νήπιος: Philoctetes and Polyphemus

Sometimes looking at a work from another angle brings a renewed appreciation for something one thought had already been sufficiently savored.

Having recently read Daniel B. Levine's close study of the resonances in Sophocles' Philoctetes of the encounter of Odysseus and the Cyclops in Odyssey 9, I've been thinking about the relation of the play to the epic scene, and while I still think there's more to it than I have fathomed, it's already enriching elements of the play in ways I'd not have imagined.

Take for example the scene (already discussed here) in which Philoctetes makes his first entrance. Before he's even on the stage, the wounded man is rumbling, crashing, making noises, not articulate sounds. If we superimpose this scene upon Homer's, we note that Polyphemus arrives with his own crash:

           φέρε δ᾽ ὄβριμον ἄχθοςὕλης ἀζαλέης, ἵνα οἱ ποτιδόρπιον εἴη,ἔντοσθεν δ᾽ ἄντροιο βαλὼν ὀρυμαγδὸν ἔθηκεν:

He bore a mighty weight of dry wood to serve him at supper time, [235] and flung it down with a crash inside the cave.

The only reason Odysseus has stayed in the cave is to see whether the cave's inhabitant was capable of hospitality -- i.e., a civilized being, not a monster -- and now he knows.

Sophocles sets up his scene beautifully to draw us in -- the island setting is just like island settings in the Odyssey where marvels occurred, and we are there. Only here, the crashing sounds of Philoctetes are made by his jagged walking -- he sounds monstrous, and as he approaches the chorus says:

προβοᾷ τι γὰρ δεινόν.

His cries are loud, and terrible. (217)

But when the unknown being appears, he's very much like a man.

The chorus is grappling with the same question Odysseus had: human or inhuman? As the scene unfolds, we get Philoctetes' first view, or actually, his first hearing, of the sailors. And with a beautiful symmetry, Sophocles depicts this creature -- who but a moment before seemed a monster -- to swoon with delight to hear well-spoken Greek:

ὦ φίλτατον φώνημα:

O cherished sound!

The tongue reveals to him, before anything is even said, that these are men like him, and to them that he is a well-spoken man, a Greek like them. If we think of our underlying Homeric scene, this happy recognition of similars is precisely what is missing in the Cyclops' cave:

ὣς ἔφαθ᾽, ἡμῖν δ᾽ αὖτε κατεκλάσθη φίλον ἦτορ,

δεισάντων φθόγγον τε βαρὺν αὐτόν τε πέλωρον.

“So he spoke, and in our breasts our spirit was broken 

for terror of his deep voice and monstrous self;"

Before Polyphemus establishes that the only place Odysseus and his men will go is down his gullet, his voice, though speaking Greek, makes it clear that he is no man who honors guests, suppliants, and gods:

he straightway made answer with pitiless heart: ‘A fool (νήπιος) art thou, stranger, or art come from afar, seeing that thou biddest me either to fear or to shun the gods. [275] For the Cyclopes reck not of Zeus, who bears the aegis, nor of the blessed gods, since verily we are better far than they. Nor would I, to shun the wrath of Zeus, spare either thee or thy comrades, unless my own heart should bid me.

Only a νήπιος would assume that humanity is everywhere alike. νήπιος in fact means incapable of speech -- exactly like infans in Latin. To be νήπιος is to fail to see difference, unlikeness -- here, it's the failure to see that one is looking at a monster.

Odysseus now has the answer to his question: alas, it's the bone-crunching end to all questing. The mouth of the Cyclops produces no cherished sound, but opens to use his guests with engulfing savage power.

One effect, then, of the parallel with Homer's scene is to highlight a difference that lies, unquestionably, in the mouth. Philoctetes sounds like a monster but delights in hearing the tongue of Greeks. The scene brightens through its difference with that of the Cyclops, but a dark cloud lies within: the potential heartless, godless, monstrous use of a man that lurks through the scenes that follow.

Odysseus's acting and direction in Philoctetes

The opening scene of Philoctetes appears to have two action planes, but really has three.

It begins with Odysseus setting the scene for Neoptolemus:

Odysseus
This is the headland of sea-washed Lemnos, land untrodden by men and desolate. It was here, child bred of the man who was the noblest of the Greeks, Neoptolemus son of Achilles, that I exposed [ἐξέθηκ᾽] long ago the native of Malis, Poeas' son, on the express command of the two chieftains to do so, because his foot was all running with a gnawing disease. Neither libation nor burnt sacrifice could be attempted by us in peace, but with his wild, ill-omened cries [10] he filled the whole camp continually with shrieking, moaning.

A moment later, Odysseus is predicting that Neoptolemus will see the cave where Philoctetes was abandoned more than nine years earlier.

Come, it is your task to serve as my ally in what remains, and to seek where in this region there is a cave with two mouths [δίστομος]. During cold weather it provides two seats facing the sun, while in summer a breeze wafts sleep through the tunneled chamber. [20] And a little below, on the left hand, perhaps, you will see water rising from a spring, if it has not failed. Go there silently, and signal to me whether he still dwells in this same place, or is to be found elsewhere, so that the rest of my plan may be explained by me, heard by you, [25] and sped by the joint effort of us both.

As Odysseus speaks, he halts, directing Neoptolemus to go forward. This is clear from how Neoptolemus begins to describe the cave, because he can see it, while Odysseus, who has it in his mind's eye, cannot:

Neoptolemus
King Odysseus, the completion of the task that you set me is not far off, for I believe I see a cave like that which you have described.
Odysseus
Above you, or below? I do not see it.
Neoptolemus
Here, high up—and of footfalls there is not a sound.
Odysseus
[30] See that he is not sheltered there asleep.
Neoptolemus
I see an empty dwelling, without occupants.
Odysseus
And is there no provision inside for human habitation?
Neoptolemus
There is—a bed of leaves, as if for some one who makes his lodging here.

The relevant points of attention now are three: Odysseus, Neoptolemus, and the cave. Two mouths -- one far, one "not far off" -- talking about a cave with two mouths, whose absent inhabitant will be the target of a ruse, a trick -- σόφισμα -- which Odysseus intends to use Neoptolemus to play.

It all depends on what comes out of one's mouth, Odysseus tells the young man:

τὴν Φιλοκτήτου σε δεῖ 

55

ψυχὴν ὅπως δόλοισιν ἐκκλέψεις λέγων. 

You must cheat the mind of Philoctetes by means of a story told as you converse with him. 

A bit further on, in answer to Neoptolemus's asking why they can't just take Philoctetes by force, Odysseus says he used to have a "doing hand." But now, he adds,

νῦν δ᾽ εἰς ἔλεγχον ἐξιὼν ὁρῶ βροτοῖς 

τὴν γλῶσσαν, οὐχὶ τἄργα, πάνθ᾽ ἡγουμένην.

I see that the tongue, not action, is what leads everything among men.

The three planes of action run through the play. Behind the scenes, Odysseus is pulling the strings. Neoptolemus is the shill, Philoctetes the target. Yet a fourth plane subsumes the others: the war at Troy. Odysseus will always maintain that the Atreidae direct him - he's merely carrying out their orders. What is going on here, on this little island, cut off from every civil society, is deeply connected to what is going on there. Far and near are frightfully close, here.

This interplay of planes makes it sometimes difficult to tell whether what one is seeing (or hearing) is action, or acted -- part of the biography of Philoctetes, or of the fiction woven to entrap him. Odysseus keeps telling Achilles' young son that he needs to become "clever," sophos (σοφός). With a master of chicanery like Odysseus (great-grandson of Hermes) one never has the clarifying comfort of knowing the real from the ruse. A real three-card monte of wagging tongues. As we watch Odysseus act and direct, we'll have to ask: What part of Neoptolemus's change of heart does Odysseus not anticipate? What part of Philoctetes' implacable hatred does the Ithacan lord not know precisely how to use to his own ends?

Anatomy of an idiot

This is a kind of thought experiment, an attempt to regard the very rich text of the Antigone from just one angle, centered on the figure of Creon. It's merely a way to discern a pattern of failed reading in the play, which one hopes will not act out the pattern it seeks to describe. There are many ways to look at this play, because there's nothing schematic about Sophocles, and the Antigone is far richer than any diagram.

In one of Antigone's exchanges with Creon, there's this:

Antigone 

Why then do you wait? In none of your maxims is there anything that pleases me—and may there never be! Similarly to you as well my views must be displeasing. And yet, how could I have won a nobler glory than by giving burial to my own brother? All here would admit that they approve, [505] if fear did not grip their tongues. But tyranny, blest with so much else, has the power to do and say whatever it pleases. 

Creon 

You alone out of all these Thebans (Καδμείων - Cadmeians) see it that way. 

Antigone 

They do, too, but for you they hold their tongues.

The word for "hold" Antigone uses in her reply to Creon is ὑπίλλω -- which has a basic sense of pressing down, pushing under. It was used to describe how a dog holds its tail down between its legs.