The third Nereid, Amphitrite, became the wife of Poseidon, and herein lies her importance. But with the help of his beloved goddess of the waters, Galatea, Acis was transformed into a river-deity, fulfilling his ancestry. He pursued Acis and hurled a jagged mass, torn from the mountain, which buried him completely. Enraged with jealousy, Polyphemus finally turned on the two lovers. Galatea would listen to his love songs, cowering in the arms of her lover Acis. This monstrous and boorish giant, with one eye in the middle of his forehead, tried to mend his savage ways but to no avail. To her dismay, she was wooed by the Cyclops POLYPHEMUS, or POLYPHEMOS, son of Poseidon. The second Nereid, Galatea, fell in love with ACIS, the handsome son of a sea-nymph, who was daughter of the river-god Symaethus, in Sicily. The wedding of Peleus and Thetis was one of the most famous in mythology and their son Achilles (the hero of the Trojan War) did become mightier than his father. Instead, a mortal named Peleus wooed and won her, not without difficulty, because she changed herself into all sorts of things, a bird, a tree, and a tigress. Zeus learned from Prometheus the secret that Thetis was destined to bear a son mightier than his father, and so he avoided her. Nereids are beautiful and often, but not always, depicted as mermaids and usually they can shange their shape. Nereus mated with one of the Oceanids (Doris) and became the father of fifty daughters called NEREIDS three of these are important: THETIS, GALATEA, and AMPHITRITE. NEREUS was another old man of the sea and, like Proteus, could foretell the future and change his shape. PROTEUS, a pre-Olympian deity who became an attendant or son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, was an old man of the sea who could foretell the future and could also change his shape at will. His most distinguishing characteristic was that he blew on a conch shell and thus he was known as the trumpeter of the sea. TRITON, son of Poseidon and Amphitrite, a merman, human above the waist, fish-shaped below (many male deities of the deep are often so depicted). OCEANUS, or OKEANOS, the stream of Ocean, and his mate Tethys, titans who produced thousands of children, the Oceanids. PONTUS, or PONTOS (“sea”), produced by Gaia in the first stages of creation. POSEIDON (NEPTUNE) became established as the mighty god of the seas.
We have already met some of these many deities of the sea.
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