Deception of Zeus

In this episode, Hera makes an excuse to leave her divine husband Zeus; in her deception speech she declares that she wishes to go to Oceanus, "origin of the gods", and Tethys the "mother".

In the climax of the episode Zeus and Hera make love hidden within a golden cloud on the summit of Mount Ida.

"[4] Richard Janko, by contrast, describes the episode as "a bold, brilliant, graceful, sensuous, and above all amusing virtuoso performance, wherein Homer parades his mastery of the other types of epic composition in his repertoire".

Walter Burkert found that the passage "shows divinity in a naturalistic, cosmic setting which is not otherwise a feature of Homeric anthropomorphism",[6] and linked it to the opening of the Babylonian Enuma Elish where Apsu and Tiamat, respectively the fresh and salt waters, are the primordial couple who "were mixing their waters."

Seeing Okeanos and Tethys as the primordial couple as in the Enuma Elish depends on translation and interpretation of the greek source.