Who is the father of Odysseus?

The father of Odysseus is Laertes. In Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Laertes is the aging king of Ithaca and the father of Odysseus, whose patronymic epithet Laertiades means “son of Laertes.” Odysseus’s mother is Anticlea, and his son is Telemachus.

Laertes is largely absent from Ithaca during Odysseus’s long voyage home. Grieving and believing his son may be dead, he withdraws to a farm outside the palace. After Odysseus returns and defeats Penelope’s suitors, father and son reunite in one of the Odyssey’s final scenes. Odysseus identifies himself by recalling the trees Laertes once gave him.

Some later mythological traditions claim that Sisyphus, rather than Laertes, was Odysseus’s biological father. That variant is a notable mythological complication, but Laertes is the standard and canonical answer in Homer’s epics and in ordinary trivia usage.