Metis was an Oceanid nymph, one of the 3,000 daughters of the Oceanus with his sister Tethys. Like many of Oceanus’ children, Metis joined Zeus in his battle against his father Cronos, and many of his Titan children, for control of Olympus and the universe.
According to the myth, fearing his children with his wife Rhea would overthrow him, Cronos swallowed his Olympian children. But, to save her youngest child, Zeus, the unhappy Rhea tricked Cronos, feeding him a rock wrapped in swaddling clothing. Zeus was then sent away to be raised in secret before returning to take his revenge and assemble an army of gods to overthrow Cronos and the Titans.
According to Hesiod, it was Metis who gave Zeus the poison to feed Cronos to cause him to vomit up Zeus’ siblings. After this, a decade-long war ensured, during which either Metis pursued Zeus, eventually marrying him and becoming his first wife, or she was raped by a relentless Zeus, unsuccessfully using her shapeshifting ability to evade him.
Nevertheless, Metis is usually described as an indispensable counselor for Zeus with her innate wisdom. But she is also a threat because of a prophecy that she would bear Zeus a daughter wiser than both her parents and a son more powerful than his father who would eventually overthrow him and take his place in the cosmos. When Metis fell pregnant, Zeus tried to prevent her from giving birth by tricking her into turning herself into a fly, which he then swallowed (in imitation of Cronos).
Still living inside Zeus, Metis crafted armor and weapons for her child, Athena, who she birthed and raised in Zeus’ mind. The child Athena eventually used her armor and weapons to make a great noise in Zeus’ mind, giving him a terrible headache. When he could no longer take the pain, he had Hephaestus, possibly his son via Hera, whom he had presumably already married by this time, to cut open his head and deal with the problem. When he did, Athena emerged from Zeus’s mind fully grown and became the goddess of wisdom, warfare, and crafts.
But while Athena broke free, Metis remained inside his head as a source of wisdom and counsel. She never gave birth to the threatening male child.
In the 5th century BCE Metis came to occupy the role of the first goddess of wisdom and the embodiment of prudence and wise counsel. But her name suggests magical cunning or even trickery. Odysseus is described as the embodiment of metis, and he famously suggested the Trojan horse.
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