Laertes
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Laertes is the name of numerous characters in fiction.
[edit] Greek mythology
In Greek mythology, Laërtês (Greek: Λαέρτης) was the son of Arcesius (also spelled Arceisius) and Chalcomedusa. He was father of Odysseus and Ctimene by his wife Anticlea, daughter of the thief Autolycus. Laërtes was an Argonaut and participated in the hunt for the Calydonian Boar. Laërtes's title was King of the Cephallenians, which he presumably inherited from his father Arcesius and grandfather Cephalus. His realm included Ithaca and surrounding islands, and perhaps the neighboring part of the mainland.
Another version of the story says that he was not Odysseus' real father, which was Sisyphus who had seduced Anticlea.
After Odysseus and Telemachus routed the suitors that had been threatening his wife, Penelope, some of the suitors' surviving relatives confronted them. Athena infused vigor into Laértes, so he could help Odysseus by killing Eupeithes, father of Antinous.
In Robert Fitzgerald's transliteration of The Odyssey, Odysseus refers to him as King Allwoes.
Homer, Odyssey XXIV; Ovid, Metamorphoses VIII, 315.
[edit] Hamlet
Laertes is also a character in William Shakespeare's play, Hamlet. Laertes is the older brother of Hamlet's lover Ophelia, who leaves the action of the play in Act I to attend school in France. His leave-taking scene has some of the most oft-quoted lines from Shakespeare, including: ""...to thine own self be true," and " Neither a borrower nor a lender be." After his father is killed by Hamlet, Laertes comes back to Denmark at the head of a large force of men to storm the castle and kill the king. However, after seeing his sister raving, and at the urging of King Claudius, Laertes agrees to kill Hamlet in a duel with a foil laced with poison. During the fencing the foils get switched, and Laertes is "hoist with his own petard" and he ends up dying from the poisoned foil, but not until he has made his peace with Hamlet. Laetres has often been called the foil for Hamlet because it is through the rash actions of Laertes that we can truly appreciate the intellectual battles Hamlet has with himself when deciding upon the correct course of action. For example: Whereas Hamlet takes the entire play to avenge the death of his father upon Claudius, Laertes storms in ready for regicide ( and damn the consequences) when he enters the play in Act IV after hearing of his father's death.
[edit] Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship
Laertes also is a character in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship. Shakespeare's Hamlet is performed in the story and Laertes is cast to play the role of Laertes.
