Metis: Titan Goddess of Wisdom and Cunning

The Story of Metis

Metis was an Oceanid, a daughter of the Titans Oceanus and Tethys. Her name means wisdom, skill and cunning, and she was known as the wisest of all gods and mortals. The Greeks admired this kind of practical cleverness, the ability to find a way out of any problem.

When young Zeus set out to free his brothers and sisters from their father Cronus, Metis came to his aid. She gave Cronus a potion that made him vomit up the children he had swallowed. Freed at last, Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and Poseidon joined Zeus in the war against the Titans.

After the Titans were defeated, Zeus made Metis his first wife. But Gaia and Uranus warned him that Metis would bear a daughter as wise as her father and then a son who would become king of gods and men. Fearing he would lose his throne just as his father and grandfather had, Zeus decided to act.

While Metis was pregnant, Zeus tricked her and swallowed her whole. In some tellings she had turned herself into a fly or a drop of water. Some time later, Zeus suffered a terrible headache, and when Hephaestus or Prometheus split his head open with an axe, Athena sprang out fully grown and dressed in armor.

The Greeks said that Metis stayed inside Zeus, giving him wise counsel from within. This gave the king of the gods his famous wisdom, while their daughter Athena inherited her mother's cleverness. In a way, Metis lived on in every clever plan and wise decision the Greeks admired.