Bob Dylan – The Golden Vanity (The Sweet Trinity

The Sweet Trinity

“The Sweet Trinity“, also known as “The Golden Vanity” or “The Golden Willow Tree“, is Child Ballad 286. The first surviving version, about 1635, was “Sir Walter Raleigh Sailing In The Lowlands (Shewing how the famous Ship called the Sweet Trinity was taken by a false Gally & how it was again restored by the craft of a little Sea-boy, who sunk the Gally”.

A captain of a ship (the Sweet Trinity or Golden Vanity or Golden Willow Tree of the title) laments the danger it is in; Sir Walter Raleigh complains that it was captured by a galley, but the more common complaint is that it is in danger from another ship, which may be French, Turkish, Spanish, or (especially in American variants) British. A cabin boy offers to solve the problem. The captain promises him rich rewards, which vary enormously between versions. The boy swims to the enemy ship, bores holes in its hull, and sinks it.

He swims back. Usually, the captain declares he will not take him up, let alone reward him; in some variants, he extorts the rescue and reward by sinking, or threatening to sink, his ship as well, but usually, he drowns (sometimes after saying he would sink the ship if it weren’t for the crew). Occasionally, the crew rescue him, but he dies on the deck. In the variant with Raleigh, Raleigh is willing to keep some of his promises, but not to marry him to his daughter, and the cabin boy scorns him. In the New England version recorded by John Roberts (see below), he sinks both ships but is rescued by another one, thus explaining how the story could have been passed on.

Loudon Wainwright III recorded a version under the name “Turkish Revelry” on Rogue’s Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs, and Chanteys (2006).
Paul Clayton recorded a version entitled “The Turkish Revelee”, on Whaling and Sailing Songs from the Days of Moby Dick (1956).
The Carter Family recorded it in 1935 under the title “Sinking in the Lonesome Sea”.

LYRICS
There was a little ship

and it sailed along the sea

and the name of the ship was the golden vanity

and she sailed in the low and lonesome ocean

and she sailed in the lonesome sea.
There was another ship sailing along the sea
and the name of that ship was the Turkish Revelry*
and sailing down that low and lonesome ocean
saling in the lonesome sea
There was a cabin boy he said what would you give to me
if I swim alongside of the Turkish Revelry*
and sink her in the low and lonesome ocean
if I sink her in the lonesome sea

Well, I will give you gold and I will give you land
and my own lovely daughter she’ll be at your command
if you sink her in the low and lonesome ocean
if you sink her in the lonesome sea

He bowed his breath, overboard jumped he
and he swum ’til he came to the Turkish Revelry
sailing in the low and lonesome ocean
sailing in the lonesome sea

He had a little tool, an augur meant to bore
and drilled nine holes in that ship’s floor
then he sunk it the low and lonesome ocean
he sunk it in the lonesome sea

And he bowed his breath, back swam he
and he swum ’til he came to the Golden Vanity
sailing in the low and lonesome ocean
sailing in the lonesome sea

O’ captain will you be as good as your word
and throw down a line and take me up on board
I’m sinking in that low and lonesome ocean
sinking in that lonesome sea

No, I’ll not be as good as my word
I’ll not throw down a line or to take you back on board
You’ll gonna sink in that low and lonesome ocean
Sink in that lonesome sea

If it wasn’t for the love that I have onto your men
I would do onto you like I done onto them
I’d sink you in the low and lonesome ocean
Sink you in that lonesome sea

So he bowed his breath and down went he
He swam til he came to pass down with […]**
and he sunk in that low and lonesome ocean
He sunk in that lonesome sea