Chapter XIV

Chapter XIV.—Peleus and Thetis, Prometheus, Achilles, and Polyxena.

“And the marriage banquet, at which Zeus held the feast on the occasion of the marriage of the Nereid Thetis and the beautiful Peleus, has in it this allegory, 1072 —that you may know, Appion, that you are not the only one from whom I have heard this sort of thing. The banquet, then, is the world, and the twelve are these heavenly props of the Fates, 1073 called the Zodiac. Prometheus is foresight (prometheia), by which all things arose; Peleus is clay (pelos), namely, that which was collected 1074 from the earth and mixed with Nereis, or water, to produce man; and from the mixing of the two, i.e., water and earth, the first offspring was not begotten, but fashioned complete, and called Achilles, because he never put his lips (cheile) to the breast. 1075 Still in the bloom of life, he is slain by an arrow while desiring to have Polyxena, that is, something other than the truth, and foreign (xene) to it, death stealing on him through a wound in his foot.