Metis (mythology)

Metis (ˈmiːtɪs; Mêtis), in ancient Greek religion and mythology, was one of the Oceanids. She is notable for being the first wife and advisor of Zeus, the King of the Gods. She helped him to free his siblings from their father Cronus' stomach by giving him an emetic and, when she was swallowed by Zeus after it was foretold that she would bear a son mightier than his father, helped their daughter Athena to escape from his forehead. By the era of Greek philosophy in the 5th century BC, Metis had become the first deity of wisdom and deep thought, but her name originally connoted "magical cunning" and was as easily equated with the trickster powers of Prometheus as with the "royal metis" of Zeus. The Stoic commentators allegorised Metis as the embodiment of "prudence", "wisdom" or "wise counsel", in which form she was inherited by the Renaissance. The Greek word metis meant a quality that combined wisdom and cunning. This quality was considered to be highly admirable, the hero Odysseus being the embodiment of it, using with Polyphemus, son of Poseidon. In the Classical era, metis was regarded by Athenians as one of the notable characteristics of the Athenian character. Metis was an Oceanid nymph, one of the 3000 daughters of the Titans Oceanus and his sister-wife Tethys, and a sister of the Potamoi (river-gods), who also numbered 3000. Metis gave her cousin Zeus a potion to cause his father Cronus, the supreme ruler of the cosmos, to vomit out his siblings their father had swallowed out of fear of being overthrown. After the Titanomachy, the 10-years war among the immortals, she was pursued by Zeus and they got married. Zeus himself is titled Metieta (), in the Homeric poems. Metis was both a threat to Zeus and an indispensable aid. He lay with her, but immediately feared the consequences. It had been prophesied that she would bear a daughter who would be wiser than her mother, and then a son more powerful than his father, who would eventually overthrow Zeus and become king of the cosmos in his place.