Metis (; grc, Μῆτις, Mêtis, wisdom', 'skill', or 'craft), in ancient Greek religion and

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narra ...

, was a

Oceanid In Greek mythology, the Oceanids or Oceanides (; grc, Ὠκεανίδες, Ōkeanídes, pl. of grc, Ὠκεανίς, Ōkeanís, label=none) are the nymphs who were the three thousand (a number interpreted as meaning "innumerable") daughters o ...

nymph A nymph ( grc, νύμφη, nýmphē, el, script=Latn, nímfi, label=Modern Greek; , ) in ancient Greek folklore is a minor female nature deity. Different from Greek goddesses, nymphs are generally regarded as personifications of nature, are ...

, one of the daughters of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. Metis is notable for helping a young

Zeus Zeus or , , ; grc, Δῐός, ''Diós'', label= genitive Boeotian Aeolic and Laconian grc-dor, Δεύς, Deús ; grc, Δέος, ''Déos'', label= genitive el, Δίας, ''Días'' () is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek relig ...

free his siblings from his father

Cronus In Ancient Greek religion and mythology, Cronus, Cronos, or Kronos ( or , from el, Κρόνος, ''Krónos'') was the leader and youngest of the first generation of Titans, the divine descendants of the primordial Gaia (Mother Earth) an ...

' belly by supplying him with a special drug. After Zeus became king, he and Metis were married, and she bore him a daughter,

Athena Athena or Athene, often given the epithet Pallas, is an ancient Greek goddess associated with wisdom, warfare, and handicraft who was later syncretized with the Roman goddess Minerva. Athena was regarded as the patron and protectress of v ...

, the goddess of wisdom. After hearing a

prophecy In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a ''prophet'') by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or p ...

stating that after Metis gave birth to Athena, she would have a son mightier than Zeus who would overthrow him, Zeus tricked the still pregnant Metis and swallowed her whole.

Function

By the era of

Greek philosophy Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC, marking the end of the Greek Dark Ages. Greek philosophy continued throughout the Hellenistic period and the period in which Greece and most Greek-inhabited lands were part of the Roman Empi ...

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 In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story ( god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwi ...

powers of Prometheus as with the "royal ''metis''" of

. The Stoic commentators allegorised Metis as the embodiment of " prudence", "wisdom" or "wise counsel", in which form she was inherited by the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history marking the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and covering the 15th and 16th centuries, characterized by an effort to revive and surpass ide ...

. 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 Polyphemus (; grc-gre, Πολύφημος, Polyphēmos, ; la, Polyphēmus ) is the one-eyed giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes described in Homer's ''Odyssey''. His name means "abounding in songs and ...

, son of

Poseidon Poseidon (; grc-gre, Ποσειδῶν) was one of the Twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth, god of the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 In pre-Olympian Bronze Age Greece, he was venerated as ...

. In the Classical era, ''metis'' was regarded by Athenians as one of the notable characteristics of the Athenian character.

Mythology

Hesiod's account

Metis was an Oceanid, one of the daughters of Oceanus and his sister-wife Tethys, who were 3000 in number. She was a sister of the Potamoi (river-gods), sons of Oceanus and Tethys, who also numbered 3000. Metis was the one who gave Zeus a potion to cause

to vomit out his siblings. She became Zeus' first great spouse,Norman O. Brown, "The Birth of

" ''Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association'' 83 (1952), pp. 130–143. Zeus is himself 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 extremely powerful children: the first, a daughter who would be wiser than her mother, and the second, 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 dire consequences, he tricked her into turning herself into a

fly Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advanced ...

and promptly swallowed her. He was too late however, for Metis was already pregnant with their first and only child,

. Metis crafted armor, a spear, and a shield for her daughter, and raised her in Zeus' mind. Athena began to use the spear and shield her mother had made, banging them together to give her father a headache. Soon, he couldn't take his headache anymore and had Hephaestus cut his head open to let out whatever was in there. Athena emerged from Zeus's mind in full glory, wearing the armor her mother made her. Athena was made the goddess of wisdom, warfare, and crafts.

Other versions

According to a

scholia Scholia (singular scholium or scholion, from grc, σχόλιον, "comment, interpretation") are grammatical, critical, or explanatory comments – original or copied from prior commentaries – which are inserted in the margin of t ...

st on the ''

Theogony The ''Theogony'' (, , , i.e. "the genealogy or birth of the gods") is a poem by Hesiod (8th–7th century BC) describing the origins and genealogies of the Greek gods, composed . It is written in the Epic dialect of Ancient Greek and contain ...

'', Metis had the ability of changing her shape at will. Zeus tricked her, and swallowed his pregnant wife when she transformed into a ' (''pikràn''). As Keightley notes, ("bitter") makes little or no sense in that context, and it has been variously corrected to (''muîan'', meaning "fly") or (''mikràn'', meaning "small thing") instead. According to Pseudo-Apollodorus, Metis was raped by Zeus, and changed many forms in order to escape him, after he pursued her. An alternative version of the same myth makes the Cyclops Brontes rather than Zeus the father of Athena before Metis is swallowed. Hesiod's account is followed by Acusilaus and the

Orphic Orphism (more rarely Orphicism; grc, Ὀρφικά, Orphiká) is the name given to a set of religious beliefs and practices originating in the ancient Greek and Hellenistic world, associated with literature ascribed to the mythical poet Orphe ...

tradition, which enthroned Metis side by side with Eros as primal cosmogenic forces.

Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...

makes '' Poros'', or "creative ingenuity", a son of Metis.

Ancient legacy

The similarities between Zeus swallowing Metis and Cronus swallowing his children have been noted by several scholars. This also caused some controversy in regard to reproduction myths.Leeming, s.v. Metis.

Modern legacy

Metis Island Metis Island ( bg, остров Метис, ostrov Metis, ) is the 820 m long in east–west direction and 140 m wide rocky island separated from the west coast of Lavoisier Island in Biscoe Islands by a 540 m wide passage. Its surface area is 8 ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

is named after Metis. * 9 Metis, one of the larger main-belt asteroids, is named after this goddess. *

Metis Metis or Métis may refer to: Ethnic groups * Métis, recognized Indigenous communities in Canada and America whose distinct culture and language emerged after early intermarriage between First Nations peoples and early European settlers, primar ...

, a moon of

Jupiter Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousand ...

, is named after the goddess.

In sociology

In his 1998 book '' Seeing Like a State'', James C. Scott used “metis” to describe the knowhow, experience and wisdom that people acquire in building expertise, as a key contributor to success in society that is not accounted for by the high modernist approach to central administration.

Footnotes

Notes

References

Apollodorus Apollodorus (Greek: Ἀπολλόδωρος ''Apollodoros'') was a popular name in ancient Greece. It is the masculine gender of a noun compounded from Apollo, the deity, and doron, "gift"; that is, "Gift of Apollo." It may refer to: :''Note: A f ...

, ''The Library'' with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. ISBN 0-674-99135-4
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
* Caldwell, Richard, ''Hesiod's Theogony'', Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company (June 1, 1987). . * Gantz, Timothy, ''Early Greek Myth: A Guide to Literary and Artistic Sources'', Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, Two volumes: (Vol. 1), (Vol. 2). * Grimal, Pierre, ''The Dictionary of Classical Mythology'', Wiley-Blackwell, 1996. . * Hard, Robin, ''The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology"'', Psychology Press, 2004,
Google Books
*

Hesiod Hesiod (; grc-gre, Ἡσίοδος ''Hēsíodos'') was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer. He is generally regarded by western authors as 'the first written poet i ...

, ''Theogony'' from ''The Homeric Hymns and Homerica'' with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, MA.,Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.Greek text available from the same website
* Keightley, Thomas, ''The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy'', second edition considerably enlarged and improved,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, Whittaker and Co., 1838. * Leeming, David
"Metis"
In ''The Oxford Companion to World Mythology'', Oxford University Press, York University, 2004. * Morford, Mark P. O., Robert J. Lenardon, ''Classical Mythology'', Eighth Edition, Oxford University Press, 2007. . *

, (1989)

The Symposium The ''Symposium'' ( grc, Συμπόσιον, ) is a philosophical text by Plato, dated . It depicts a friendly contest of extemporaneous speeches given by a group of notable men attending a banquet. The men include the philosopher Socrates, the ...

. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company. * Smith, William, ''

Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology The ''Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology'' (1849, originally published 1844 under a slightly different title) is an encyclopedia/ biographical dictionary. Edited by William Smith, the dictionary spans three volumes and 3,700 ...

'', London (1873)
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
* Tripp, Edward, ''Crowell's Handbook of Classical Mythology'', Thomas Y. Crowell Co; First edition (June 1970). .

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Metis (Mythology) Greek goddesses Oceanids Nymphs Wisdom goddesses Crafts goddesses Divine women of Zeus Mercurian deities Mother goddesses Women in Greek mythology Personifications in Greek mythology Mythological rape victims Shapeshifters in Greek mythology Deeds of Zeus Athena Mothers of the twelve Olympians