reflected in the shield
of bronze our hero bore in his left hand;
and while sleep held Medusa and her snakes,
he struck her head off...

-- Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book IV