- Looks after
- Cunning intelligence
Metis
Μῆτις
Metis, an Oceanid, was Zeus's first wife. She personified cunning, and Zeus swallowed her before Athena could be born.
Metis is the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys, so strictly she is an Oceanid and not a Titan, though she belongs to the same older generation. Her name means cunning, practical intelligence, the kind of craft a sailor or a smith has.
She helped Zeus in his struggle against Cronus, giving him a drug that made Cronus bring up his swallowed children. She became his first wife. Gaia and Uranus told Zeus that she would bear a daughter as wise as him, and then a son who would rule the gods. So Zeus swallowed her whole while she was pregnant, to take her wisdom into himself.
The child came out later, in Hesiod, as Athena, who is said to have sprung from Zeus's head. Zeus therefore has Metis inside him, and is wise in every sense.
In later art and language
Metis is also the name of a moon of Jupiter, and the Greek word metis, for a form of practical know-how, was revived by the anthropologists Detienne and Vernant.
Ancient sources
- Hesiod, Theogony 337-358, 886-900
The family of Metis
Strictly an Oceanid, one of the older generation of water nymphs.