Refer to the lyrics at www.bobdylan.com
Christopher Rollason wrote:
In earlier posts on 'I and I' on rmd, I've said that I see the two 'Is' as the libertarian and the authoritarian selves (though I suppose that itself could suggest the conflict between liberal and orthodox Jewry!). Mark Grossmann ('A Jewish reading of "I and I"', on the 'Dylan and the Jews' site) sees the conflict as between the human self and the cosmic self.
Interpretation of the I-I polarity must certainly be multiple, possibly infinite (as Walt Whitman said in 'Song of Myself': 'there is a lot of me', 'I contain multitudes').
I suspect the reference to 'Justice's beautiful face' is ironic. This (female?) Justice (Injustice?) could be the presiding deity of human judges who are false-hearted, as in that long line of judges holding grudges, from 'Hattie Carroll', 'Seven Curses' and 'Percy's Song' through 'Drifter's Escape' to the drunken hanging judge of 'Lily, Rosemary ...'.
Justice is often represented in Western symbology as a blindfolded woman (cf. 'Angelina', 'she's wearing a blindfold') - for instance, in one of the baroque statues that adorn the gardens of the bishop's palace in Trier, Germany. It could be that the 'stranger' helped the speaker remove the blindfold from the face of the statue, to discover that the true aspect of what society calls 'justice' (beautiful or otherwise) is none other than the countenance of wrath - speaking the punitive Old Testament discourse of 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'. That eye/I could also be the authoritarian I/eye of the refrain ('one says to the other, no man sees my face and lives') - and _not_ the other, libertarian, creative and non-judgmental self. So Dylan may be saying that if we seek _true_ justice, we may have to tear up all existing models and start again from zero.
Kees de Graaf responded:
I and I is split up in two -one 'I' that does not honor and one 'I' that does not forgive. A split up personality. Initially God created man as a person of one piece so to say, completely devoted to God, giving God all the honors He is worthy to receive. But shortly after the creation man fell into sin and lost his natural capability of honoring God and thus became a split personality, sinful, full of revenge, not capable of forgiving. A man of one piece honors God and as a result of that is capable of forgiving other people's sins (c.f.. the Lord's Prayer) but in creation he lost this capacity and now he neither honors nor forgives. Only God in his flickering light full of holiness is allowed to say (as in fact He has said) 'No man sees my face and lives'. But the fallen man has illicitly taken over this statement which in his mouth is pure libel and spite:' no man sees my face and lives' Elsewhere on 'Infidels' 'Man thinks that he rules the earth, that he can do with it as he please' and that anyone who opposes his 'fairplay' will face man and will be put to death.
However, it took a stranger to teach Dylan what 'an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth' really means. At least something far more beautiful than we would have imagined at first sight.
fvidal wrote: I just don't understand what the following can mean, someone can help me find a meaning? thanks
"I and I
In creation where one's nature neither honors nor forgives.
I and I
One says to the other, no man sees my face and lives."
Lloyd Fonvielle wrote:
It's about man's alienation from himself -- the inability of his consciousness to reconcile itself to his true nature. It's about a man playing a game in this world with cards and rules from another one -- and not realizing it.
Thomas J. Cozzolino then wrote:
The last line echoes a belief from the Old Testament.. that anyone who saw the face of God would die.. The "I" also probably refers to the fact when Moses asked God what His name was, He answered "I am who am"..
Jon Margolies then filled in some gaps:
In Exodus 33:20 , God said to Moses "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live."
Alan Sims chimed in:
I will give a brief take on what I think it means: I think it is just a description of the nature and relationship of God and man. "I and I" is, of course, referring to the two. The first line, IMHO, is talking about the absence in the nature of man (without the prescence of the Other) of both honor and forgiveness. In the second line, God is descibed in terms of His or Her ultimate power and supremacy over man. The line strongly echoes the Biblical teachings in which no man is allowed to see the face of God. Moses saw only the back of his garment and others could not look upon the brightness of his face after then encounter. (If I'm getting my Biblical facts jumbled, I'm sure several people will very gently let me know!) That's how I've always seen it. Makes perfect sense if you look to the Bible as Bob's context when it was written. One of the better songs in the catalog to my opinion!
Dan Mayshar brings a different view:
"I and I" is Rasta idiom for what in plain English is just plain "I". It's supposed to reflect the presence of the divine alongside the human in the speaker, having essentially two distinct natures. Clear enough now? It's these two things inside your mind busy creating one another, a vicious circle of heavy dread, whatever, probably sounds better when you don't get the point. If I play the song for someone on the guitar, I generally sing the bridge only once or twice, I just get too self-concious.
Bob musta've been listening to a lot of Reggae at the time; he _is_ backed by Sly and Robbie.
Anyone know of him listening to anything more obscure than Bob Marley, though?
dcqv adds:
Yep. He probably heard the expression also when he was vacationing in Savannah-la-mar, on the south coast of Jamaica (as he mentions in "Sara" on "Desire").
Dino says:
as he recalls in the interview reproduced inside the GBS3 booklet, I&I was "one of them Carribean songs. One year a bunch of songs just came to me hangin around down in the islands, and that was one of them."
hmm...
that certainly jives with what he told Leonard Cohen (15 minute composition time).