On Providence
“And we saw the words UNDER ME.”
The Knight laughed even more heartily than before.
“You were the more deceived,” he said. “Those words meant nothing to your purpose. Had you but asked my Lady, she could have given you better counsel. For those words are all that is left of a longer script, which in ancient times, as she well remembers, expressed this verse:
Though under Earth and throneless now I be,
Yet, while I lived, all Earth was under me.
From which it is plain that some great king of the ancient giants who lies buried there caused this boast to be cut in the stone over his sepulchre; though the breaking up of some stones, and the carrying away of others for new buildings, and the filling up of the cuts with rubble has left only two words that can still be read. Is it not the merriest jest in the world that you should have thought they were written to you?”
This was like cold water down the back to Scrubb and Jill; for it seemed to them very likely that the words had nothing to do with their quest at all, and that they had been taken in by a mere accident.
“Don’t you mind,” said Puddleglum. “There are no accidents. Our guide is Aslan.”
• From The Silver Chair
• Compiled in Words to Live By
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