The Oceanid of counsel — wisest among gods and mortal men — whom Zeus swallowed whole when Gaia and Uranus warned that her second child would overthrow him, and who thereafter gave birth to Athena from within the king's head.1
Apollodorus names Metis among the daughters of Ocean and Tethys in the same canonical list as Doris, Electra, Eurynome and Amphitrite. Hesiod makes her Zeus's first wife and the personification of practical wisdom: of all gods and mortal men she was the wisest, until the fate that hung over Cronus hung over Zeus in turn.2
When Metis was about to bear the goddess bright-eyed Athena, Zeus — counselled by Gaia and starry Uranus, who warned that after the girl she was fated to bear a son who would be king of gods and men — swallowed her by guile. Metis remained within him, working Hephaestus' armour even in her captivity, until Zeus himself gave birth to Athena from his head, fully armed.3
Apollodorus adds the midwife's axe: Prometheus — or, as some say, Hephaestus — smote the king's skull beside the river Triton, and the goddess sprang up. So Metis never reappears as a separate figure; her cunning is absorbed into Zeus, and her daughter becomes the armed wisdom of Olympus.4
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the spine ignites as you read · hover a bond on the card — every mention of them lights in the story