Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Could you ever sail to Aslan’s Country?

    “And where are we heading for?” asked Edmund.
    “Well,” said Caspian, “that’s rather a long story. Perhaps you remember that when I was a child my usurping uncle Miraz got rid of seven friends of my father’s (who might have taken my part) by sending them off to explore the unknown Eastern Seas beyond the Lone Islands.”
    “Yes,” said Lucy, “and none of them ever came back.”
    “Right. Well, on my coronation day, with Aslan’s approval, I swore an oath that, if once I established peace in Narnia, I would sail east myself for a year and a day to find my father’s friends or to learn of their deaths and avenge them if I could. These were their names: the Lord Revilian, the Lord Bern, the Lord Argoz, the Lord Mavramorn, the Lord Octesian, the Lord Restimar, and—oh, that other one who’s so hard to remember.”
    “The Lord Rhoop, Sire,” said Drinian.
    “Rhoop, Rhoop, of course,” said Caspian. “That is my main intention. But Reepicheep here has an even higher hope.” Everyone’s eyes turned to the Mouse.
    “As high as my spirit,” it said. “Though perhaps as small as my stature. Why should we not come to the very eastern end of the world? And what might we find there? I expect to find Asian’s own country. It is always from the east, across the sea, that the great Lion comes to us.”
    “I say, that is an idea,” said Edmund in an awed voice.
    “But do you think,” said Lucy, “Aslan’s country would be that sort of country—I mean, the sort you could ever sail to?”

C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (1952; this edition: HarperCollins, 1994) 20-21.

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