A few days ago, I went with friends to see the new adaptation of The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan. After almost three hours of journey, we emerged from the room covered in wind, sea, cliffs, and Mediterranean landscapes.
Then we went to have a drink and chat. As we walked, a friend commented:
—“How strange that they left out the ‘Nobody’ dialogue!”
Of course. Nobody.
It had been a long time since I thought about the cave of Polyphemus. But just hearing the word was enough to remember that passage I hadn’t read since high school.
When I got home, I went straight to the library and searched for the book. The Odyssey tells the return of the king of Ithaca, after ten years of fighting in Troy. In an edition illustrated by Juan Carlos de Pablo, I found an image that today seems almost childish, yet revealing.
Polyphemus smashes the head of one of the soldiers against a stone. With his other hand, he holds Odysseus while observing him with a half-open mouth. There is no struggle. The man speaks and the cyclops listens attentively.
Odysseus had found sheep, cheese, and a lit fire in Polyphemus’ cave. He expected to find a host. In Homer’s world, there was an obligation to receive the stranger: first, food and refuge were offered, and only then was he asked who he was. That was the law of Zeus.
Polyphemus does the opposite. He devours several of Odysseus’ men and seals the cave’s entrance with a huge boulder.
—“What is your name?” Polyphemus asks.
—“My name is Nobody,” responds Odysseus, with a plan in mind.
Odysseus gets the cyclops drunk and blinds him with a fire-hardened stake. The screams awaken other cyclopes, who come to his aid.
—“Who is hurting you?” they ask.
—“Nobody has harmed me! Nobody is attacking me!”
And so, convinced that no one is attacking Polyphemus, they return to their caves.
The next morning, when the cyclops lets his herds out, Odysseus and his men escape hidden beneath the bellies of the sheep.
This scene still strikes us as brilliant and made Odysseus the shrewdest hero in Western literature.
The day after watching the movie, I continued chatting with my partner about the absence of this passage. If it summarizes the character of Odysseus so well, why was it left out? The first thing we commented on was that eliminating the “Nobody” episode was like adapting Hamlet without “To be or not to be.” It made the character’s core missing.
We went back to other versions of The Odyssey to see which character they had decided to portray. The Odysseus who appears in Troy convinces Achilles without arguing with him: first he listens, then he understands, and then he speaks. He is the strategist. The enigmatic diplomat. The man who knows how to read the other.
Homer’s Odysseus is many things at once. He is the warrior who resists ten years of war and the man who weeps hearing his own exploits sung. He is the king who only wants to return to Ithaca and the traveler who cannot help letting himself be tempted by the unknown. He is sharp, patient, and proud. Homer never wrote simple heroes.
Nor did he write simple monsters. Polyphemus lives among herds, makes cheese, and inhabits a cave that looks like a civilized home. However, to Odysseus’ surprise, he has the bad habit of eating his guests. Homer suggests that barbarity does not depend on appearance, but on how the foreigner is treated.
Three thousand years later, we are still in Polyphemus’ cave. We continue talking about migration, borders, refuge, solidarity.
Three thousand years later, we are still in Polyphemus’ cave. We continue talking about migration, borders, refuge, solidarity. We continue confronting those who believe power is above everything and that there is no need to convince anyone.
We are still standing in front of the cave’s monster. Or in front of some of those who arrived later, with their arrogance on their backs and their authoritarian gestures.
Odysseus is a hero of intelligence. In the face of force, he thinks; in the face of the abuse of power, he observes; when all paths seem closed, he finds a way out. Perhaps that is why the “Nobody” scene is much more than a clever wordplay. It is a lesson in what cleverness can do when power stops listening.
Italo Calvino wrote that “a classic is a book that never finishes saying what it has to say.” Perhaps that is why we keep returning to the cave of Polyphemus. Not to discover how Odysseus escapes, but to ask ourselves, once again, who the owners of the cave are today and what resources we have left when power stops listening.