They never appear on the page. They are voices through stone, drum-deep, calling brother through the mountain. Polyphemus is shrieking that Nobody has hurt him, Nobody has done this, Nobody is here, and his brothers hear a drunk fool playing word-games in the night and tell him to sleep it off. Their footsteps fade. The trick worked because they could not be bothered. That is the thing about giants on this island. They live in their own caves. They keep their own flocks. They do not run to each other in the dark. Odysseus’s “Nobody” trick is praised forever as cunning, but it only works because the neighbours are exactly the kind of neighbours who would rather not get involved.
The Other Cyclopes
Polyphemus's neighbours up the slope. Hear the howling, ask through the rock who hurt him, take his answer at face value, and go back to sleep.