Speech

12月5日、ノーベル財団は、10日の受賞セレモニーでパティ・スミスが A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall を歌うと発表するのと同時にディランの受賞スピーチの原稿が届いており、それは晩餐会で読まれるだろうとアナウンスした。

発表直後はそのスピーチをディラン本人が読むのか、代理人が読むのかは曖昧だったが、すぐに本人ではなく代理人が読む事が判明した。

Patti Smith will perform Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony, 10 December in...
Nobel Prizeさんの投稿 2016年12月5日

ボブ・ディランは、ノーベル・フェスティバルに参加しません。しかし彼のスピーチはアカデミーのホーラス・エングダール（Horace Engdahl）が持っている。とノーベル財団の広報Annika Pontikisが言った

12月10日、ディランの代読はアメリカの在スウェーデン大使アジタ・ラジ（Azita Raji）氏が行った。スピーチ全文は既に公開さており日本語訳も複数のメディアにより行われている。

▼ボブ・ディラン、ノーベル賞晩餐会で代読されたスピーチ全文（barks）
▼ボブ・ディラン、ノーベル賞授賞式で発表したスピーチの全文訳を公開（NME-J）
▼ノーベル文学賞ボブ・ディランさんのメッセージ（NHK）

Bob Dylan - Banquet Speech

Bob Dylan - Banquet Speech". Nobelprize.org. Nobel Media AB 2014. Web. 10 Dec 2016.

Good evening, everyone. I extend my warmest greetings to the members of the Swedish Academy and to all of the other distinguished guests in attendance tonight.

I'm sorry I can't be with you in person, but please know that I am most definitely with you in spirit and honored to be receiving such a prestigious prize. Being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature is something I never could have imagined or seen coming. From an early age, I've been familiar with and reading and absorbing the works of those who were deemed worthy of such a distinction: Kipling, Shaw, Thomas Mann, Pearl Buck, Albert Camus, Hemingway. These giants of literature whose works are taught in the schoolroom, housed in libraries around the world and spoken of in reverent tones have always made a deep impression. That I now join the names on such a list is truly beyond words.

I don't know if these men and women ever thought of the Nobel honor for themselves, but I suppose that anyone writing a book, or a poem, or a play anywhere in the world might harbor that secret dream deep down inside. It's probably buried so deep that they don't even know it's there.

If someone had ever told me that I had the slightest chance of winning the Nobel Prize, I would have to think that I'd have about the same odds as standing on the moon. In fact, during the year I was born and for a few years after, there wasn't anyone in the world who was considered good enough to win this Nobel Prize. So, I recognize that I am in very rare company, to say the least.

I was out on the road when I received this surprising news, and it took me more than a few minutes to properly process it. I began to think about William Shakespeare, the great literary figure. I would reckon he thought of himself as a dramatist. The thought that he was writing literature couldn't have entered his head. His words were written for the stage. Meant to be spoken not read. When he was writing Hamlet, I'm sure he was thinking about a lot of different things: "Who're the right actors for these roles?" "How should this be staged?" "Do I really want to set this in Denmark?" His creative vision and ambitions were no doubt at the forefront of his mind, but there were also more mundane matters to consider and deal with. "Is the financing in place?" "Are there enough good seats for my patrons?" "Where am I going to get a human skull?" I would bet that the farthest thing from Shakespeare's mind was the question "Is this literature?"

When I started writing songs as a teenager, and even as I started to achieve some renown for my abilities, my aspirations for these songs only went so far. I thought they could be heard in coffee houses or bars, maybe later in places like Carnegie Hall, the London Palladium. If I was really dreaming big, maybe I could imagine getting to make a record and then hearing my songs on the radio. That was really the big prize in my mind. Making records and hearing your songs on the radio meant that you were reaching a big audience and that you might get to keep doing what you had set out to do.

Well, I've been doing what I set out to do for a long time, now. I've made dozens of records and played thousands of concerts all around the world. But it's my songs that are at the vital center of almost everything I do. They seemed to have found a place in the lives of many people throughout many different cultures and I'm grateful for that.

But there's one thing I must say. As a performer I've played for 50,000 people and I've played for 50 people and I can tell you that it is harder to play for 50 people. 50,000 people have a singular persona, not so with 50. Each person has an individual, separate identity, a world unto themselves. They can perceive things more clearly. Your honesty and how it relates to the depth of your talent is tried. The fact that the Nobel committee is so small is not lost on me.

But, like Shakespeare, I too am often occupied with the pursuit of my creative endeavors and dealing with all aspects of life's mundane matters. "Who are the best musicians for these songs?" "Am I recording in the right studio?" "Is this song in the right key?" Some things never change, even in 400 years.

Not once have I ever had the time to ask myself, "Are my songs literature?"

So, I do thank the Swedish Academy, both for taking the time to consider that very question, and, ultimately, for providing such a wonderful answer.

My best wishes to you all,

Bob Dylan

Nobel Prizeさん(@nobelprize_org)が投稿した動画 - 2016 12月 10 10:00午前 PST

この中でディランは、シェイクスピアは戯曲、つまり舞台で使われる台詞を書いているのであってこれが「文学か?」などと考える事はなかっただろうと、つまり自分もそうだった言っている。いままで自分の曲を文学だと考えた事は無かったが、今回の事で考えるようになった、そして最終的にこう言う答え得たこと…ディランはその両方に感謝すると言った。

それにしても、こういうかたちで自己弁護するとは思わなかった。今回はとてもスマートで良かったように思う。

またノーベル平和賞を受賞したコロンビアのフアン・マヌエル・サントス大統領はスピーチの最期にディランのBlowin' in the windの歌詞
"How many deaths will it take 'till he knows that too many people have died? The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind."を引用しそのスピーチをを終えた。

ディランの前は日本の大隅さんのスピーチがあった。大隅さんが一生懸命にスピーチをしてる様子がひしひしと伝わり、やはりディランの代読ってどうよ？と率直に思った。今回、多くの人に助けてもらった…

スピーチの前、晩餐会でのデザートのサーヴがとんでもなく大仰だった（笑）。そりゃ落とすだろうと思ったら落としてた。中継をしていたTVの司会者にも配られたが見事に花火を落としたが、全くそれを無視してたのが面白かった。