Metis

Zeus married Metis, and she became pregnant. Metis changed her shape many times to escape Zeus, but he caught her. While she carried their child, Zeus learned of an oracle from Gaia. The oracle declared that Metis would first bear a daughter, and that she would later bear a son who would rule heaven. Zeus feared that this future son would surpass him and take his power. He swallowed Metis while she was still pregnant, drawing her into his body before the child could be born.

The act recalled Cronus swallowing the children born to Rhea. Cronus had swallowed them because he feared that one of them would overthrow him. Zeus swallowed Metis because her future son was destined to rule heaven. In both stories, a threat came from a child who had not yet been born, and the father used swallowing to prevent that child from reaching power. Zeus's act therefore answered the danger revealed by Gaia's oracle.

Zeus did not struggle with Metis in this telling, and Metis had no separately told fate after he swallowed her. The child's fate after the swallowing also remained untold in this account. In another telling, the child later sprang from Zeus's head, but the story of Metis was rarely joined to later stories about her. Only one telling mentioned Athena in connection with Metis.

Metis gave Zeus a potion to use against Cronus. Cronus had swallowed Zeus’s brothers and sisters, along with the stone that Rhea had given him in Zeus’s place. Zeus brought the potion to Cronus and gave it to him. Metis had made it from an enchanted herb, but no details of its preparation were given. She had told Cronus that it would make him stronger than before. Cronus craved more power and feared that others would challenge him, so he greedily swallowed it.

The herb did not strengthen Cronus. It made him sick. His stomach churned, groaned, and gurgled, and the stone came up first. Cronus then disgorged the children he had swallowed. Poseidon and Hades emerged as his sons. Hera, Demeter, and Hestia emerged as his daughters. In another telling, Cronus regurgitated all his children after he drank the potion, with the stone among them.

Zeus then revealed himself to his father. He marched in with the Cyclopes and the Hundred-Handers beside him. Cronus faced Zeus, the recovered gods, and their powerful allies. Zeus did not have more power than Cronus by himself, but he had become stronger through the support of his united forces. Cronus knew that his fears had come true and that he could not withstand them. The release of Zeus’s siblings ended Zeus’s isolation and allowed the younger gods to begin their revolt against Cronus.