for young men, men who would like to be savior-knights? What is it exactly they are trying to save? Is it really religion? Is it truly cultural purity? I think Hamlet offers us a telling way of understanding the paranoia of would-be young male savior figures. The key moment for this understanding arrives in the graveyard scene of the play during the speech in which Laertes mourns the death of his sister Ophelia: it is indeed a cryptic moment. Consider the name: Laertes. Strange name for a Dane, for a Scandanavian. In fact, the name is out of Homer; Laertes is the father of Odysseus. And, amazingly, the graveside speech of Laertes is the transposition of a vignette from the Hades section of Homer's Odyssey.from CounterPunch: The Crusader's Tragedy
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