Metis

Metis, an ancient Greek deity, was the first wife and advisor of Zeus, the King of the Gods. She played a crucial role in freeing his siblings from their father Cronus' stomach and, after Zeus swallowed her, helped their daughter Athena escape from his forehead. By the 5th century BC, Metis became the first deity of wisdom and deep thought, but her name originally connoted "magical cunning." Stoic commentators attributed Metis to embodying "prudence", "wisdom" or "wise counsel", a form she was inherited by the Renaissance. Metis, a Greek word meaning "wisdom" or "skill," was highly admirable, with the hero Odysseus embodying this quality. In the Classical era, metis was considered a notable characteristic of the Athenian character by Athenians.
== Background ==
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 (the wise counsellor), 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. In order to forestall these consequences, Zeus tricked Metis into turning herself into a fly and promptly swallowed her. However, she was already pregnant with their first and only child, Athena. Metis crafted armor, a spear, and a shield for her daughter, whom she raised in Zeus' mind. Athena eventually used her spear and shield, banging them together to give her father a headache. Soon, he couldn't take his headache anymore and had the smith god Hephaestus, one of his sister-wife Hera's sons, cut his head open to let out whatever was in there on the river Trito's banks. Athena emerged from Zeus's mind full grown, wearing the armor her mother made her. She was made the goddess of wisdom, warfare, and crafts.
Category:Goddess
Category:Religion
Category:Greek Pantheon