Showing posts with label Prince Caspian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prince Caspian. Show all posts

Friday, November 26, 2010

Lucy had her eyes on the Lion (Prince Caspian)

Aslan     “He’s beating his paw on the ground for us to hurry,” said Lucy. “We must go now. At least I must.”
    “You’ve no right to try to force the rest of us like that It’s four to one and you’re the youngest,” said Susan.
    “Oh, come on,” growled Edmund. “We’ve got to go…
    “On the march, then,” said Peter…
    Susan was the worst “Supposing I started behaving like Lucy,” she said. “I might threaten to stay here whether the rest of you went on or not I jolly well think I shall.”
    “Obey the High King, your Majesty,” said Trumpkin, “and let’s be off…
    And so at last they got on the move. Lucy went first, biting her lip and trying not to say all the things she thought of saying to Susan. But she forgot them when she fixed her eyes on Aslan. He turned and walked at a slow pace about thirty yards ahead of them. The others had only Lucy’s directions to guide them, for AsIan was not only invisible to them but silent as well. His big cat-like paws made no noise on the grass.
    He led them to the right of the dancing trees—whether they were still dancing nobody knew, for Lucy had her eyes on the Lion and the rest had their eyes on Lucy—and nearer the edge of the gorge.

C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia The Chronicles of Narnia (1951, this edition Harper Collins, 1994) 148-149.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Now you are a lioness (Prince Caspian)

    “Lucy,” [Aslan] said… “You have work in hand, and much time has been lost today.”
    “Yes, wasn’t it a shame?” said Lucy. “I saw you all right. They wouldn’t believe me. They’re all so—”
    From somewhere deep inside Aslan’s body there came the faintest suggestion of a growl.
    “I’m sorry,” said Lucy, who understood some of his moods. “I didn’t mean to start slanging the others. But it wasn’t my fault anyway, was it?”
    The Lion looked straight into her eyes.
    “Oh, Aslan,” said Lucy. “You don’t mean it was? How could I—I couldn’t have left the others and come up to you alone, how could I? Don’t look at me like that. . . oh well, I suppose I could, Yes, and it wouldn’t have been alone, I know, not if I was with you. But what would have been the good?” 
    Aslan said nothing.
    “You mean,” said Lucy rather faintly, “that it would have turned out all right—somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?”
    “To know what would have happened, child?” said Aslan. “No. Nobody is ever told that.”
    “Oh dear,” said Lucy.Lucy Pevensie from Prince Caspian
    “But anyone can find out what will happen,” said Aslan. “If you go back to the others now, and wake them up; and tell them you have seen me again; and that you must all get up at once and follow me—what will happen? There is only one way of finding out.”
    “Do you mean that is what you want me to do?” gasped Lucy.
    “Yes, little one,” said Aslan.
    “Will the others see you too?” asked Lucy.
    “Certainly not at first” said Aslan. “Later on, it depends.”
    “But they won’t believe me!” said Lucy.
    “It doesn’t matter,” said Aslan.
    “Oh dear, oh dear,” said Lucy. “And I was so pleased at finding you again. And I thought you’d let me stay. And I thought you’d come roaring in and frighten all the enemies away—like last time. And now everything is going to be horrid.”
    “It is hard for you, little one,” said Aslan. “But things never happen the same way twice. It has been hard for us all in Narnia before now.”
    Lucy buried her head in his mane to hide from his face, But there must have been magic in his mane. She could feel lion-strength going into her. Quite suddenly she sat up.
    “I’m sorry, Aslan,” she said. “I’m ready now.”
    “Now you are a lioness,” said Aslan. “And now all Narnia will be renewed. But come. We have no time to lose.”

C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia The Chronicles of Narnia (1951, this edition Harper Collins, 1994) 142-143.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

“Aslan, you’re bigger” (Prince Caspian)

And then—oh joy! For he was there: the huge Lion, shining white in the moonlight, with his huge black shadow underneath him.
    But for the movement of his tail he might have been a stone lion, but Lucy never thought of that. She never stopped to think whether he was a friendly lion or not. She rushed to him. She felt her heart would burst if she lost a moment. And the next thing she knew was that she was kissing him and putting her arms as far round his neck as she could and burying her face in the beautiful rich silkiness of his mane.
Lucy and Aslan      “Aslan, Aslan. Dear Aslan,” sobbed Lucy. “At last.”
    The great beast rolled over on his side so that Lucy fell, half sitting and half lying between his front paws. He bent forward and just touched her nose with his tongue. His warm breath came all round her. She gazed up into the large wise face.
    “‘Welcome, child,” he said.
    “AsIan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
    “That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
    “Not because you are?”
    “I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia The Chronicles of Narnia (1951, this edition Harper Collins, 1994) 141.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

The time has come for faith (Prince Caspian)

    “If your Majesty is ever to use the Horn,” said Trufflehunter, “I think the time has now come.” Caspian had of course told them of his treasure several days ago.
susanhorn     “We are certainly in great need,” answered Caspian. “But it is hard to be sure we are at our greatest. Supposing there came an even worse need and we had already used it?”
    “By that argument,” said Nikabrik, “your Majesty will never use it until it is too late.”
    “I agree with that,” said Doctor Cornelius.
    “And what do you think, Trumpkin?” asked Caspian.
    “Oh, as for me,” said the Red Dwarf, who had been listening with complete indifference, “your Majesty knows I think the Horn—and that bit of broken stone over there and your great King Peter—and your Lion Aslan—are all eggs in moonshine. It’s all one to me when your Majesty blows the Horn. All I insist on is that the army is told nothing about it. There's no good raising hopes of magical help which (as I think) are sure to be disappointed.”

C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia The Chronicles of Narnia (1951, this edition Harper Collins, 1994) 95.

Monday, November 22, 2010

The religion of pragmatism (Prince Caspian)

Trumpkin and Nikabrik     “We should not have Asian for friend if we brought in that rabble,” said Trufflehunter as they came away from the cave of the Black Dwarfs.
    “Oh, AsIan!” said Trumpkin, cheerily but contemptuously. “What matters much more is that you wouldn’t have me.”
    “Do believe in Aslan?” said Caspian to Nikabrik.
    “I’ll believe in anyone or anything,” said Nikabrik, “that’lI batter these cursed Telmarine barbarians to pieces or drive them out of Narnia. Anyone or anything, Aslan or the White Witch, do you understand?”
    “Silence, silence,” said Trufflehunter “You do not know what you are saying. She was a worse enemy than Miraz and all his race.”
    “Not to Dwarfs, she wasn’t,” said Nikabrik.

C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia The Chronicles of Narnia (1951, this edition Harper Collins, 1994) 77.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Who believes in Aslan nowadays? (Prince Caspian)

Trufflehunter_resized   
    “Do you believe all those old stories?” asked Trumpkin [the reddish haired dwarf].

      “I tell you, we don’t change, we beasts,” said Trufflehunter [the badger]. “We don’t forget. I believe in the High King Peter and the rest that reigned at Cair Paravel, as firmly as I believe in Asian himself.”

    “As firmly as that, I daresay,” said Trumpkin. “But who believes in Asian nowadays?”

    “I do,” said [Prince] Caspian. “And if I hadn’t believed in him before, I would now. Back there among the Humans the people who laughed at Asian would have laughed at stories about Talking Beasts and Dwarfs. Sometimes I did wonder if there really was such a person as Asian: but then sometimes I wondered if there were really people like you. Yet there you are.”

    “That’s right,” said Trufflehunter. “You’re right, King Caspian. And as long as you will be true to Old Narnia you shall be my King, whatever they say. Long life to your Majesty.”

C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia The Chronicles of Narnia (1951, this edition Harper Collins, 1994) 70.