In a palace full of pretenders to the throne and to Penelope’s hand, Euryclea recognises the real king Odysseus by the unique mark of the scar. No one but Odysseus could bear this scar. This weatherbeaten stranger who hardly looks like a king bears the scar; so he must be Odysseus, he cannot be anyone else.

The scar is unique to Odysseus. It is part of his history, a boyhood meeting with a boar, written onto his body. The scar is the trace of an event: contingent and unnecessary. Would Odysseus be any less than he is if it had never happened? The purpose of the event, it seems (now, looking back), has nothing to do with character formation or the trials of a hero. It is simply to make a mark, so that many years later, that mark can be recognised, and Euryclea will let his foot fall back into the basin. Two separate series: the boar hunt, and the return to Ithaca. There is absolutely no causal relation between them, but unless they collapse one onto the other, there is no recognition scene, and Odysseus remains a stranger, hidden beneath the lines of suffering and hardship which mark his face.

Which are also scars of a sort, the no less unique traces of all the events which have separated him from Penelope and Ithaca. The scar is an and: it joins, but it also separates. It is what is read, but it is also what renders unreadable.

The scar is the unique, not because it is some sort of necessary interiority or essence (the heroism of Odysseus shining out, the nobility of the king), but precisely because of its contingency and non-necessity.