All Things Permissible...

And in this case, beneficial...

"Is it a Romp, Aslan?" cried the youth. And apparently it was.

The crowd and the dance round Aslan grew so thick and rapid that Lucy was confused. She never saw where certain other people came from who were soon capering about among the trees. One was a youth, dressed only in a fawn-skin, with vine-leaves wreathed in his curly hair. His face would have been almost too pretty for a boy's, if it had not looked so extremely wild...

There was even, unexpectedly, someone on a donkey...who was old and enormously fat. "Refreshments! Refreshments," roared the old man. Everyone began eating, you have never tasted such grapes. Really good grapes...more than anyone could possibly want, and no table-manners at all.

...and when the feast was over, everyone flopped down breathless on the ground and turned their faces to Aslan to hear what he would say next.

At that moment...Lucy remembered something and whispered to Susan,

"I say, Su, I know who they are."

"Who?"

"The boy with the wild face is Bacchus and the old one on the donkey is Silenus. Don't you remember Mr. Tumnus telling us about them long ago?"

"Yes, of course. But I say, Lu-"

"What?"

"I wouldn't have felt safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we'd met them without Aslan."

"I should think not," said Lucy.

~C.S. Lewis, Prince Caspian

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 3/12/2007 02:47:00 PM