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"And the goddess answered, 'Ulysses, noble son of Laertes, you shall none of you stay here any longer if you do not want to, but there is another journey which you have got to take before you can sail homewards. You must go to the house of Hades and of dread Proserpine to consult the ghost of the blind Theban prophet Teiresias, whose reason is still unshaken.
From the knees downward he was Laertes, because he had on Laertes' white trousers and patent leather slippers. Yet he was strangely real, a voice out of the dark. The Ghost is really one of the play's failures, it is so trivial and unspiritual and vulgar. And it was spoilt for me from the first. When I was a child I went to the twopenny travelling theatre to see Hamlet.
How appropriate here, with some slight change, the words of Laertes at Ophelia's grave: Lay her in the earth; And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring; I tell thee, priest and minister, A ministering angel shall this woman be When thou liest howling. I have no words with which to express my loathing hatred and condemnation of the man who will stain a noble woman's grave.
As they neared the coast, and neither heard nor saw a sign of life, the man's face fell. The gladness went out of his eyes, his features grew older with anxiety and doubt, and with longing for tidings of his home. No man ever loved his home more than he, for this was Odysseus, the son of Laertes whom some call Ulysses returned from his unsung second wandering.
Shame of Poverty makes Laertes> launch into unnecessary Equipage, vain Expense, and lavish Entertainments; Fear of Poverty makes Irus allow himself only plain Necessaries, appear without a Servant, sell his own Corn, attend his Labourers, and be himself a Labourer.
"More's the pity," answered Telemachus, "I am sorry for him, but we must leave him to himself just now. If people could have everything their own way, the first thing I should choose would be the return of my father; but go, and give your message; then make haste back again, and do not turn out of your way to tell Laertes.
Thus did they converse in the house of Hades deep down within the bowels of the earth. Meanwhile Ulysses and the others passed out of the town and soon reached the fair and well-tilled farm of Laertes, which he had reclaimed with infinite labour.
But the goodly swineherd was ware thereof, and quickly he spake to Odysseus who stood nigh him: 'Son of Laertes, of the seed of Zeus, Odysseus, of many devices, lo, there again is that baleful man, whom we ourselves suspect, going to the chamber; do thou tell me truly, shall I slay him if I prove the better man, or bring him hither to thee, that he may pay for the many transgressions that he has devised in thy house?
When he saw him, wasted with age and all uncared for, Odysseus stood still, leaning his hand against a pear tree and sorrowing in his heart. Old Laertes kept his head down as he stood digging at the plant, and he did not see Odysseus until he stood before him and said: 'Old man, thou dost care for this garden well and all things here are flourishing fig tree, and vine, and olive, and pear.
It was like a thick shell with no crevice in it through which the tenderness of Shakespeare's Hamlet could show, except for the one moment at Ophelia's grave, where he reproaches Laertes with those pathetic words "What is the reason that you use me thus? I loved you ever; but it is no matter." Here Mme. Bernhardt betrayed a real grief, but as a woman would, and not a man.
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