The Seba library treats Tethys in 6 passages, across 3 authors (including Kerényi, Karl, Onians, R B, Hesiod).
Of Tethys our mythology tells us little except that she was the mother of the daughters and sons of Okeanos... it may be that, for people who lived in Greece before us, they were closer together in sound and meaning, and meant one and the same great Mistress of the Sea.
Kerényi identifies Tethys as defined primarily by her generative role and speculatively collapses her identity with Thetis, positing a pre-Hellenic singular sea-goddess underlying both names.
, The Gods of the Greeks, 1951thesis
In our tales concerning the beginning of things three great goddesses play the part of Mother of the World: the sea-goddess Tethys, the goddess Night, and Mother Earth. They constitute a Trinity.
Kerényi elevates Tethys to co-equal status with Night and Earth as one of three cosmogonic World-Mothers, while acknowledging this trinity may be a product of textual accident rather than original design.
, The Gods of the Greeks, 1951thesis
With Okeanos is his consort Tethys, and Homer twice speaks of them as the peirата gaiēs... 'I am going to see the peirата of the pasture-abounding earth, Okeanos, generation of the gods, and mother Tethys who reared me.'
Onians situates Tethys within the Homeric cosmological framework as the inseparable consort of Okeanos, together constituting the bonds or encirclers of the earth, with Tethys additionally cast as a nurturing maternal figure.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
And Tethys bare to Ocean eddying rivers, Nilus, and Alpheus, and deep-swirling Eridanus, Strymon, and Meander, and the fair stream of Ister.
Hesiod's Theogony establishes Tethys's primary mythological function as the progenitrix of the named rivers of the world through her union with Okeanos.
, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, -700supporting
Styx, chief of the daus. of Ocean and Tethys, 105; wedded to
The indexical notation in Hesiod identifies Styx as the foremost of Tethys's daughters, anchoring Tethys's genealogical significance through her most consequential offspring.
, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, -700supporting
Treha, dan. of Ocean, 105, 319
A bare indexical reference placing daughters of Ocean (and by implication Tethys) within Hesiod's genealogical catalog, without further elaboration.
, Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns, and Homerica, -700aside