Editing Thetis (section)

===Marriage to Peleus===
[[File:Thetis Peleus Cdm Paris 539.jpg|thumb|''Thetis changing into a lioness as she is attacked by Peleus'', Attic red-figured kylix by [[Douris (vase painter)|Douris]], c. 490 BC from Vulci, Etruria - ''[[Bibliothèque nationale de France]]'' in Paris|left]]
{{main|Judgement of Paris}}

[[Zeus]] had received a prophecy that Thetis's son would become greater than his father, as Zeus had dethroned his father to lead the succeeding pantheon. In order to ensure a mortal father for her eventual offspring, [[Zeus]] and his brother [[Poseidon]] made arrangements for her to marry a human, [[Peleus]], son of [[Aeacus]], but she refused him.

[[Proteus]], an early sea-god, advised Peleus to find the sea nymph when she was asleep and bind her tightly to keep her from escaping by changing forms. She did shapeshift, becoming flame, water, a raging [[lion]]ess, and a [[Serpent symbolism|serpent]].<ref>Ovid:Metamorphoses xi, 221ff.; Sophocles: Troilus, quoted by scholiast on Pindar's Nemean Odes iii. 35; Apollodorus: iii, 13.5; Pindar: Nemean Odes iv .62; Pausanias: v.18.1</ref> Peleus held fast. Subdued, she then consented to marry him. Thetis is the mother of [[Achilles]] by [[Peleus]], who became king of the [[Myrmidons]].

According to classical mythology, the wedding of Thetis and Peleus was celebrated on Mount [[Pelion]], outside the cave of [[Chiron]], and attended by the deities: there they celebrated the marriage with feasting. Apollo played the lyre and the [[Muses]] sang, [[Pindar]] claimed. At the wedding Chiron gave Peleus an ashen spear that had been polished by [[Athena]] and had a blade forged by Hephaestus. While the Olympian goddesses brought him gifts: from [[Aphrodite]], a bowl with an embossed [[Eros]], from Hera a [[chlamys]] while from Athena a flute. His father-in-law Nereus endowed him a basket of the salt called 'divine', which has an irresistible virtue for overeating, appetite and digestion, explaining the expression ''<nowiki/>'she poured the divine salt'''. Zeus then bestowed the wings of [[Arke|Arce]] to the newly-wed couple which was later given by Thetis to her son, Achilles. Furthermore, the god of the sea, Poseidon gave Peleus the immortal horses, [[Balius and Xanthus]].<ref>Photius, ''Bibliotheca 190.46.'' Translated by John Henry Freese, from the SPCK edition of 1920, now in the public domain, and other brief excerpts from subsequent sections translated by Roger Pearse (from the French translation by Rene Henry, ed. Les Belles Lettres)</ref> [[Eris (mythology)|Eris]], the goddess of discord, had not been invited, however, and in spite, she threw a golden apple into the midst of the goddesses that was to be awarded only "to the fairest." In most interpretations, the award was made during the [[Judgement of Paris]] and eventually occasioned the [[Trojan War]].

[[File:Peter Paul Rubens 181.jpg|thumb|left|''Thetis dips Achilles in the Styx'' by Peter Paul Rubens (between 1630 and 1635)]]
As is recounted in the ''[[Argonautica]]'', written by the Hellenistic poet [[Apollonius of Rhodes]], Thetis, in an attempt to make her son Achilles immortal, would burn away his mortality in a fire at night and during the day, she would anoint the child with [[ambrosia]]. When Peleus caught her searing the baby, he let out a cry.

<blockquote>Thetis heard him, and catching up the child threw him screaming to the ground, and she like a breath of wind passed swiftly from the hall as a dream and leapt into the sea, exceeding angry, and thereafter returned never again.</blockquote>

Some myths relate that because she had been interrupted by [[Peleus]], Thetis had not made her son physically invulnerable. His heel, which she was about to burn away when her husband stopped her, had not been protected. (A similar myth of immortalizing a child in fire is seen in the case of [[Demeter]] and the infant [[Demophon (son of Celeus)|Demophoon]]). In a variant of the myth first recounted in the ''[[Achilleid]]'', an unfinished epic written between 94 and 95 AD by the Roman poet [[Statius]], Thetis tried to make Achilles invulnerable by dipping him in the [[Styx|River Styx]] (one of the five rivers that run through [[Hades]], the realm of the dead). However, the heel by which she held him was not touched by the Styx's waters and failed to be protected.

Peleus gave the boy to [[Chiron]] to raise. Prophecy said that the son of Thetis would have either a long but dull life, or a glorious but brief one. When the Trojan War broke out, Thetis was anxious and concealed Achilles, disguised as a girl, at the court of [[Lycomedes of Scyros|Lycomedes]], king of Scyros. Achilles was already famed for his speed and skill in battle. [[Calchas]], a priest of Agamemnon, prophesied the need for the great soldier within their ranks. Odysseus was subsequently sent by Agamemnon to try and find Achilles. Scyros was relatively close to Achilles's home and Lycomedes was also a known friend of Thetis, so it was one of the first places that Odysseus looked. When Odysseus found that one of the girls at court was not a girl, he came up with a plan. Raising an alarm that they were under attack, Odysseus knew that the young Achilles would instinctively run for his weapons and armour, thereby revealing himself. Seeing that she could no longer prevent her son from realizing his destiny, Thetis then had [[Hephaestus]] make a shield and armor.
[[File:Wall painting - Hephaistos producing the new arms for Achilles - Pompeii (IX 1 7) - Napoli MAN 9529.jpg|thumb|Thetis at Hephaestus's forge waiting to receive Achilles's new weapons. Fresco from [[Pompeii]]]]