Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 3,1): Zeus god of the dark sky (earthquake, clouds, wind, dew, rain, meteorits): Text and notes (Cambridge, 1940)

The superannuation of Zeus 745

The general resemblance between the myths of Metis and
Thetis is unmistakable. Metis, like Thetis, was a sea-power. Metis,
like Thetis, was a shape-shifter. Metis, like Thetis, was loved by
Zeus. Metis, like Thetis, was destined to bear a son that should
°ust his father—a danger averted in either case by an oracular
utterance and consequent guile. But the Metis-myth is more than
a mere parallel to the Thetis-myth. For it definitely associates—at
least in its present Hesiodic form1—the birth of Athena with the
superannuation of Zeus, and so justifies us in claiming2 that the
superannuation-?/^/ may be detected in the art-types of the birth.

The subsequent history of the Metis-myth is curious. In the
Theogony of the Orphic Rhapsodies3 Metis is one of the names
korne by the bisexual Phanes who, emerging from the cosmic egg,
begat and consorted with Nyx, thus becoming the parent of Gaia
and Ouranos, Rhea and Kronos, Hera and Zeus. This first creation
Was followed by a second creation. Zeus at the advice of Nyx
leapt upon Phanes and swallowed him whole. Zeus was thus
enabled to make afresh within himself the world and all its
contents, gods and goddesses included: Athena, for example, in
fu'l armour sprang from his head. Zeus therefore as a pantheistic
§°d comprises—

Fire and water and earth and aither, day too and night;
Metis the first forefather and Eros of much delight4.

Mttis is here boldly made masculine, perhaps as tantamount to
Vletieta, the epic appellative of Zeus5. But the license offended the
neo-Platonist Syrianos, who quotes the same line with one small
correction—

Metis the first foremother and Eros of much delight".
Apion in the Clementine Homilies'1 sets forth a somewhat

fo s"pra p. 744 n, 2, it remains possible, and even probable, that a pre-Hesiodic
m of the myth represented Zeus as swallowing Metis simply in order to acquire her
to V,10' ^Ut tllat later' owmg to some soc'a' or political exigency (supra p. 737) room had
sta \ f°Und for Atnena> goddess of the old Pelasgian stratum. The Theogony, as it
Ms, is certainly a patchwork.

, S''pra P- 739-

4 "Pra"- 1024 fT. (conspectus on p. 1034).
y(l/, SuPn ii. 1028 trvp Kal iiSwp ko.1 >aio Kai ai'0))p, v6l re Kai ynap, | mi Mijm irpwros
sTwp iced "Epws voXvrepir-fis.
„ S"pra ii. I025.

(K B0'1*' fr"s' l69 Kern aP- Aristokrit. Manich. in the Theosoph. Tubing. 50
fi)! ^6SCh Klar<>s Leipzig 1889 p. no, 4) Kal ilfjrtt, Tpurr) ycoirts, <cai 'Epus iro\vrcp-
"T/Ho tt*tT<* cp. Wisdom 7. 12 ev^pave-qv U ixl vaoiv, on airCiv -iryeiTai <7O0Ia,
7°^ 8e aiTV" yev&riv chat ro<nu>v.
Vrph.frag. 56 Kern ap. Clem. Rom. horn. 6. 5—9 (ii. 200 C—204 B Migne).