Summary
Appendix A: Testimonia on the Question of Stesichoros’ Blinding by Helen
This appendix contains three entries from different ancient texts, each of which addresses the question of Stesichoros’ blinding by Helen.
The first entry is purportedly taken from the Suda, a 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia of the ancient Mediterranean world, whose author was formerly thought to be named Suidas, and whose name was historically confused with the title of the encyclopedia. The encyclopedia entry is on the topic of the palinodia, defined as a “counter song” or “saying the opposite of what you said before.” The example it provides is that when Stesichoros wrote defamatory words about Helen of Troy, she struck him blind, and afterward he got his sight back by writing a palinodia which retracted his words of abuse. The palinodia was a work of praise, also known as an encomium, and is said to have emerged out of a dream.
The second entry is from Isokrates, an ancient Greek rhetorician from the 400s B.C., on the subject of Helen. It also addresses the matter of Stesichoros being blinded by Helen, reporting that Helen made an “object lesson” or a practical example of Stesichoros by blinding him for his abusive words in his poem “Helen.” Isokrates asserts that Stesichoros immediately knew why he was blinded and set about rectifying his mistake by composing the “Palinode” in apology to Helen. Then Helen restored his sight.
The third entry is from Plato, the famous Athenian philosopher, in his work Phaedrus. This passage describes that in ancient mythology, blinding someone was an established punishment for certain crimes. Homer—the blind bard—didn’t know this, but Stesichoros did. When Stesichoros was blinded like Homer for blaspheming Helen, he immediately realized his mistake and composed his “Palinode.”
Appendix B: The Palinode of Stesichoros By Stesichoros (Fragment 192 Poetae Melici Graeci)
This appendix contains three lines, each beginning with “No,” which are purported to be Stesichoros’ renunciation of his slandering of Helen. The translation of the parenthetical in the title of this appendix is Greek Lyric Poet, and pertains to Stesichoros’ identity.
Stesichoros makes three admissions: no, it isn’t the true story; no, Helen never “went on the benched ships”; and no, Helen never “came to the towers of Troy.” This is Stesichoros’ apology, but it goes beyond whatever he individually said to slander Helen, and renounces the whole legend of Helen’s kidnapping by the Trojan prince Paris and arrival in Troy.
Appendix C: Clearing Up the Question of Stesichoros’ Blinding by Helen
This appendix contains a list of 21 either/or statements, beginning with the premise, “Either Stesichoros was a blind man or he was not.” Each subsequent statement takes into consideration the first proposed option of the previous statement, so that the next statement considers “If Stesichoros was a blind man,” then whether his blindness was temporary or permanent. The third statement considers if his blindness was temporary, then whether this condition had a contingent cause, and so on. None of the statements resolve anything, but each leads to further specificity of irresolvable possibilities. Eventually, these statements return us to our starting point, considering whether or not Stesichoros was a blind man, and the last statement takes us one step further back, introducing the possibility of lying even if we could know the (unknowable) truth: “If Stesichoros was a blind man either we will lie or if not not.”
Analysis
In Appendix A, which immediately follows “Red Meat: Fragments of Stesichoros,” some of our skepticism about the fidelity of Carson’s translation of the fragments carries over. We are prepared to confront something like historical fiction, perhaps fabricated entries from real authors or texts. Yet we should also keep in mind that classicists frequently confront the issue that the historical records of ancient times themselves mixed fact and fiction; the two are not so easily distinguished. One could argue that Carson’s playfully inconsistent blending of myth and history is actually faithful to the storytelling practices of the ancient Mediterranean world, at least as we have received them, with a disconcerting degree of contradiction and fiction mixed in with fact.
The Suda, the 10th-century encyclopedia referenced in Appendix A, is archived in translation online through the University of Kentucky. Searching “palinode” in the encyclopedia verifies that the text contained in Appendix A is indeed from the Suda, though reworded by Carson for more compelling readability. It provides the story of Stesichoros’ blinding by Helen for his slander and the subsequent retraction of his slander in his “palinode” as a contextual example of the word “palinode.” Likewise, Tufts University provides online translations of Isokrates’ Helen and Plato’s Phaedrus which match the entries excerpted in Appendix A. So we can consider Appendix A as providing real primary source material that Carson used as reference points and inspiration in her construction of the story of Geryon and Herakles in Autobiography of Red.
It is notable that these excerpts from historical texts uphold the mystical quality of Carson’s fiction as naturally as her inventive translations of Stesichoros’ fragments do. The generative capacity of the fragmentary and the unknowable belongs to all surviving scraps of ancient writing, whether fact or fiction. There is also the fact that these ancient writers were willing to allow for contradiction, mystery, and the inexplicable in their historical accounts, as in the Sudas asserting that Stesichoros’ encomium “came out of a dream,” Isokrates asserting that Helen caused Stesichoros’ blindness and later restored his sight, and Plato explaining that Stesichoros knew he could get his sight back by composing the “Palinode” because he was an “intellectual.” Including this pseudo-scholarly appendix with primary source material in a work of fiction, and having it advance her imaginative project so powerfully, Carson slyly asserts that the difference between “fact” and “fiction” is more slippery than we think, and has varied throughout history.
In Appendix B, we may find ourselves surprised by the fact that Stesichoros’ legendary “Palinode” is only three lines, a quiet negation. But it is notable that Stesichoros’ retraction of his slander does not only apply to the lies he told; it applies also to the broader story of Helen of Troy, as passed down through centuries by countless sources. He doesn’t say “I didn’t tell the true story,” he says, “it is not the true story” (emphasis added), which leaves it open to wider application. This wider context is realized in the next two lines, when Stesichoros denies the whole story of Helen as we are accustomed to it being told: “No you never went on the benched ships./No you never came to the towers of Troy.” If this is true, then all of the common legends surrounding Helen are false.
Now the question of Stesichoros’ blinding—and the restoration of his sight—has stakes far beyond the individual. If Stesichoros was blinded for slandering Helen, and if his sight was restored when he retracted his slander, then it must mean that all the stories passed down for generations about Helen are false. No, she was never kidnapped by Paris and brought to Troy. No, she didn’t play a role in the fall of Troy. No, she didn’t cause a war, or launch 1,000 ships. We must dare to imagine that the whole mythology of Helen is false, and that Stesichoros was one of the few who admitted it. This is a potential answer to the question Carson asks her readers: “What Difference Did Stesichoros Make?”
Plato’s Phaedrus is the source material of the section of Stesichoros’ “Palinode” that Carson translates here. Following the prior excerpt from Phaedrus 243a in Appendix 1, Phaedrus 243b includes these three negations of Stesichoros’ “Palinode.” The ingenious simplicity of this poetry, and the lack of cited source for Appendix B, may lead many to believe that this is Carson’s fictional rendering of Stesichoros’ “Palinode.” But the revelation that it is a “true” story that Stesichoros admitted his story of Helen was a “false” story is even more potent. The confusion of fact and fiction here does not render the importance of their distinction mute; the gravitas of Stesichoros’ “Palinode” is Helen’s insistence that truth matters. In “Red Meat: What Difference Did Stesichoros Make?” Carson proposes that the luminosity of Helen’s truth, when it was revealed by Stesichoros, was so staggeringly bright that it blinded him. We are reminded of that blinding light here, when these three quiet refutations cast into doubt a whole mythological tradition.
In Appendix C, it seems we have finally entered the realm of fiction, albeit smattered with historical allusions. Leaving primary source material behind, Carson dives down a rabbit hole of either/or questions, also known as disjunctive syllogisms in classical logic. In an either/or situation, you use the process of elimination to find the answer. For instance: “If Stesichoros was a blind man either his blindness was a temporary condition or it was permanent.” The solution to this disjunction requires one more piece of knowledge: if we know that he was born blind and died blind, then we can rule out the possibility that it was a temporary condition. But we don’t know that, and so we are stuck in the rabbit’s hole of either/or, all possibilities and no answers.
This is the exercise of Appendix C. Each of its 21 either/or statements has no knowable answer. It quickly leaves behind the terrain of historical doubt—Was Stesichoros blind? If so, was it caused by Helen? Why?—and enters the merely theoretical: “If we meet Stesichoros on our way back either we will keep quiet or we will look him in the eye and ask him what he thinks of Helen.”
Midway through Appendix C, the hypothetical statements begin to read like a choose-your-own-adventure book, except that the only available adventure is the first hypothetical possibility of the prior sentence. Carson takes up the first proposed possibility of each sentence in the next sentence, and, like someone going in a circle because they only make left turns, she eventually arrives back at the beginning of this logical exercise. We begin and end with the question of whether Stesichoros was blind. Playing with ancient forms of logical argumentation in Appendix C, Carson demonstrates the futility of seeking certain truth from the historical record. The matter of Stesichoros’ sight will never be resolved, but the legend of his blinding continues to provoke thought. And where fact flounders, fiction flourishes.
