—πολλαὶ μορφαὶ τῶν δαιμονίων,
πολλὰ δ᾽ ἀέλπτως κραίνουσι θεοί:
καὶ τὰ δοκηθέντ᾽ οὐκ ἐτελέσθη,
τῶν δ᾽ ἀδοκήτων πόρον ηὗρε θεός.
τοιόνδ᾽ ἀπέβη τόδε πρᾶγμα.—
Euripides, Alcestis, 1160
Many shapes belong to the divine,
and many things beyond hope do the gods accomplish:
The very things we have expected are not accomplished,
but for the unexpected God finds a way.
Of this kind, this deed turns out to be.
These lines remind me of the wonder one experiences in concluding C.S. Lewis’s Till We Have Faces. I imagine it was in this spirit that he drew upon the classics for much his work.
In a similar spirit, Edith Nesbit wrote:
But one never knows. Very wonderful and beautiful things do happen, don’t they? And we live most of our lives in the hope of them.
Lines which I cannot read without tears.
