Achilles in the Alleyway: Bob Dylan and Classical Poetry and Myth, Arion 17.1 (2009): 119-135.

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Achilles in the Alleyway: Bob Dylan and Classical Poetry and Myth

THOMAS E. STRUNK

Achilles is in your alleyway He don't want me here, he does brag He's pointing to the sky

And he's hungry, like a man in drag How come you get someone like him to be your guard?

?"Temporary Like Achilles," Blonde on Blonde

w ITH dismay I read a Chicago Tribune col?

umn in the autumn of 2006 that defended Bob Dylan from

accusations of plagiarism on his latest album, Modern Times.?

My dismay did not arise because I thought Dylan was guilty of committing plagiarism, but rather because the column ana?

lyzed the Western artistic process merely in terms of plagia? rism versus originality. The charge of plagiarism had come to

the fore in the New York Times with articles arguing either

side of the debate over whether Bob Dylan stole the words of

Civil War poet Henry Timrod.2 Clearly Dylan has read Tim

rod and has incorporated the poet's work into his lyrics, but I

shudder to think what would be the conclusions of these com?

mentators if they read both Vergil's Aeneid and Homer's

Odyssey. Plagiarism simply is not the issue, as if artists such as Dylan and Vergil are limited by the same constraints as an

undergraduate writing a term paper. 3 My intent is not to ac?

cuse Dylan of plagiarism, for that would be as foolish as at?

tempting to defend an artist like him from charges of stealing another's work. What I want to discuss and what the com?

mentators on Dylan's latest album fail to perceive are the

time-honored traditions of literary allusion, artistic citation, and poetic translation, techniques with which classicists are

all joyfully familiar. Indeed, they are at the foundation of the

classical literary tradition. For what would Vergil be without

ARION 17.1 SPRING/SUMMER 2009



I20 ACHILLES IN THE ALLEYWAY

Homer, Horace without Alcaeus, and Catullus without Sap?

pho? And here I would like to add: what would Bob Dylan be

without Catullus, Horace, Vergil, and Euripides? The originality of Dylan's music is matched only by his

eclectic use of the Western literary and musical tradition.

The inspiration of the Old and New Testaments can be felt

in almost every Dylan song from "Rainy Day Women #12 &

35" to "Slow Train Coming." The genealogy of Dylan's mu?

sic has been traced by scholars like Christopher Ricks and

Michael Gray, who look to poets such as Rimbaud, Gins?

berg, Keats, and indeed Henry Timrod as influences along with authors like Kerouac and Dickens.4 Songwriters like

Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, and countless other blues

and folk musicians are recognized as direct models. The

early and profound influence of folk music on Dylan's artis?

tic development cannot be underestimated here, as the folk

process encourages liberal borrowing and adaptation of ear?

lier works. The folk process is founded on the principle of

communal ownership of the artistic tradition, and it can be seen at work in Dylan's adaptation of Timrod's lyrics. One influence, however, has eluded the ken of most com?

mentators and critics alike: the classics.5 Dylan's participa? tion in his high school's social studies club for four years seems hardly surprising, as his music is undeniably politically and socially focused. But we also know that he studied Latin

in high school and was involved in the most un-hip activities

of his high school's Latin club. Moreover, Dylan cites a num?

ber of ancient authors in his recent memoir Chronicles: Vol? ume One, including Tacitus, Suetonius, Ovid, Thucydides, and Sophocles.6 I would like to add a few more classical au?

thors to this list, particularly Catullus, Horace, Vergil, and

Euripides, and to trace their influence on Dylan's music.

VALE, PUELLA ?GOODBYE'S TOO GOOD A WORD

Saying goodbye to a lover is a sub-genre of love poetry for

which Dylan has displayed remarkable talent. Recall such



Thomas E. Strunk 121

lyrics as "It Ain't Me Babe," "Farewell Angelina," and "To

Ramona." These goodbyes range from the sympathetic ("To

Ramona") to the acerbic ("It Ain't Me Babe"). Among Dy? lan's most plaintive goodbyes is his early song "Don't Think

Twice, It's All Right," from the album The Treewheelin Bob

Dylan (1963). What makes this lover's farewell unique is its

purpose. In "It Ain't Me Babe," "Farewell Angelina," and

"To Ramona," the speaker is either gently or harshly telling an admirer that he is not interested. However, in "Don't

Think Twice, It's All Right" the voice belongs to the admirer, who realizes that his affections have been misplaced and his

love unrequited. In this spirit, he bids farewell to his lover

and attempts to buttress his courage. The song is equal parts farewell and protreptic. And yet in the background lurks the sense that the admirer hasn't quite convinced himself; that if

his lover called him back as he wandered on down the road, he just might come running back. Evidence of this appears in

lines 13-14, "Still I wish there was somethin' you would do or say / To try and make me change my mind and stay. "7

Dylan's lyrics call to mind Catullus 8, another farewell

poem. The distinctions between "Don't Think Twice, It's All

Right" and Catullus' poem 8 are significant, the similarities

few, but they deserve consideration. Foremost, the purpose is the same: to say goodbye to an unrequited love, to recog? nize the affair as one-sided, and to embolden the forlorn

lover to move on. Both pieces emphasize shades of light and

dark: Dylan writes, "It ain't no use in turnin' on your light, babe / That light I never knowed / An' it ain't no use in turn

in' on your light, babe / I'm on the dark side of the road"; whereas Catullus laments, "truly suns once shone brightly for you" (fulsere vere candidi tibi soles, 8.8), suggesting to

the reader that he too is now surrounded by darkness. Cat?

ullus, like Dylan, seems to betray a tinge of hesitation. His

list of lovers' activities in lines 16-19 seems to weaken him, so that he must close by reiterating his earlier imperative to

remain strong: "Who will visit you now? To whom will you seem pretty? Whom now will you love? Whose will you be



122 ACHILLES IN THE ALLEYWAY

called? Whom will you kiss? Whose little lips will you bite?

But you, Catullus, determined, be resolute."

Lastly, and most clearly, there is the farewell: Dylan sings, "But goodbye's too good a word, gal / So I'll just say fare

thee well" (27-28)?"Vale, puella" (8.12), Catullus writes.

A subtle and effective poetic translation. Now, whether Dy? lan had Catullus in mind when he wrote the lines, only Dy? lan can say. Perhaps it is an example of that most insidious

kind of plagiarism, cryptomnesia. Or rather, we could say that great minds think alike.

DISSOLVE FRIGUS ?BUILD A FIRE

A theme that creeps into the music of Bob Dylan in the late

sixties and early seventies is what we might call in Latin

otium: a withdrawal from public life, a focus on personal commitments over public duties. Christopher Ricks in his

work Dylan's Visions of Sin puts Dylan's withdrawal in a

Christian context and calls it sloth (114-20). Given Dylan's propensity for Judeo-Christian symbolism, this has proven an

appropriate way to analyze his music. But let's imagine Dylan as a pagan throwing away his shield and retreating from the

battles that shaped his experiences in the early and mid-sixties

for a more leisured, more private life. Dylan himself writes in

his memoir about the period from 1969 to 1973:

The events of the day, all the cultural mumbo jumbo were im?

prisoning my soul?nauseating me?civil rights and political lead?

ers being gunned down, the mounting of the barricades, the

government crackdowns, the student radicals and demonstrators

versus the cops and the unions?the streets exploding, fire of anger

boiling?the contra communes?the lying, noisy voices?the free

love, the anti-money system movement?the whole shebang. I was determined to put myself beyond the reach of it all. I was

a family man now, didn't want to be in that group portrait.8

Such sentiments do not lend themselves to sloth, but rather a world-weary withdrawal, not an a-political statement in its




own right. If we wanted to be philosophic about it, we could

call it a need for ataraxia. Of course, Dylan did not persist in this mode for long, emerging in the mid-seventies with

songs like "Hurricane" and a Christian righteousness about

him. Still, Dylan's lyrics from his Epicurean period bear a

classical stamp worth exploring. One example is "On a Night Like This" (Planet Waves,

I973)> a song about two friends and lovers enjoying their

leisure together away from the troubles of the world. The re?

peating title line recalls Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, in

particular the opening scene of act five in which the lovers

Lorenzo and Jessica play back and forth in words with the

line "in such a night as this," citing the adventures of various

classical lovers. But there is also a decidedly Horadan ring to

Dylan's lyrics, particularly lines 19-24 in stanza three:

The air is so cold outside

And the snow's so deep

Build a fire, throw on logs And listen to it hiss And let it burn, burn, burn, burn

On a night like this

The contrast between the winter weather without and the

warmth and comfort within calls to mind Horace's ninth

ode of book one, the address to Thaliarchus. There is the

distinct difference of the addressee between the two works:

Dylan speaks to a lover while Horace speaks to a young friend or slave.? What they share are a similar setting and a

hortatory tone in speaking to their companions in reaction to the natural elements. Outside stands snow-covered

Mount Soracte; the world is icy and cold (lines 1-4). For Dy? lan the air is cold, the snow stands deep (19-20), and the

four winds blow outside the cabin door (29-30). The re?

sponse for both is to get a drink, build a fire, and forget the

troubles of the world outside (in Horace, 5-8; Dylan, 4,

19-21). Horace enjoins Thaliarchus to leave the rest to the

gods who will still the wind (9-10); Dylan likewise is con




tent to let the winds howl themselves out (29-30). The ver?

bal similarities are unmistakable in lines 5-6 of Horace and

19-21 of Dylan. They are again very close to a poetic trans?

lation: melt the cold by heaping up abundantly the logs upon the hearth (dissolve frigus ligna super foco large repo

nens) ?And the snow's so deep I Build a fire, throw on logs. One important point to be added is Dylan's execution of

Horace's dictates. Odes 1.9 is a poem offering romantic ad?

vice: love and live while you're still young. "On a Night Like

This" is a song about being young and in love. Conse?

quently, Dylan inverts the Horadan imagery. Horace takes

the cold winter weather as a stern reminder that with the warmer weather love is to be sought in the public squares

(18-24). Dylan, on the other hand, takes the cold winter

weather as an opportunity for him and his love to shut

themselves inside alone.

The Horatian theme of otium also appears during this pe? riod of Dylan's writing in the songs "You Ain't Goin'

Nowhere" (Basement Tapes 1967) and "Watching the River

Flow" (New Morning, 1971). Briefly, Dylan's river-watcher

strikes a pose very similar to Horace's drinker by the river in

Odes 1.1.19-22 and 1.38. In "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere,"

Dylan uses a line which in some ways epitomizes the values

of his songs from this period: "Strap yourself / To the tree

with roots / You ain't goin' nowhere" (26-27). Nothing could be more contrary to the ramblin' and wanderin' values

of Dylan's youth. While the song's sentiments again recall

Horace 1.9 and his other "drink and love while we may" poems, the imagery is also Vergilian: the oak tree's roots dig

deep into the soil of the mountainside, unmoved by the

winds blowing above, just as Aeneas stands when he hears

the pleas of Dido in Aeneid 4.441-46.

FAMA PER URBES ?IDIOT WIND

In "On a Night Like This" Dylan's lover is content to let the

four winds blow, careless of their howling and the troubles




they bring. This is just one of many representations of the

wind in Dylan's music, for as any casual reader or listener

will readily notice, the wind is a powerful image in his lyrics. Most recognizable is the wind as a source of inspiration and

hope in the anthemic "Blowin' in the Wind," to which Dy? lan seemed to be alluding when he wrote in disillusion

twenty-nine years later:

Last night the wind was whisperin', I was trying to make out what

it was

Last night the wind was whisperin' somethin'?I was trying to

make out what it was

I tell myself something's comin'

But it never does

("Lonesome Day Blues," 33-36)

In its most somber form, Dylan's wind becomes the bearer

of evils itself, particularly in the song "Idiot Wind" from

Blood on the Tracks (1974). "Idiot Wind" is a song that

pulls no punches. It is a harsh indictment of two lovers who cannot see past their own egos, and the society which en?

courages their destructive narcissism. The Idiot Wind of

which Dylan sings is the insidious gossip that once it gets

blowing can penetrate our most intimate relationships.

Although Dylan's Idiot Wind is inherently different from

Vergil's creature fama (Rumor/Reputation), the two share a

number of similarities, and moreover, Dylan's lovers find

themselves in circumstances not unlike Vergil's lovers, Dido

and Aeneas, in book four of the Aeneid. Dylan's Idiot Wind

and Vergil's fama both move quickly and carry themselves

great distances through the air. Fama flies through the cities

of Libya (Aen. 4.173), the Idiot Wind blows from the Grand

Coulee Dam to the Capitol (42, a certain nod to Woody Guthrie). Fama has many tongues and mouths (4.183), the

Idiot Wind kicks up as soon as we move our mouths (11). Fama spreads the most intimate details of Dido and Aeneas'

relationship (4.190-94), while the Idiot Wind sweeps itself

into the most personal affairs of Dylan's lovers: through the




flowers on the tomb (26), the buttons on their coats (56), the

curtains in the room (27), the letters they wrote (57), even

inspecting the dust upon their shelves (58). We can almost

feel the sands of Libya blowing in our eyes. The effects of fama and gossip upon Dylan and Vergil's

lovers are quickly apparent and their relationships soon un?

ravel into mutual and self-inflicted suffering. For once both sets of lovers become aware of the rumors and gossip, they are led on a path of self-destruction. Dylan's "Idiot Wind"

begins, "Someone's got it in for me, they're planting stories in the press / Whoever it is I wish they'd cut it out but when

they will I can only guess" (1-2). Likewise, Vergil's Dido is

the victim of outside plotting by Iarbas (Aen. 4.198-237) and wracked with shame once report of her affair with Ae? neas spreads (4.534-36). Dylan and Vergil both have a

wounded lover: "But the queen suffering with her deep pain nourishes the wound in her veins" (At regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura I vulnus alit venis; Aen. 4.1-2),

"Dido with the wound still fresh" (recens a vulnere Dido,

6.450); "One day you'll be in the ditch, flies buzzin' around

your eyes / Blood on your saddle" ("Idiot Wind," 24-25). Of course these wounds are both figurative and very real.

Dylan's lyrics are filled with lines that could be spoken of

both sets of lovers: "It was gravity which pulled us down

and destiny which broke us apart" (31). Perhaps Dido can

be heard speaking lines 39-40, "I waited for you on the run?

ning boards, near the cypress trees, while the springtime turned / Slowly into autumn"?the cypress tree being, of

course, the tree of mourning, and autumn the season of

death. Imagine Aeneas before Dido in the Lugentes Campi

(Aen. 6.441) with the sudden realization, "I can't remember

your face anymore, your mouth has changed, your eyes don't look into mine" ("Idiot Wind" 37); in tears Dido turns

her eyes from Aeneas to the ground and walks away:

lacrimasque ciebat. I ilia solo fixos oculos aversa tenebat

(Aen. 6.468-69). Or perhaps Aeneas upon his return from

the underworld speaking Dylan's lines 52-55, "I kissed




goodbye the howling beast on the borderline which sepa? rated you from me / You'll never know the hurt I suffered nor the pain I rise above / And I'll never know the same

about you, your holiness or your kind of love / And it makes me feel so sorry.

" Echoes of the three-headed howling beast

Cerberus and the threshold of Hades, which Aeneas crosses

on his journey to the underworld and Dido and back again.

Lastly one more classical resonance?Dylan's play on the

Pyrrhic victory (with an image of Jesus invoked as well): "There's a lone soldier on the cross, smoke pourin' out of a

boxcar door / You didn't know it, you didn't think it could be

done, in the final end he won the wars / After losin' every bat?

tle" (18-20). This is the other side of the war with Pyrrhus,

just as the Aeneid is the other side of the Trojan War.

I SAW A BLACK BRANCH ?LIQUUNTUR SANGUINE

Vergil's influence on Dylan is not limited to "Idiot Wind."

There are at least two other significant passages which are

essentially poetic translations or very clear allusions to lines

from the Aeneid. The first I would like to consider comes

from one of Dylan's earliest and most evocative songs, "A

Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" on his second album The Free

wheeliri Bob Dylan (1963). Written in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis of Octo?

ber 1962, "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" contains some of

Dylan's most striking imagery. The title itself alludes to

many things at once: the flood of the Old Testament, envi?

ronmental degradation, and nuclear fallout. However, in an

interview with Studs Terkel, Dylan denies this and says,

No, no, it wasn't atomic rain. Somebody else thought that too . . .

In the last verse when I say, "When the pellets of poison are flood?

ing the waters," that means all the lies that people are told on their

radios and in their newspapers. All you have to do is think for a

minute. They're trying to take people's brains away. Which maybe

has been done already. I hate to think it's been done. All the lies I consider poison.10




Indeed, as Christopher Ricks has written, all the images mentioned in the song are a call for "fortitude and power of

endurance" (332). The image I would like to explore comes in the second

verse: "I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin'"

(14), which calls to mind Vergil's description in book three

of the Aeneid of Aeneas' discovery on the Thracian coast of

the betrayed Trojan Polydorus (3.13-68). As Aeneas pre?

pares to offer a sacrifice, he attempts to gather some

branches for the altar. But when he pulls them from the

ground they drip with black blood. Aeneas is filled with fear

at the sight. He soon discovers that he is not pulling out tree

branches, but the javelins that have laid low his Trojan com?

rade, whose blood drips black. Dylan tweaks the line ever

so: Vergil's branch dripping with black blood becomes a

black branch dripping blood in his own lyric. The context of these images is highly suggestive. First

Vergil, since the Aeneid provides us with the background:

Polydorus had been sent by his father Priam to the king of

Thrace with a bounty of gold to win the king's allegiance. But when Troy's fall became clear, the king seized the gold and killed Polydorus. Thus the imagery of the branch bleed?

ing black symbolizes the betrayal of the Trojans and the

avarice of the Thracians. As for Dylan, I would argue that

his line too speaks of betrayal. The association of the words

"black," "branch," and "blood" is strongly evocative of

death and in particular of the lynching of an African-Ameri?

can. It is worth pointing out that race is a theme that runs

throughout Dylan's music, from his earliest recordings to his

latest album. Moreover, within "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna

Fall" Dylan seems to use the color black to allude to race re?

lations. In line 35 he writes, "I met a white man who walked

a black dog." Later in the final stanza, in response to the

question "What'll you do now?" Dylan writes that he'll go "where black is the color, where none is the number." All

these lines suggest that Dylan is alluding to race relations in

early-19 60s America and the heady days of the civil rights




movement of which he was a part, as demonstrated by his

performance with Joan Baez at the march on Washington in

August 1963. So in "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall," Dylan does not just borrow an image from Vergil, but he also em?

ploys that image for a similar purpose: to highlight a be?

trayal and the violence inherent in it.

SPARE THE DEFEATED ?DEBELLARE SUPERBOS

Dylan's album "Love and Theft" was released September 11, 2001. Dylan once again appeared to be capturing the

Zeitgeist as the world paused to reflect on the ramifications

of the attack that day against the United States; a few even

paused to reflect on what events might have led to the at?

tacks. During the deafening fight over wrong and right, sor?

row and outrage, evil and good, resistance and hegemony,

Dylan was channeling the epic poet of empire through his new song "Lonesome Day Blues," resurrecting Vergil just as

Vergil brought the dead Anchises to life to speak to the citi? zens of Augustan Rome (Aen. 6.679-892). In lines 37-40 of

"Lonesome Day Blues," Dylan writes:

I'm gonna spare the defeated?I'm gonna speak to the crowd

I'm gonna spare the defeated, boys, I'm going to speak to the

crowd

I am goin' to teach peace to the conquered

I'm gonna tame the proud

These lines are without question a poetic translation of

Aeneid 6.851-53: "Remember, Roman, you will rule nations

in empire; these will be your arts: to teach the custom of

peace, to spare the defeated, to tame the proud" (tu regere

imperio populos, Romane, memento I [hae tibi erunt artes],

pacique imponer e mor em, I par cere subiectis et debellare su

perbos). Vergil's lines are of course spoken by Anchises to

his son Aeneas in the underworld. They lie at the heart of the

Augustan imperial mission and stand as a challenge to future

emperors and empires. Some might see another theft in Dy



I30 ACHILLES IN THE ALLEYWAY

lan's poetic citation. Better still, we could seek to understand

the significance of these words for our young and troubled

twenty-first century.

As might be expected, there is another classical allusion in

"Lonesome Day Blues." Dylan writes in lines 29-32:

Well my captain he's decorated?he's well schooled and he's skilled

My captain, he's decorated?he's well schooled and he's skilled

He's not sentimental?don't bother him at all

How many of his pals have been killed

The word "pals" has an Odyssean ring to it. The captain doesn't have soldiers or sailors. They are his comrades, his

hetairoi, and he is content to let them die just as Odysseus does in his relentless pursuit of Ithaca. How unlike our hero

Aeneas who strives to keep an entire people alive. How un?

like Dylan's narrator who cites the Roman mission.

DANCING BENEATH THE DIAMOND SKY

Although Dylan clearly owes a debt of inspiration to the Au?

gustan poets, he also seems enthused by the figure of Diony? sus, a patron of artistic creation. As one of the hymns to

Dionysus ends, "Farewell, child of beautiful Semele. To

compose a sweet song, forgetful of you, is not in any way

possible" (h.Hom. 7.58-59). So Bacchus has been the topic all along, but I would be remiss if I did not write of Dylan and Dionysus more explicitly.

The embodiment of those primeval forces of nature that

break down distinctions between class, gender, age, and even

species, Dionysus is the god of the irrational. If Apollo is the

god who exhorts us to "know thyself, all things in modera?

tion," then Dionysus is the god who challenges us with the

dictum "forget thyself, all things in excess." Not merely the

god of wine as so many casually assume, but the rhythm that

pulses through our veins, compelling us to dance and beat the

ground with our feet. Dionysus, accompanied by thyrsus

bearing and timbrel-shaking maenads and satyrs, shatters




conventional restraints through ecstasis and enthousiasmos.

These powers of Dionysus are best demonstrated, of course, in Euripides' Bacchae, in which Pentheus is rent apart by his

frenzied mother. The god has driven them both mad as pun? ishment for their unwillingness to recognize his divinity and

their failure to let go of their egos in order to drink and dance

into a union with him. This necessity to dissolve distinctions

between gender, class, and age gives Bacchic worship its so?

cially threatening dimension, which Pentheus finds disturbing and which he tries to resist. The Romans in the second cen?

tury BC would find these forces similarly menacing, leading them to outlaw public Bacchanalia.

Perhaps it was these transformative powers Dylan was at?

tempting to conjure in the winter of 1964 when he began to

write "Mr. Tambourine Man," a certain change in style from

his earlier protest music, and yet still possessing a socially radical message. Dylan began writing the song on a cross?

country road trip. Stops included Harlan County, Kentucky; Mississippi; Ludlow, Colorado; Dallas, Texas; Berkeley, Cal?

ifornia; and most importantly, New Orleans at Mardi Gras, an iconic road map for the Left in the sixties. Not surpris?

ingly, Dylan began writing "Mr. Tambourine Man" in New

Orleans during carnival, that most Bacchic event of the

Christian calendar.

"Mr. Tambourine Man" has often been considered a song

merely about drugs. Critics cite line 37, "Then take me dis

appearin' through the smoke rings of my mind," as evi?

dence. The highly esteemed Dylan commentator Michael

Gray writes, "with 'Mr. Tambourine Man', Dylan had

started something else: the pop exploration of drugs" (Song and Dance Man, 119). Not to suggest that this is unimpor? tant. A musician seizing the airwaves to sing of the liberating powers of narcotics is no small matter. However, suggesting that "Mr. Tambourine Man" is merely about drugs is akin to suggesting that Dionysus is a god merely about wine. The

drug interpretation is too simplistic. Dylan himself, in un?

usual candor, has said, "Drugs never played a part in that




song . . . 'disappearing in the smoke rings in my mind', that's

not drugs" (Biograph 1985). So what is the song about? According to Dylan the song

was inspired in part by Bruce Langhorne, backing guitarist and would-be tambourine man. But Dylan has also said, "I

don't know, different things inspired me" (Biograph 1985). One of those different things, I argue, is Dionysus and the

powers of creation that flow from such a force. Even a cur?

sory reading of the song reveals that its concerns are with

liberation, escape, and transcendence. Marqusse has called it an "unashamed, unironic pursuit of transcendence. The

song evokes the dawn that comes at the end of a long day's

journey into night ... a paean to escapism."11

Like Dionysus' Bacchants, Dylan sings of losing his senses:

"My senses have been stripped, my hands can't feel to grip /

My toes too numb to step" (16-17). And yet stepping, danc?

ing, is referred to throughout the song: "cast your dancing

spell my way / I promise to go under it" (20-21) and "Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free" (41). The narrator is engaged in the physical act of a

Bacchant and has the sensory deprivation indicative of Bac?

chic liberation.

But that is not all; the narrator also has forgotten himself, his ego. The last lines of the final verse point to this sense of

forgetting: "With all memory and fate driven deep beneath

the waves / Let me forget about today until tomorrow"

(43-44). Dylan's celebrant seeks even to transcend attach? ment to the present moment. These lines are a strange anti

carpe diem, not "Seize the day!" but "Forget the day!" They stand in contrast not just to Horace's Odes 1.11.7-8 and

1.9.13, but also Theognis 1047-48 (Now while we drink, let us delight, speaking beautiful words: but whatever will be

tomorrow, that is a concern for the gods) and Anacreontea

8.9-10 (Today is a concern for me, tomorrow who knows?).

Dylan's Bacchant cares for neither today nor tomorrow.

Lastly, a strong sense of liberation and release pervades the song. In lines 26-28, Dylan writes, "Though you might




hear laughin', spinnin', swingin' madly across the sun / It's

not aimed at anyone, it's just escapin' on the run / And but

for the sky there are no fences facin'," and in lines 37-40, "Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my

mind / Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen

leaves / The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach / Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow."

Perhaps here it is helpful to quote from the Chorus in Eu?

ripides' Bacchae 862-81:

Will I dance and dance again soon!

Will I, whirling

barefoot through the night, throw back my head

in the damp dawn air

and the pale dawn light? Will I frisk

like a fawn at play in the green joy

of the meadow, a fawn

who has fled from the chase

overleaped all the nets

left behind her now

far away

where the baying still drones

way back in the distance,

the hunters still driving still urging their hounds.

With a burst she is gone,

bounding away,

vaulting the river

she darts free

of man.

In the joy




of a dark wood she plunges

and fuses with the forest

of leaves.12

The escape Euripides' Bacchantes express sounds remark?

ably similar to the liberation of Dylan's song. "Mr. Tambourine Man" and the other songs cited herein

stand as further examples of the enduring influence of clas?

sical antiquity and its continued relevance to modern artistic

expression. While Dylan's music conveys a weighty message to the auditor who is not classically trained, an understand?

ing of classical literature adds another layer of meaning to

an already profound artistic oeuvre. Furthermore, Dylan's use of classical allusions demonstrates not only the impor? tance of the classics for modern art, but also the richness of

his artistic creation, which deserves to be taken seriously by scholars and critics alike. The influence of classical literature

and myth on Dylan's music can be traced throughout his en?

tire corpus. The songs I have discussed run from his second

album, The Ereewheelin Bob Dylan, to his last but two, "Love and Theft." Dylan's use of the Western artistic tradi?

tion offers much more to be explored by responsible critics

who can tell the difference between a poetic allusion and

plagiarism.

NOTES

I presented versions of this paper at the Classical Association of the Mid?

dle West and South conference in April, 2007 and at the Chicago Classical

Club in February, 2008; both audiences offered much useful advice.

1. Mary Schmich, "Bob Dylan Has a Poetic License to Echo Lyrics,"

Chicago Tribune, Sept. 17, 2006.

2. Motoko Rich, "Who's This Guy Dylan Who's Borrowing Lines from

Henry Timrod?" New York Times, Sept. 14, 2006; Suzanne Vega, "The

Ballad of Henry Timrod," New York Times, Sept. 17, 2006.

3. For a very creative response to the Dylan controversy, see Jonathan

Lethem, "The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism," Harper's Magazine, Feb?

ruary 2007, 59-71.

4. Michael Gray, Song and Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan (Lon




don 2000) and The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia (London 2006); Christopher

Ricks, Dylan's Visions of Sin (New York 2003).

5. With the pertinent exception of Richard F. Thomas, "The Streets of

Rome: The Classical Dylan," Oral Tradition 22/1 (2007), 30-56.

6. Bob Dylan, Chronicles: Volume One (New York 2004), 36-37.

7. Lyrics are cited from Bob Dylan, Lyrics 1962-2001 (New York 2004), not from the songs as he sings them. There are slight variations between the

two. The line numbers are my own creation and correspond to the printed

page in Lyrics 1962-2001.

8. Dylan (note 6), 109.

9. For the controversy on the personality, see David West, Horace Odes

I: Carpe Diem (Oxford 1995) and William S. Anderson, "Horace's Differ?

ent Recommenders of Carpe Diem in C. 1.4, 7, 9, 11," C] 88.2 (1992-93),

115-22.

10. Studs Terkel Show, WFMT Radio, May 3, 1963. A transcript of the

interview can be found in Studs Terkel, And They All Sang: Adventures of an Eclectic Disc Jockey (New York 2005), 203-11.

11. Mike Marqusee, Chimes of Freedom: The Politics of Bob Dylan's Art

(New York 2003), 119-20.

12. The Bacchae, Herbert Golder, trans. (New York 2001).



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Achilles in the Alleyway: Bob Dylan and Classical Poetry and Myth, Arion 17.1 (2009): 119-135.

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