Till We Have Faces

In C.S. Lewis' 'Till We Have Faces', the Priest of Ungit confronts the King of Glome, demanding the sacrifice of his daughter.  The kings adviser, a Greek war prisoner made slave known as Fox, speaks up to pick apart the pronouncements of the priest of Ungit, showing them thick with paradox and contradiction.  The priest responds:

 'We are hearing much Greek wisdom this morning, King,' said the Priest. 'And I have heard most of it before. I did not need a slave to teach it to me.  It is very subtle.  But it brings no rain and grows no corn; sacrifice does both. It does not even give them boldness to die. That Greek there is your slave because in some battle he threw down his arms and let them bind his hands and lead him away and sell him, rather than take a spear-thrust in his heart.  Much less does it give them understanding of holy things. They demand to see such things clearly, as if the gods were no more than letters written in a book.  I, King, have dealth with the gods for three generations of men, and I know that they dazzle our eyes and flow in and out of one another like the eddies of a river, and nothing that is said clearly can be said truly about them. Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them.  Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood.'

An excellent book, but obscure - both little known and hard to understand.  I will post again with some interpretive keys when I finish this re-reading.