Laertes was son of Arcesius and Chalcomedusa, and presumably inherited the Cephallenian kingdom from that line back to Cephalus. By his wife Anticlea, daughter of the thief Autolycus, he fathered Odysseus — hence the patronymic Laertiades — and a daughter Ctimene. He bought the nurse Eurycleia for twenty oxen and honoured her in his house.

A rival tradition held that Laertes was not Odysseus's true father: Sisyphus had seduced Anticlea, and Laertes either raised or purchased the child. Apollodorus and Hyginus preserve this strand alongside the Homeric genealogy.

Mythographic catalogues name Laertes among the Argonauts and among the hunters of the Calydonian Boar. He trained Odysseus in husbandry — a bond the Odyssey later seals when father and son name the trees they once planted together.

While Odysseus is away, Laertes stays clear of the palace, living alone on his farm, worn by grief; Anticlea has already died longing for her son. In the underworld she tells Odysseus she died mindful of Laertes' kindness.

After the slaughter of the suitors Odysseus finds Laertes digging in his orchard, old and exhausted. He first tests him under a false name (Fitzgerald's "Quarrelman, son of King Allwoes"), then reveals himself by reciting the trees Laertes gave him as a boy — a recognition that roots the homecoming in Ithaca's soil itself.

Father and son go to face the families of the dead wooers. Athena pours vigour into Laertes so that he can fight; he casts a spear and kills Eupeithes, father of Antinous, before the conflict is halted. Dictys Cretensis adds that Laertes died three years after Odysseus's return.