Thetis and Achilles

I have been rereading the Iliad, and I thought it was time that I take up the critical background of Thetis, the mother of Achilles, that is not explicitly related in Homer’s song, since this background brings out some of the deeper meaningfulness that the mother and son have in this lore.

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This the assembly of the Blessed Ones remembered,
When Zeus and glorious Poseidon
Strove to marry Thetis,
Each wishing that she
Should be his beautiful bride.
Love held them in his grip.
But the Gods’ undying wisdom
Would not let the marriage be,
When they gave ear to the oracles.

In their midst
Wise-counselling Themis said
That it was fated for the sea-goddess
To bear for son a prince
Stronger than his father,
Who shall wield in his hand a different weapon
More powerful than the thunderbolt
Or the monstrous trident,
If she weds Zeus or among the brothers of Zeus.
“Put an end to this. Let her have a mortal wedlock
And see dead in war her son
With hands like the hands of Ares
And feet like the lightning-flashes.”

-- The Odes of Pindar (tr. C. M. Bowra)

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Rather than bow down to a new god, it was critically important to the Olympians that any son of Thetis be limited to being the best of the mortal heroes, and so she was made to marry a mortal man, Peleus.

[Source: Laura M. Slatkin, “The Power of Thetis: Allusion and Interpretation in the Iliad]