Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
FIRST VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES EDITION, AUGUST 1999
Copyright © 1998 by Anne Carson
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 1998.
Vintage Books, Vintage Contemporaries, and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Harvard University Press for permission to reprint poem no. 1748 by Emily Dickinson from The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by Thomas H. Johnson (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press), copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College.
eBook ISBN: 978-0-345-80701-4
Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-0-375-70129-0
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Alfred A. Knopf edition as follows:
Carson, Anne.
Autobiography of Red / by Anne Carson. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-375-40133-4
1. Herakles (Greek mythology)—Poetry. 2. Stesichoros. Geryoneis—Adaptations. 3. Epic poetry, Greek—Adaptations. 4. Monsters— Mythology—Poetry. I. Title.
PS3553.A7667A94 1998
811’.54—dc21 97-49472 CIP
www.vintagebooks.com
v3.1
FOR WILL
Note to Readers of the Ebook Edition
This book contains long lines of poetry. The line below is the longest in the book.
She says it’s got blood in it. What do you mean blood? Cow blood, it’s a local recipe. Supposed to
If this line is breaking on your e-reader, please click here to view the book in its original print format, per the author’s intent. You may also choose to decrease the font-size setting and/or view the book in landscape format until the entire line fits on your screen. This may not be possible on all e-reading devices.
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Note to Readers of the Ebook Edition
I. RED MEAT: WHAT DIFFERENCE DID STESICHOROS MAKE?
II. RED MEAT: FRAGMENTS OF STESICHOROS
III. APPENDIX A
IV. APPENDIX B
V. APPENDIX C
VI. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF RED
VII. INTERVIEW
The Autobiography of Red: Full-Page Images
A Note About the Author
Other Books by This Author
RED MEAT:
WHAT DIFFERENCE
DID
STESICHOROS MAKE?
I like the feeling of words doing
as they want to do and as they have to do.
GERTRUDE STEIN
HE CAME after Homer and before Gertrude Stein, a diffi-cult interval for a poet. Born about 650 B.C. on the north coast of Sicily in a city called Himera, he lived among refugees who spoke a mixed dialect of Chalcidian and Doric. A refugee population is hungry for language and aware that anything can happen. Words bounce. Words, if you let them, will do what they want to do and what they have to do. Stesichoros’ words were collected in twenty-six books of which there remain to us a dozen or so titles and several collections of fragments. Not much is known about his working life (except the famous story that he was struck blind by Helen; see Appendixes A, B, C). He seems to have had a great popular success. How did the critics regard him? Many ancient praises adhere to his name. “Most Homeric of the lyric poets,” says Longinus. “Makes those old stories new,” says Suidas. “Driven by a craving for change,” says Dionysios of Halikarnassos. “What a sweet genius in the use of adjectives!” adds Hermogenes. Here we touch the core of the question “What difference did Stesichoros make?” A comparison may be useful. When Gertrude Stein had to sum up Picasso she said, “This one was working.” So say of Stesichoros, “This one was making adjectives.”
What is an adjective? Nouns name the world. Verbs activate the names. Adjectives come from somewhere else. The word adjective (epitheton in Greek) is itself an adjective meaning “placed on top,” “added,” “appended,” “imported,” “foreign.” Adjectives seem fairly innocent additions but look again. These small imported mechanisms are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity. They are the latches of being.
Of course there are several different ways to be. In the world of the Homeric epic, for example, being is stable and particularity is set fast in tradition. When Homer mentions blood, blood is black. When women appear, women are neat-ankled or glancing. Poseidon always has the blue eyebrows of Poseidon. Gods’ laughter is unquenchable. Human knees are quick. The sea is unwearying. Death is bad. Cowards’ livers are white. Homer’s epithets are a fixed diction with which Homer fastens every substance in the world to its aptest attribute and holds them in place for epic consumption. There is a passion in it but what kind of passion? “Consumption is not a passion for substances but a passion for the code,” says Baudrillard.
So into the still surface of this code Stesichoros was born. And Stesichoros was studying the surface restlessly. It leaned away from him. He went closer. It stopped. “Passion for substances” seems a good description of that moment. For no reason that anyone can name, Stesichoros began to undo the latches.
Stesichoros released being. All the substances in the world went floating up. Suddenly there was nothing to interfere with horses being hollow hooved. Or a river being root silver. Or a child bruiseless. Or hell as deep as the sun is high. Or Herakles ordeal strong. Or a planet middle night stuck. Or an insomniac outside the joy. Or killings cream black. Some substances proved more complex. To Helen of Troy, for example, was attached an adjectival tradition of whoredom already old by the time Homer used it. When Stesichoros unlatched her epithet from Helen there flowed out such a light as may have blinded him for a moment. This is a big question, the question of the blinding of Stesichoros by Helen (see Appendixes A, B), although generally regarded as unanswerable (but see Appendix C).
A more tractable example is Geryon. Geryon is the name of a character in ancient Greek myth about whom Stesichoros wrote a very long lyric poem in dactylo-epitrite meter and triadic structure. Some eighty-four papyrus fragments and a half-dozen citations survive, which go by the name Geryoneis (“The Geryon Matter”) in standard editions. They tell of a strange winged red monster who lived on an island called Erytheia (which is an adjective meaning simply “The Red Place”) quietly tending a herd of magical red cattle, until one day the hero Herakles came across the sea and killed him to get the cattle. There were many different ways to tell a story like this. Herakles was an important Greek hero and the elimination of Ger-yon constituted one of His celebrated Labors. If Stesichoros had been a more conventional poet he might have taken the point of view of Herakles and framed a thrilling account of the victory of culture over monstrosity. But instead the extant fragments of Stesichoros’ poem offer a tantalizing cross section of scenes, both proud and pitiful, from Geryon’s own experience. We see his red boy’s life and his little dog. A scene of wild appeal from his mother, which breaks off. Interspersed shots of Herakles approaching over the sea. A flash of the gods in heaven pointing to Geryon’s doom. The battle itself. The moment when everything goes suddenly slow and Herakles’ arrow divides Geryon’s skull. We see Herakles kill the little dog with His famous club.
But that is enough proemium. You can answer for yourself the question “What difference did Stesichoros make?” by considering his masterpiece. Some of its principal fragments
RED MEAT:
FRAGMENTS OF STESICHOROS
I. GERYON
Geryon was a monster everything about him was red
Put his snout out of the covers in the morning it was red
How stiff the red landscape where his cattle scraped against
Their hobbles in the red wind
Burrowed himself down in the red dawn jelly of Geryon’s
Dream
Geryon’s dream began red then slipped out of the vat and ran
Upsail broke silver shot up through his roots like a pup
Secret pup At the front end of another red day
II. MEANWHILE HE CAME
Across the salt knobs it was Him
Knew about the homegold
Had sighted red smoke above the red spires
III. GERYON’S PARENTS
If you persist in wearing your mask at the supper table
Well Goodnight Then they said and drove him up
Those hemorrhaging stairs to the hot dry Arms
To the ticking red taxi of the incubus
Don’t want to go want to stay Downstairs and read
IV. GERYON’S DEATH BEGINS
Geryon walked the red length of his mind and answered No
It was murder And torn to see the cattle lay
All these darlings said Geryon And now me
V. GERYON’S REVERSIBLE DESTINY
His mother saw it mothers are like that
Trust me she said Engineer of his softness
You don’t have to make up your mind right away
Behind her red right cheek Geryon could see
Coil of the hot plate starting to glow
VI. MEANWHILE IN HEAVEN
Athena was looking down through the floor
Of the glass-bottomed boat Athena pointed
Zeus looked Him
VII. GERYON’S WEEKEND
Later well later they left the bar went back to the centaur’s
Place the centaur had a cup made out of a skull Holding three
Measures of wine Holding it he drank Come over here you can
Bring your drink if you’re afraid to come alone The centaur
Patted the sofa beside him Reddish yellow small alive animal
Not a bee moved up Geryon’s spine on the inside
VIII. GERYON’S FATHER
A quiet root may know how to holler He liked to
Suck words Here is an almighty one he would say
After days of standing in the doorway
NIGHTBOLLSNORTED
IX. GERYON’S WAR RECORD
Geryon lay on the ground covering his ears The sound
Of the horses like roses being burned alive
X. SCHOOLING
In those days the police were weak Family was strong
Hand in hand the first day Geryon’s mother took him to
School She neatened his little red wings and pushed him
In through the door
XI. RIGHT
Are there many little boys who think they are a
Monster? But in my case I am right said Geryon to the
Dog they were sitting on the bluffs The dog regarded him
Joyfully
XII. WINGS
Steps off a scraped March sky and sinks
Up into the blind Atlantic morning One small
Red dog jumping across the beach miles below
Like a freed shadow
XIII. HERAKLES’ KILLING CLUB
Little red dog did not see it he felt it All
Events carry but one
XIV. HERAKLES’ ARROW
Arrow means kill It parted Geryon’s skull like a comb Made
The boy neck lean At an odd slow angle sideways as when a
Poppy shames itself in a whip of Nude breeze
XV. TOTAL THINGS KNOWN ABOUT GERYON
He loved lightning He lived on an island His mother was a
Nymph of a river that ran to the sea His father was a gold
Cutting tool Old scholia say that Stesichoros says that
Geryon had six hands and six feet and wings He was red and
His strange red cattle excited envy Herakles came and
Killed him for his cattle
The dog too
XVI. GERYON’S END
The red world And corresponding red breezes
Went on Geryon did not
APPENDIX A
TESTIMONIA
ON THE QUESTION OF
STESICHOROS’ BLINDING
BY HELEN
Suidas s.v. palinodia: “Counter song” or “saying the opposite of what you said before.” E.g., for writing abuse of Helen Stesichoros was struck blind but then he wrote for her an encomium and got his sight back. The encomium came out of a dream and is called “The Palinode.”
Isokrates Helen 64: Looking to demonstrate her own power Helen made an object lesson of the poet Stesichoros. For the fact is he began his poem “Helen” with a bit of blasphemy. Then when he stood up he found he’d been robbed of his eyes. Straightaway realizing why, he composed the so-called “Palinode” and Helen restored him to his own nature.
Plato Phaedrus 243a: There is in mythology an ancient tactic of purgation for criminals, which Homer did not understand but Stesichoros did. When Stesichoros found himself blinded for slandering Helen he did not (like Homer) just stand there bewildered—no! on the contrary. Stesichoros was an intellectual. He recognized the cause and at once sat down to compose [his “Palinode”] ….
APPENDIX B
THE PALINODE
OF
STESICHOROS
BY
STESICHOROS
(FRAGMENT
192 POETAE MELICI
GRAECI)
No it is not the true story.
No you never went on the benched ships.
No you never came to the towers of Troy.
APPENDIX C
CLEARING UP
THE QUESTION OF
STESICHOROS’ BLINDING
BY HELEN
1. Either Stesichoros was a blind man or he was not.
2. If Stesichoros was a blind man either his blindness was a temporary condition or it was permanent.
3. If Stesichoros’ blindness was a temporary condition this condition either had a contingent cause or it had none.
4. If this condition had a contingent cause that cause was Helen or the cause was not Helen.
5. If the cause was Helen Helen had her reasons or she had none.
6. If Helen had her reasons the reasons arose out of some remark Stesichoros made or they did not.
7. If Helen’s reasons arose out of some remark Stesichoros made either it was a strong remark about Helen’s sexual misconduct (not to say its unsavory aftermath the Fall of Troy) or it was not.
8. If it was a strong remark about Helen’s sexual misconduct (not to say its unsavory aftermath the Fall of Troy) either this remark was a lie or it was not.