uests to enjoy
himself according to his own inclination. Moreover, he sent messengers
through the country, and gave order that they should have a remission
of their labors, and should keep a festival many days, on account of his
kingdom. In like manner did Vashti the queen gather her guests together,
and made them a feast in the palace. Now the king was desirous to show
her, who exceeded all other women in beauty, to those that feasted with
him, and he sent some to command her to come to his feast. But she, out
of regard to the laws of the Persians, which forbid the wives to be seen
by strangers, did not go to the king [16] and though he oftentimes sent
the eunuchs to her, she did nevertheless stay away, and refused to come,
till the king was so much irritated, that he brake up the entertainment,
and rose up, and called for those seven who had the interpretation of
the laws committed to them, and accused his wife, and said that he had
been affronted by her, because that when she was frequently called by
him to his feast, she did not obey him once. He therefore gave order
that they should inform him what could be done by the law against her.
So one of them, whose name was Memucan, said that this affront was
offered not to him alone, but to all the Persians, who were in danger
of leading their lives very ill with their wives, if they must be thus
despised by them; for that none of their wives would have any reverence
for their husbands, if they, "had such an example of arrogance in the
queen towards thee, who rulest over all." Accordingly, he exhorted him
to punish her, who had been guilty of so great an affront to him, after
a severe manner; and when he had so done, to publish to the nations what
had been decreed about the queen. So the resolution was to put Vashti
away, and to give her dignity to another woman.

2. But the king having been fond of her, did not well bear a separation,
and yet by the law he could not admit of a reconciliation; so he was
under trouble, as not having it in his power to do what he desired to
do. But when his friends saw him so uneasy, they advised him to cast the
memory of his wife, and his love for her, out of his mind, but to
send abroad over all the habitable earth, and to search out for comely
virgins, and to take her whom he should best like for his wife, because
his passion for his former wife would be quenched by the introduction of
another, and the kindness he had for Vashti would be