The 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 are below. If you find the text difficult, you are not alone. Time has dealt harshly with Stesichoros. No passage longer than thirty lines is quoted from him and papyrus scraps (still being found: the most recent fragments were recovered from cartonnage in Egypt in 1977) withhold as much as they tell. The whole corpus of the fragments of Stesichoros in the original Greek has been published thirteen times so far by different editors, beginning with Bergk in 1882. No edition is exactly the same as any other in its contents or its ordering of the contents. Bergk says the history of a text is like a long caress. However that may be, the fragments of the Geryoneis itself read as if Stesichoros had composed a substantial narrative poem then ripped it to pieces and buried the pieces in a box with some song lyrics and lecture notes and scraps of meat. The fragment numbers tell you roughly how the pieces fell out of the box. You can of course keep shaking the box. “Believe me for meat and for myself,” as Gertrude Stein says. Here. Shake.

  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.