Standing on the water, casting your bread While the eyes of the idol with the iron head Are glowing (Bob Dylan: Jokerman)
Seems Jesus has some competition – namely Argus, the steel-headed giant with a hundred eyes.
The gods and goddesses on the clouds above Mount Olympus each carry a torch that lights up their interests and desires.
Hera puts Argus in charge of guarding the water-nymph Io who has been transformed into a white heifer by Zeus in an attempt to hide the affair that the god of thunder is having with her.
Zeus counters his wife’s move by having Mars, the god of war, behead the giant.
All Hera can do is bring the giant back to life in the form of a colourful peacock.
In the alchemic process, the peacock represents the moon that reflects the light of the sun.
Hera then torments the heifer with gadflies, and Io runs off to the Nile. Zeus follows her down to the river where he turns the heifer back into her watery human self.
Don't you ever take yourself away I will never leave you I will never deceive you I'll be right there walking behind you (Nikki Jean: Steel And Feathers ~ Dylan/Jean)
With the Trojan War brewing, Jason and his crew, which includes Hercules, head out in search of the Golden Fleece.
Hera is angry that her husband fathered Hercules, Zeus having slept wth a mortal woman. Hera sent a couple of large snakes to to kill Hercules and his half-brother when they were children.
Heracles strangled the reptiles with his bare hands:
Distant ships are sailing into the mist You were born with a snake in both your fists While a hurricane was blowing (Bob Dylan: Jokerman)
Adult Hercules be more strong than bright, drinks too much, and is quick to anger, but he’s quite capable of outwitting enemies. So Jason is happy that he’s aboard the Argonaut.
Venus sends her son Cupid to protect the Argonauts. When the sorceress Medea is close to Jason, he tells Cupid to shoot her with a love dart:
Cupid, bend back your bow Let your arrow flow Straight away to my love and me Cupid, don't ask why Let your arrow fly (Bob Dylan: Cupid ~ Dylan/Cooke)
Medea thereby becomes devoted to Jason.
Venus also sends Cupid to rid herself of a mortal named Psyche because the princess is getting more attention than the goddess herself; she tells her son to shoot Psyche with one of his love darts when the princess is close to “some low, mean, and unworthy being”.
Cupid is so struck by the beauty of the princess that he accidentally pricks himself, and falls madly in love with her. Since she has not seen Cupid, he tells her not to attempt to find out what he looks like since he doesn’t want his mother to find out how badly he messed up his mission.
Cupid comes to visit Psyche only in the darkness of night.
Psyche’s two jealous sisters come over for a late-night visit, and they tell her that Cupid’s likely a monster, and that she should take a knife, and a lamp to look at her lover while he’s asleep.
When she does so, a hot drop of oil falls on Cupid’s shoulder. He wakes up. Fearing for his life, the god of love flies out the open bedroom window.
Psyche’s two sisters take the opportunity to steal Cupid’s gold and silver.
He’s now really scared of all three sisters:
You took the silver, you took the gold You left me standing out in the cold People ask about you I didn't tell them everything I know Well, I'm trying to get closer But I'm still a million miles from you (Bob Dylan: Million Miles)
The Trojan War finally gets underway.
The mother of Achilles, originally a water-nymph, fails in her attempt to keep her son out of the Greek army by dressing him up as a girl when he’s a little boy.
She also left a heel unprotected when she dipped baby Achilles into a river that would otherwise have made him immortal.
When an adult, Achilles battles the Trojans after Paris carries off the beautiful Greek princess Helen to the city of Troy.
Paris speaks to Helen in the following song:
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 got someone like him to be your guard You know I want your loving, honey, but you're so hard (Bob Dylan: Temporary Like Achilles)
& john brown, Luke the snob & Achilles all reaching for the Flying Saucer (Bob Dylan: Tarantula)
& drunken Hercules waits for us on our beds & we must salute him & he says the new helicopters have arrived (Bob Dylan: Tarantula)