Thetis

“ The Apple of Discord Jupiter, father of the gods, once fell in love with the beautiful sea-nymph "Thetis of the silver feet," the daughter of Nereus and Doris. Before he arranged for the marriage, the ruler of Olympus first consulted the Fates to see whether any misfortune was likely to attend his nuptials; and the three sisters who spin the thread of life night and day declared that Thetis was destined to be the mother of a son who would be far greater than his father. ”

“ It is just as easy for him to transport himself in fancy to the summit of Olympus, to the palace of Jupiter, and to the Council or to the Banquet of the Gods, or to the deep sea-caves where Thetis sits with her companion nymphs in the hall of her father, the sea-god Nereus—as it is to remove himself from the festal hall, where the poet is singing to him and to the other guests, away to the camp of the Greeks, or to the court of Priam, or to the bower of Andromache. ”

“ And when she had given her message to him also and rested her swift knees from her course, then Thetis leaving Nereus and her sisters had come from the sea to Olympus to the goddess Hera; and the goddess made her sit by her side and uttered her word:
"Hearken now, lady Thetis, to what I am eager to tell thee. Thou knowest how honoured in my heart is the hero, Aeson's son, and the others that have helped him in the contest, and how I saved them when they passed between the Wandering rocks [1] where roar terrible storms of fire and the waves foam round the rugged reefs. ”

“ There remained one who was destined to be the greatest warrior of all. This was Achilles, the son of Thetis,—foretold in the day of Prometheus as a man who should far outstrip his own father in glory and greatness. Years had passed since the marriage of Thetis to King Peleus, and their son Achilles was now grown to manhood, a wonder of strength indeed, and, moreover, invulnerable. For his mother, forewarned of his death in the Trojan War, had dipped him in the sacred river Styx when he was a baby, so that he could take no hurt from any weapon. ”

“ Thetis, hearing of the wanton insult offered her son, left her coral caves, ascended to Olympus, cast herself at Jupiter’s feet, and with many tears tremulously prayed he would avenge Achilles and make the Greeks fail in all their attempts as long as her son’s wrath remained unappeased. ”

“ To Thetis, yet for Achilles bowed with grief:
"Refrain from endless mourning for thy son.
Not with the dead shall he abide, but dwell
With Gods, as doth the might of Herakles,
And Dionysus ever fair. Not him
Dread doom shall prison in darkness evermore,
Nor Hades keep him. To the light of Zeus
Soon shall he rise; and I will give to him
A holy island for my gift: it lies
Within the Euxine Sea: there evermore
A God thy son shall be. ”

“ Then Peleus was taken with love of Thetis,
Then Thetis did not despise human marriages
Then the father himself realized Peleus must be joined to Thetis.
Oh heroes born in the more joyful of ages,
Greeting, race of gods! Oh good progeny of the mothers
Often I will address you in my song,
And you so increased in importance by fortunate wedding torches
Oh Peleus height of Thessaly, to whom Jupiter himself,
The father of the gods himself concedes the his own love?
Did Thetis, most beautiful daughter of Nereus hold you? ”

“ Meanwhile Thetis came to the house of Vulcan, imperishable, star-bespangled, fairest of the abodes in heaven, a house of bronze wrought by the lame god's own hands. She found him busy with his bellows, sweating and hard at work, for he was making twenty tripods that were to stand by the wall of his house, and he set wheels of gold under them all that they might go of their own selves to the assemblies of the gods, and come back again- marvels indeed to see. ”

“ This Cretan tale, recovered from tradition even later than our ballad, repeats all the important circumstances of the forced marriage of Thetis with Peleus. Chiron, like the old woman, suggested to his protégé that he should lay hands on the nereid, and keep his hold through whatever metamorphosis she might make. He looked out for his opportunity and seized her; she turned to fire, water, and a wild beast, but he did not let go till she resumed her primitive shape. Thetis, having borne a son, wished to make him immortal ”

“ The prominent part assigned to Thetis in the Iliad is well known, and the post-Homeric poets of the Legend of Troy introduced her as actively concurring first to promote the glory, finally to bewail the death of her distinguished son. [443] Pêleus, having survived both his son Achilles and his grandson Neoptolemus, is ultimately directed to place himself on the very spot where he had originally seized Thetis, and thither the goddess comes herself to fetch him away, in order that he may exchange the desertion and decrepitude of age for a life of immortality along with the Nêreids. ”

“ Then silver-footed Thetis answered, "My son, what you have said is true. It is well to save your comrades from destruction, but your armour is in the hands of the Trojans; Hector bears it in triumph upon his own shoulders. Full well I know that his vaunt shall not be lasting, for his end is close at hand; go not, however, into the press of battle till you see me return hither; to-morrow at break of day I shall be here, and will bring you goodly armour from King Vulcan." ”

“ Then did Thetis tell him of her son Achilles, and of the wrong that had been done to him, and of his wrath, and of how Patroclus was dead, and that the arms that he had had were lost.
"Make me now," she said, "for him a shield and a helmet, and greaves, and a corselet."
greaves, armour for the legs.
And Hephæstus answered: "Be of good cheer. Would that I could keep from him the doom of death as easily as I can make him such arms that a man will wonder when he looks upon them." ”

“ Your crooked ways have brought you to the Straits. Proserpine. But, Thetis, why of me this sad suspicion?—
I but performed a conscientious mission. Thetis. When interest and duty coincide,
'Tis well to know for what they are allied. Proserpine. Have you not scann'd with care each narrow pinch,—
Jealously watch'd my every onward inch
In Turkey? Thetis. ⁠Prudence thus to watch compels,
That Turkish inches don't mean Dardanelles. Prosperine. I don't know why I should be "sat upon." Thetis. ”

“ With the dawn of the twelfth morning, however, Thetis presents herself in the “brazen-floored” halls of Jupiter, and we are introduced to the Olympian court and household. A strange picture it is—such a travesty of a divine life as makes us wonder what the poet himself really conceived of the gods of his adoption. The life of mortal heroes in the world below is grandeur and nobleness itself compared with that of the Olympian heaven. ”

“ Thetis tells her son that for the moment there is nothing to be done, inasmuch as the gods are all of them away from home. They are gone to pay a visit to Oceanus in Central Africa, and will not be back for another ten or twelve days; she will see what can be done, however, as soon as ever they return. This in due course she does, going up to Olympus and laying hold of Jove by the knee and by the chin. I may say in passing that it is still a common Italian form of salutation to catch people by the chin. ”

“ But even then the gods were preparing a bitter sorrow for Paris, for Œnone, and for countless generations of mortals otherwhere.
Across the sea, in Thessaly, a great feast was being held to celebrate the wedding of Peleus and Thetis. And because the bride was no maiden born of woman, but an immortal Nereid, all the gods and goddesses were bidden to the banquet. All were bidden save one, Eris by name, the Goddess of Strife, most hateful of the immortals. So she, full of rage at the slight, cast on the board where all the guests were feasting a golden apple bearing the legend To the Fairest. ”

“ These they placed in a great golden cup and mingled with them the ashes of Patroclus, and above all they built a tomb like a [Pg 77] hill, high on a headland above the sea, that men for all time may see it as they go sailing by, and may remember Achilles. Next they held in his honour foot races and chariot races, and other games, and Thetis gave splendid prizes. Last of all, when the games were ended, Thetis placed before the chiefs the glorious armour that the God had made for her son on the night after the slaying of Patroclus by Hector. ”

“ Then, after many days and nights of bitter lamentation, the Hellenes built a great funeral pile upon the beach; and they laid the hero thereon, and set fire to it, and the flames leaped high over the sea, and Achilles was no more. Then Thetis took the hero's glorious armor, and set it up as a prize to that one who should excel in feats of strength and skill in a grand trial to be made beside the ships. Only two of all the host stood up for the trial,--Ajax Telamon and Odysseus; for no other man dared contend with either of these. ”

“ Very soon great evils came upon the Greeks because of the strife between the chiefs. When Chryseis was restored to her father, Apollo stopped the plague; but the wrong done to Achilles provoked the anger of another deity. This was Thetis, who, having much power with Jupiter, was able to persuade him to take up the cause of her injured son.
For as soon as the heralds departed from his tent, leading away the fair-cheeked Briseis, Achilles withdrew from his friends, retired to the seashore, and sitting there alone he bitterly wept, and with outstretched hands prayed to his mother, Thetis. ”

“ There are many vase and wall paintings and bas-reliefs illustrative of incidents in his life. Various etymologies of the name have been suggested: “without a lip” (ἀ, χεῖλος) , Achilles being regarded as a river-god, a stream which overflows its banks, or, referring to the story that, when Thetis laid him in the fire, one of his lips, which he had licked, was consumed (Tzetzes on Lycophron, 178) ; “restrainer of the people,” (ἐχέ-λαος) ; “healer of sorrow” (ἀχε-λώιος) ; “the obscure” (connected with ἀχλύς, “mist”) ; “snakeborn” (ἔχις) , the snake being one of the chief forms taken by Thetis. ”

“ This, I imagine, is the meaning of Apollo's slaying the Cyclopes with his arrows. Tethys, the antient Goddess of the sea, was nothing else but an old tower upon a mount; of the same shape, and erected for the same purposes, as those above. On this account it was called Tith-Is, μαστος πυρος. Thetis seems to have been a transposition of the same name, and was probably a Pharos, or Fire-tower, near the sea.
These mounts, λοφοι μαστοειδεις, were not only in Greece; but in Egypt, Syria, and most parts of the world. They were generally formed by art; being composed of earth, raised very high ”

“ Then answered him the goddess, silver-footed Thetis: "Aye, verily, as thou sayest, my child, it is in truth no ill thing to ward utter destruction from thy comrades, that are hard beset. But thy goodly armour is held among the Trojans, thine armour of bronze, all gleaming-bright. This doth Hector of the flashing helm wear on his own shoulders, and exulteth therein. Yet I deem that not for long shall he glory therein. seeing his own death is nigh at hand. But do thou not enter into the turmoil of Ares until thine eyes shall behold me again coming hither. ”

“ He may thus fear me and let the body go. At the same time I will send Iris to great Priam to bid him go to the ships of the Achaeans, and ransom his son, taking with him such gifts for Achilles as may give him satisfaction.
Silver-footed Thetis did as the god had told her, and forthwith down she darted from the topmost summits of Olympus. She went to her son's tents where she found him grieving bitterly, while his trusty comrades round him were busy preparing their morning meal, for which they had killed a great woolly sheep. ”

“ This everybody can see is Heracles, though he is not mentioned specially in the inscription, which reads: “Here is Atlas holding heaven, but he will let go the apples. 5.18.5 There is also Ares clad in armour and leading Aphrodite. The inscription by him is “Enyalius.” There is also a figure of Thetis as a maid; Peleus is taking hold of her, and from the hand of Thetis a snake is darting at Peleus. The sisters of Medusa, with wings, are chasing Perseus, who is flying. Only Perseus has his name inscribed on him.
5.18.6 On the third space of the chest are military scenes. ”

“ But now—it was thus that thou too mightest have measureless grief at heart for thy dead son, whom thou shalt never again welcome to his home; for neither doth my own heart bid me live on and abide among men, unless Hector first, smitten by my spear, shall lose his life, and pay back the price for that he made spoil of Patroclus, son of Menoetius."
[94] Then Thetis again spake unto him, shedding tears the while: "Doomed then to a speedy death, my child, shalt thou be, that thou spakest thus; for straightway after Hector is thine own death ready at hand." ”

“ A similar, though less important, community is that of the marine deities, one of whom, Thetis, figures prominently in the Iliad.
The spirit in which the gods are treated is in general very similar to what we find in the Edda, and in no way more reverential. Sometimes the treatment is humorous, as in Thrymskviða; sometimes again the deities are represented in a very unfavourable light. For the trick played upon Wodan by Fria in the Langobardic story (cf. p. 115) we have an interesting parallel in Il. XIV 292-353, where Hera distracts Zeus' attention from the war and coaxes him to sleep. ”