The myth of Thetis and Peleus that is described in Ovid’s Metamorphosis is about the forces of gods in the winning of love.  The myth is one of the main factors of the starting of the Trojan War.  As the myth goes, Zeus and Poseidon fell in love with a Nereid, Thetis, and upon learning of the prophecy, that she will bare a son mightier than his is father, the two gods decide to give her to a mortal.  Peleus comes up on her while she is bathing, and he tries to win her by charm and then by hanging on to her as she changes shape, but he fails.  Peleus then prays to the gods to help him out, and they do.  They tell him if he hangs on to her until she returns to her natural form, then she will be his.  With the help of the gods, Peleus does this deed.  All the gods attended the wedding of Peleus and Thetis except for Eris.  Eris, the goddess of strife, felt angry because she was not invited to the wedding and decided to seek out revenge on the mortals.  Eris threw an apple into the wedding and it had an inscription on it that read, “To the fairest.”  This apple began the Judgment of Paris, which in turn started the Trojan War.

            Thetis and Peleus had a son, Achilles, according to prophecy, was mightier than his father.  Thetis left Peleus after Peleus interrupted the process of making Achilles immortal.  An oracle prophesied that if Achilles fought in the Trojan War, he would die in it, but the oracle also prophesied that if Achilles didn’t fight, then the Greeks would lose to the Trojans.  Eris knew these prophecies when she threw the apple into the wedding, and decided to cause Peleus and Thetis pain and strife, by knowing that their son would die.  Achilles did die in the war, and Peleus outlived his son and his grandson Neoptolemus.

            There is a Greek vase painting that depicts the struggle between Peleus and Thetis.  The vase shows Peleus hanging on to Thetis around her waist.  He is holding on to her as she changes form.  The actual figures seem to be based on the words of Ovid, though the rest of the painting does not.  Beasts are all around the two central figures of Peleus and Thetis representing the actual shape changes.  There are several snakes, the shape changes of Thetis, and a lion, positioned on Peleus’ shoulder, representing the help of the gods.  The snakes, though they were not all of Thetis’ changes, were interpreted from the myth; Ovid leaves out the actual details of the transformations.  Though it is not expressed in Ovid’s version, the artist used the lion as an interpretation of words.  There are two inscriptions on the work, on either side along the border, both are in Greek, and are not translated on the website related to them.

            There is another vase painting that describes the second part of the myth, the wedding of Peleus and Thetis.  It shows the wedding chariot, with the horses that were given to the couple by the gods, with Peleus and Thetis in the chariot.  The horses are based on Ovid’s’ version, but the chariot ride, is an addition from the artist.  Dionysus is standing behind with chariot, wishing them luck.  The god Hermes is standing be hind the horses, since he is the god of travelers, and they are going on a journey from the wedding.  There is also a goddess standing in front of the horses and chariot.  The goddess is believed to be Aphrodite, an interpretation from the artist, because of the golden apple that started the Trojan War.  The use of the selected gods and goddesses, seem purely based on artistic interpretation.  The myth as contained in Ovid, said that all the gods were in attendance, except Eris.  The artist decided to choose these three figures to best relate them to the important central characters in the painting, Thetis and Peleus.  Hermes serves the purpose of guide; Dionysus is incorporated in the painting as the fertility god, wishing the couple a fertile marriage.  Another reason that Aphrodite was included in the depiction was because she is the goddess of sexual rapture, insuring that the marriage would be satisfying sexually.

            The two works of art based on a myth, are both left open to interpretation by the artist, because of personal feelings.  Though neither coincides completely with the myth in Ovid’s version, they do both contain like elements.