This story is an adventure Odysseus told himself. In the country he reached after drifting, on the night he gave his name (chapter 8). This is the most famous passage of that night.
The ship came in at the shore of an unknown island. The sheep in the fields were fat and the crops grew unplanted, and there was not a ship anywhere, nor a neighbor.
Odysseus picked twelve men and went ashore. In his hand was a skin of strong wine he had been given, and on the hillside a great cave stood open.
Guests Inside the Cave
Inside the cave, cheeses were stacked on every rack. The men said to take the cheese and go quickly, but Odysseus would not. He was curious about the owner.
At evening the ground shook. A giant the size of a house drove his flocks in, and blocked the entrance with a rock like a mountain.
Lighting his fire, the giant found the men in the corner. “Who are you? Traders, or pirates?” His voice shook the whole cave.
Odysseus asked for the courtesy owed to guests. The giant sneered. “We are not afraid even of the gods.”
The Name Nobody
That night the giant ate two of the men. It was a place where the code for guests did not apply, and the rest sat awake and weeping through the night.
They could not kill the giant. Only the giant could move the rock at the entrance, so to kill him was to be shut in and starve.
The next evening Odysseus poured out the wine for him. The giant gulped it down and demanded more. “Tell me your name. I will give you a guest gift.”
“My name is Nobody.” The giant cackled. “Then I will eat Nobody last. That is my gift.”
The Eye of the Sleeping Giant
The giant collapsed drunk and fell asleep. Odysseus brought out the olive stake he had cut beforehand, its point hardened in the fire and hidden away.
Four of them lifted the stake and drove it into the giant’s eye. The giant rose screaming, and the cave rang as though it would collapse.
The neighboring giants crowded outside and asked. “Polyphemus, who is hurting you?” “Nobody! Nobody is hurting me!”
The neighbors went away puzzled. If nobody is hurting you it is an illness, they said, so go and pray. One name had blocked a call for help.
Slung Under the Bellies of the Sheep
In the morning the blinded giant opened the rock. Then he sat at the door feeling the sheep as they went out, expecting a man to ride out on a sheep’s back.
Odysseus had tied the sheep together in threes. Under the belly of each middle sheep he slung one man, and he fastened himself under the largest ram.
The giant’s hands passed over the backs of the sheep. He did not feel underneath. And so the men came out into the morning light.
The Name Given at Sea
The ship cut the water and drew away from the island. Relief at being alive filled their chests, and in that moment something boiled up inside Odysseus.
He stood at the prow and shouted. “Giant! It was not Nobody who took your eye! It was Odysseus of Ithaca, the son of Laertes!”
His men hung on him to stop him, too late. The giant tore off a mountain peak, hurled it, and prayed to the sky. “Father Poseidon, let that man never reach his home.”
Polyphemus was the son of Poseidon. That prayer was granted exactly, and the ten years adrift began on this evening.
Today, the Price of Hiding a Name and Giving One
The cunning that hid his name saved him. The boast that gave it cost ten years, and the same name was a shield and then a target.
It is not hard to understand why he shouted it. You want your own name attached to what you have done, but the most dangerous moment is always just after winning.
There was another man who could not stop while winning. Patroclus in borrowed armor (Greek Myths, chapter 49). The tail end of a victory is the most slippery ground.
Odysseus pays this bill for ten years. And at the last, on Ithaca, he does the exact opposite. He hides his name under a beggar’s clothes and holds back to the end (chapter 18).