05-22-2025, 02:53 PM
(05-21-2025, 05:43 PM)RiverNotch Wrote: Esther the QueenHi River - I haven't really scoured through the book of Esther to be able to make much sense of what's going on. Nice sounding lines, but hard to follow.
Holy men and those who would seek
to wipe out an entire race
are entitled to the same
judgement: the gallows.
Haman, of course, was not one of that illustrious
race, the Aryans: he had no love ... wait, Wikipedia tells me that Haman = Humayun, a Persian name (cue the Mogul emperor of that name). That would make him very Aryan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haman
for the Jews, no kinship with the heir
of the Lord’s Anointed.
He was merely a Macedonian, ... he wasn't Macedonian, surely?
an upstart from the West,
full of envy at the comeliness
of Mardochaeus' ward,
though what he saw the day the King of Kings
began to see the fairer sex
as more than just the fairer sex
was really a community affair. ....you've lost me here.
Sure, Queen Vashti would have stripped
before the whole host of Media
just to have skin like hers, but an uncle had done her hair,
a cousin had picked her songs—Hurrian House mixes
of Elamite Girl Groups—while a whole team of neighbors
not only sewed all her dresses
but also constructed the cedarwood closet
in which they were all kept. And, in the morning, ... while it all sounds lovely, I can't make sense of the narrative
when Artaxerxes had come to know
the pleasure of chastisement,
his Palestinian counsellor would admit ....anachronistic use of 'Palestine' before the Romans - deliberate choice?
that, too, was a gift.

