Laertes is a character in
William Shakespeare's play
Hamlet. His name is taken from the father of
Odysseus in
Homer's
Odyssey. Laertes is the son of
Polonius and the brother of
Ophelia. In the final scene, he kills Hamlet with a poisoned sword to avenge the deaths of his father and sister, for which he blamed Hamlet. While dying of the same poison, he implicates
King Claudius. The Laertes character is thought to be originally from Shakespeare, as there is no equivalent character in any of the known sources for the play.