Narcissus

License to Kill
by Bob Dylan

Man thinks 'cause he rules the earth he can do with it as he please
and if things don't change soon, he will.
For a man has invented his doom,
first step was touching the moon.
Now there's a woman on my block,
she just sits there as the night grows still,
and says, "Who is gonna take away his license to kill?"

Now they take him, and they teach him, and they groom him for life,
and they set him on a path where he's bound to get ill,
and they bury him with stars, sell his body like they do used cars,
and there's a woman on my block,
she just sits there facin' the hill,
and she says, "Who is gonna take away his license to kill?"

Now he's heading for destruction, he's afraid and confused
and his brain has been mismanaged with great skill,
now all he believes are his eyes and his eyes they just tell him lies.
And there's a woman on my block,
sitting there in a cold chill,
she says, "Who is gonna take away his license to kill?"

Now he worships at an altar with a stagnant pool
and when he sees his reflection he's fulfilled;
for a man is opposed to fair play,
he wants it all and he wants it his way.
Now there's a woman on my block,
she just sits there as the night grows still,
she says, "Who is gonna take away his license to kill?"

****

License to Kill appeared on Dylan's Infidels album, side one. The image in the last stanza is ever so poignant, a portrait of Narcissus, the self-admiring Greek hero re-knowned for his beauty. Dylan takes it further. The vain, self-possessed portrait here is a symbol for elite, self-worshipping humanity, who "wants it all and he wants it his way."


I can't help think of Oscar Wilde's twist on this self-same story, titled The Disciple which appeared in his collection of short stories called Fairy Tales. It is interesting to compare and contrast the ways in which the two artists, Dylan and Wilde, create new images from the classic myth.

The Disciple

When Narcissus died, the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort.

And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair, and cried to the pool, and said: "We do not wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he."

"But was Narcissus beautiful?" said the pool

"Who should know better than you?" answered the Oreads. "Us did he ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own beauty."

And the pool answered: "But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw my own beauty mirrored."