ALSO BY ANNE CARSON
AVAILABLE FROM NEW DIRECTIONS
the albertine workout
glass, irony & god
nox
the task of the translator of antigone
dear Antigone:
your name in Greek means something like “against birth” or “instead of being born”
what is there instead of being born?
it’s not that we want to understand everything
or even to understand anything
we want to understand something else
I keep returning to Brecht
who made you do the whole play with a door strapped to your back
a door can have diverse meanings
I stand outside your door
the odd thing is, you stand outside your door too
that door has no inside
or if it has an inside, you are the one person who cannot enter it
for the family who lives there, things have gone irretrievably wrong
to have a father who is also your brother
means having a mother who is your grandmother
a sister who is both your niece and your aunt
and another brother you love so much you want to lie down with him
“thigh to thigh in the grave”
or so you say glancingly early in the play
but no one mentions it again afterwards
oh you always exaggerate! my father used to tell me
and let’s footnote here Hegel calling Woman “the eternal irony of the community”
how seriously can we take you?
are you “Antigone between two deaths” as Lacan puts it
or a parody of Kreon’s law and Kreon’s language — so Judith Butler
who also finds in you “the occasion for a new field of the human”?
then again, “an exemplar of masculine intellect and moral sense”
is George Eliot’s judgment, while to several modern scholars you
(perhaps predictably)
sound like a terrorist
and Žižek compares you triumphantly with Tito
the leader of Yugoslavia saying NO! to Stalin in 1942
speaking of the ’40s, you made a good impression on the Nazi high command
and simultaneously on the leaders of the French Resistance
when they all sat in the audience
of Jean Anouilh’s Antigone
opening night Paris 1944: I don’t know what color your eyes were
but I can imagine you rolling them now
let’s return to Brecht, maybe he got you best
to carry one’s own door will make a person
clumsy, tired and strange
on the other hand, it may come in useful
if you go places that don’t have an obvious way in, like normality
or an obvious way out, like the classic double bind
well that’s your problem
my problem is to get you and your problem
across into English from ancient Greek
all that lies hidden in these people, your people
crimes and horror and years together, a family, what we call a family
“one of my earliest memories,” wrote John Ashbery in New York magazine 1980,
“is of trying to peel off the wallpaper in my room,
not out of animosity
but because it seemed there must be something fascinating
behind its galleons and globes and telescopes”
this reminds me of Samuel Beckett who described in a letter
his own aspirations toward language
“to bore hole after hole in it until what cowers behind it seeps through”
dear Antigone: you also are someone keeping faith
with a deeply other organization that lies just beneath what we see or what we say
to quote Kreon you are autonomos
a word made up of autos “self” and nomos “law”
autonomy sounds like a kind of freedom
but you aren’t interested in freedom
your plan
is to sew yourself into your own shroud using the tiniest of stitches
how to translate this?
I take inspiration from John Cage who, when asked
how he composed 4'33", answered
“I built it up gradually out of many small pieces of silence”
Antigone, you do not,
any more than John Cage, aspire to a condition of silence
you want us to listen to the sound of what happens
when everything normal/musical/careful/conventional or pious is taken away
oh sister and daughter of Oidipous,
who can be innocent in dealing with you
there was never a blank slate
we were always already anxious about you
perhaps you know that Ingeborg Bachmann poem
from the last years of her life that begins
“I lose my screams”
dear Antigone,
I take it as the task of the translator
to forbid that you should ever lose your screams
cast
Antigone
Ismene sister of Antigone
Kreon king of Thebes
Haimon son of Kreon and Eurydike
Eurydike wife of Kreon, mother of Haimon
Teiresias blind prophet of Thebes [led by a boy]
Boy
Guard
Messenger
Chorus of old Theban men
Nick a mute part [always onstage, he measures things]
set
Palace of Kreon at Thebes
antigonick
[enter Antigone and Ismene]
Antigone:
we begin in the dark
and birth is the death of us
Ismene:
who said that
Antigone:
Hegel
Ismene:
sounds more like Beckett
Antigone:
he was paraphrasing Hegel
Ismene:
I don’t think so
Antigone:
whoever it was whoever we are, dear sister
ever since we were born from the evils of Oidipous
what bitterness pain disgust disgrace or moral shock
have we been spared
and now this edict
you’ve heard the edict
Ismene:
I’ve heard no edict
that our two brothers are dead by one another’s hands
and the Argive army gone from this city
is all I know
Antigone:
that’s what I thought
that’s why I called you out here
Ismene:
what’s the matter
you have your thunder look
Antigone:
Kreon is resolved
to honour one of our brothers with burial
the other not
Eteokles he has laid in the ground in accordance with justice and law
Polyneikes is to lie unwept and unburied
sweet sorrymeat for the little lusts of the birds
noble Kreon draws our attention to this edict
yours and my attention
whoever transgresses it gets death
so what do you say
Ismene:
what co
uld I say
what could I do
Antigone:
if you join me
if you join my action
Ismene:
at what risk
where is your mind
Antigone:
if you help me
help me lift the corpse
Ismene:
Kreon says unlawful to do so
Antigone:
Antigone says unholy not to
Ismene:
O sister, don’t cross this line
Antigone:
dear sister, my dead are mine
and yours as well as mine
Ismene:
whoever we are
think, sister —
father’s daughter
daughter’s brother
sister’s mother
mother’s son
his mother and his wife were one!
our family is doubled tripled degraded and dirty in every direction
moreover
we two are alone
and we are girls
girls cannot force their way against men
Antigone:
yet I will
Ismene:
sweet sister, you aim too high
Antigone:
true sister, yet how sweet to lie upon my brother’s body thigh to thigh
Ismene:
your heart so hot, thou sister
Antigone:
O one and only head of my sister whose blood intersects with my own in too many ways
the dead are cold
they’ll welcome me
Ismene:
you are a person in love with the impossible
Antigone:
and when my strength is gone I’ll stop
Ismene:
it’s wrong
Antigone:
don’t say that or I’ll have to hate you
he will hate you too
just let me go
for I’ll not endure anything so grievous as what robs me of a noble death
Ismene:
go then but know
you go as one beloved although
you go without your mind
[exit Antigone and Ismene]
[enter Chorus]
Chorus:
the glories of the world come sharking in all red and gold
we won the war
salvation struts
the streets of sevengated Thebes
the man from Argos fled
the one who
swung above our land on snowhite screams
overweened our walls
seven spears in his mouth instead of teeth
that one fled
before filling his cheeks with blood
before any fire
the noise of war was stretched along his back
the boaster
fled
Zeus hates a boaster
saw an ocean of them coming at us
raised his hand
they hit the ground
they were
the man from Argos
war
made them all insane
seven gates
and in each gate a man
and in each man a death
at the seventh gate
two brothers grew into each other’s hearts as pain
now victory is ours
let
there be forgetting
let
Thebes shake with joy
here comes Kreon
rowing his new powerboat
[enter Kreon]
Kreon:
here are Kreon’s verbs for today
Adjudicate
Legislate
Scandalize
Capitalize
here are Kreon’s nouns
Men
Reason
Treason
Death
Ship of State
Mine
Chorus:
“mine” isn’t a noun
Kreon:
it is if you capitalize it
[enter Guard]
Guard:
well
Kreon:
well what
Guard:
well we
Kreon:
well we what
Guard:
well we saw someone
Kreon:
saw someone what
Guard:
or actually no one
Kreon:
was it someone or no one
Guard:
well hypothetically
Kreon:
you goat’s anus, tell me who buried that body I said was unlawful to touch
Guard:
don’t know
Kreon:
so find out
[exit Kreon and Guard]
Chorus:
many terribly quiet customers exist but none more
terribly quiet than Man
his footsteps pass so perilously soft across the sea
in marble winter
up the stiff blue waves and every Tuesday
down he grinds the unastonishable earth
with horse and shatter
shatters too the cheeks of birds and traps them in his forest headlights
salty silvers roll into his net, he weaves it just for that,
this terribly quiet customer
he dooms
animals and mountains technically
by yoke he makes the bull bend, the horse to its knees
and utterance and thought as clear as complicated air and
moods that make a city moral, these he taught himself
the snowy cold he knows to flee
and every human exigency crackles as he plugs it in
every outlet works but
one
Death stays dark
Death he cannot doom
fabrications notwithstanding
evil
good
laws
gods
honest oathtaking notwithstanding
hilarious in his high city
you see him cantering just as he please
the lava up to here
[enter Guard with Antigone]
Chorus:
this, this
oh I don’t know
let’s not mention gods
let’s not mention Oidipous
please don’t say she’s the one
Guard:
she’s the one she did it she did I got her
Chorus:
oh perfect
here’s Kreon
[enter Kreon]
Kreon:
here’s Kreon
nick of time
Guard:
well miracles do happen
I swore I wouldn’t come back but I did
because I got her she’s the one she did it and I got her
she was fiddling with the grave
I’m off the hook
Kreon:
fiddling what do you mean fiddling
Guard:
I’m a free man I’m free I’m off the hook
Kreon:
explain how you caught her
Guard:
she was burying him
Kreon:
how where when are you sure tell me more
Guard:
the corpse
the illegal
she was burying him
what more do you wan
t
Kreon:
burying him how and where did you see her and how did you catch her I want details
Guard:
details okay
you threatened me I went back wiped off all the dust left that body bare
sat up on the hill was it hot yes
was there putrefaction and vermiculation yes
was there noonsunstink yes
did I doze off no I did not I kept me awake then
all of a sudden
a storm came up
a wind tore the hair off the trees lofted the dust with fear I
shut my eyes and
when I sneaked a look there she was
the child
in her birdgrief the bird in her childreftgravecry howling
and cursing she poured dust onto the body with both hands
she poured water onto the body with both hands
I seized her I charged her it made me sad
but still that’s less than my own safety
you like nouns here’s some
Dustlibation
Donedeal
Deadreckoning
Kreon:
actually I prefer verbs
Guard:
got her
Kreon [to Antigone]: and you with your head down you’re the one
Antigone:
bingo
Kreon [to Guard]: go
[exit Guard]
Kreon [to Antigone]: you knew it was against the law
Antigone:
well if you call that law
Kreon:
I do
Antigone:
Zeus does not
Justice does not
the dead do not
what they call law did not begin today or yesterday
when they say law they do not mean a statute of today or yesterday
they mean the unwritten unfailing eternal ordinances of the gods
that no human being can ever outrun
of course I will die
Kreon or no Kreon
and death is fine
this has no pain
to leave my mother’s son lying out there unburied that would be pain
Chorus:
raw as her father isn’t she
Kreon:
you think you are iron but I can bend you
I’m the man here
Antigone:
yes you are
Kreon:
I’ll bend your sister too
Antigone:
can we just get this over with
Kreon:
no let’s split hairs a while longer
I’d say
you’re the only one in Thebes who sees things this way wouldn’t you
you’re autonomous
autarchic
autodidactic
autodomestic
autoempathic
autotherapeutic
autohistorical
autometaphorical
autoerotic