Planet Narnia (VIII)

Venus & The Magician's Nephew

VENUS voyages... but my voice falters;
Rude rime-making wrongs her beauty,
Whose breasts and brow, and her breath's sweetness
Bewitch the worlds. Wide-spread the reign
Of her secret sceptre, in the sea's caverns,
In grass growing, and grain bursting,
Flower unfolding, and flesh longing,
And shower falling sharp in April.
The metal copper in the mine reddens
With muffled brightness, like muted gold,
By her fingers form'd. Far beyond her
The heaven's highway hums and trembles,
Drums and dindles, to the driv'n thunder

C. S. Lewis, The Planets (1937)

The Magician's Nephew - Venus
(Her beautiful and maternal influence is evident in the fecund birth of Narnia and in the story of Digory's revivified mother, Mrs Kirke; Venus's "breasts and brow, and her breath's sweetness / Bewitch the worlds", rather as Jadis does; Fledge's wings are "copper".)

The Venusian Type
- Warm, passive, sympathetic, langurous
- Sensuous, vegetative
- Dull, sluggish, flesh and blood, earthy

(Next Posting - Mercury)