Seiobo There Below

2. THE EXILED QUEEN

I Quiz Biblici online, maintained by the website La Nuova Via, offered its readers in the autumn of 2006 the following crossword puzzle, which in number 54 across compelled its readers to a decisive conclusion:

CRUCIVERBA 21

Orizzontali:

1 E sulla. . e sulla coscia porta scritto questo nome: RE DEI RE, SIGNOR DEI SIGNORI

5 Il marito di Ada e Zilla

10 Il Signore. . trarre i pii dalla tentazione

11. . questa stagione io verrò, e Sara avrà un figliuolo

12 La legge è fatta non per il giusto, ma per gl’iniqui e i ribelli, per gli empî e i peccatori, per gli scellerati e gl’. ., per i percuotitori di padre e madre

15 Poiché egli fu crocifisso per la sua debolezza; ma. . per la potenza di Dio

17 Re d’Israele

19 Perciò pure per mezzo di lui si pronunzia l’. . alla gloria di Dio, in grazia del nostro ministerio

20 Una testa d’asino vi si vendeva

ottanta sicli d’argento, e il quarto d’un. . di sterco di colombi, cinque sicli d’argento

23 Perché mille anni, agli occhi tuoi, sono come il giorno d’. . quand’è passato

24 Quando sono stato in grandi pensieri dentro di. ., le tue consolazioni han rallegrato l’anima mia

25 Figliuolo d’Eleazar, figliuolo d’Aaronne

26. . amerai dunque l’Eterno, il tuo Dio, con tutto il cuore, con tutta l’anima tua e con tutte le tue forze

27 Allora l’ira di Elihu, figliuolo di Barakeel il Buzita della tribù di. ., s’accese

28 Questi sono i figliuoli di Dishan: Uts e. .

29 Perciò Iddio li ha abbandonati a passioni infami: poiché le loro femmine hanno mutato l’uso naturale in quello che è contro natura; e similmente anche i maschi, lasciando l’uso naturale della donna, si sono infiammati nella loro libidine gli uni per gli altri, commettendo uomini con uomini cose. ., e ricevendo in loro stessi la condegna mercede del propio taviamento

32 Elkana ed Anna immolarono il giovenco, e menarono il fanciullo ad. .

33 Io do alla tua progenie questo paese, dal fiume d’Egitto al gran fiume, il fiume Eufrate; i Kenei, i. ., i Kadmonei

35. . dal primo giorno toglierete ogni lievito dale vostre case

37 Davide rimase nel deserto in luoghi forti; e se ne stette nella contrada montuosa del deserto di. .

38 Or Abner, figliuolo di. ., capo dell’esercito di Saul

40 Figliuoli di Tola:. ., refaia, Jeriel, Jahmai, Jbsam e Samuele

42 Fa’ presto. . accordo col tuo avversario mentre sei ancora per via con lui

45 Questi tornò a Jzreel per farsi curare delle ferite che avea ricevute dai Sirî a. .

47. . n’è di quelli che strappano dalla mammella l’orfano

48. . la si ottiene in cambio d’oro

49 Non han più ritegno, m’umiliano, rompono ogni freno in. . presenza

50 Il mio amico m’è un grappolo di cipro delle vigne d’. .-ghedi

51 La città rumorosa sarà resa deserta, la collina e la torre saran per sempre ridotte in caverne, in luogo di spasso per gli onàgri e di pascolo. .’ greggi

52 Il suo capo è oro finissimo, le sue chiome sono crespe, . come il corvo

54 La regina Vashti ha. . non solo verso il re, ma anche verso tutti i principi e tutti i popoli che sono in tutte le province del re Assuero

56. . dunque, figliuoli, ascoltatemi, e non vi dipartite dale parole della mia bocca

57 Il cuore allegro rende. . il volto

58 Mahlah, Thirtsah, Hoglah, Milcah e Noah, figliuole di Tselofehad, si maritarono coi figliuoli dei loro. .

60 Uno dei valorosi guerrieri al servizio del re Davide

61 Oggi tu stai per passare i confini di Moab, . Ar

63 La moglie di Achab, re d’Israele

64 Fu giudice d’Israele per 23 anni, era della tribù d’Issacar

Verticali:

1 Ma quella che si dà ai piaceri, benché. ., è morta

2 Sansone disse loro: ‘Io vi proporrò un. .

3 Perché Iddio. . gli occhi aperti sulle vie de’ mortali, e vede tutti i lor passi

4 Figliuolo di Giuda, figliuolo di Giacobbe

5. . porte della morte ti son esse state scoperte?

6. . solo udir parlare di me, m’hanno ubbidito

7. . rendono male per bene; derelitta è l’anima mia

8 Gli uomini saranno. ., amanti del danaro, vanagloriosi

9 O monte di Dio, o monte di Basan, o monte dalle molte. ., o monte di Basan

10. . rallegrino i cieli e gioisca la terra

13 Io ho veduto gli sleali e ne ho provato. .

14. . attento al mio grido, perché son ridotto in molto misero stato

16 Or i capi sacerdoti e gli scribi stavan là, acusandolo con. .

18 Figliuoli di Caleb figliulo di Gefunne:. ., Ela e Naam, i figliuoli d’Ela e Kenaz

20 Rimpiangete, costernati, le schiacciate, d’uva di. .-Hareseth!

21 Prima vi abitavano gli Emim: popolo grande, numeroso, alto di statura come gli. .

22 E non dimenticate di esercitar la. .

25 E l’Eterno gli disse:». . tu bene a irritarti così?«

26 E in quell’istante, accostatosi a Gesù, gli disse:. . saluto, Maestro!

27 Per la tribù di Beniamino: Palti, figliuolo di. .

30 Efraim ebbe per figliuola Sceera, che edificò Beth-horon, la inferiore e la superiore, ed. .-Sceera

31 Uno dei capi di Edom

34. . notte e giorno, e non sarai sicuro della tua esistenza

36 Davide sposò anche Ahinoam di. .

37 Essa gli partorì questi figliuoli: Jeush, Scemaria e. .

39 Dio in lingua ebraica

41 Dopo di loro Tsadok, figliuolo d’. ., lavorò dirimpetto alla sua casa

43 I dormiglioni n’andran vestiti di. .

44 Quand’hai fatto un. . a Dio, non indugiare ad adempierlo

46 Amica mia io t’assomiglio alla mia cavalla che s’attacca. . carri di Faraone

51 Non sapete voi che un. . ’ di lievito fa lievitare tutta la pasta

52 Li hanno gli uccelli dei cieli

53 E i suoi piedi eran simili a terso. ., arroventato in una fornace

55 E questi sono i figliuoli di Tsibeon:. . e Ana

59 Or Amram prese per moglie Iokebed, sua. .

60. . vostro agnello sia senza difetto, maschio, dell’anno

62 Ecco, io ti. . di quelli della sinagoga di Satana

At about the same time as this, a firm registered at the address of Mitchelton 4053, Qld, Australia made an update to its internet page, vashtiskin.com, so as to correspond with the new spirit of the times, and as one can sense, this act is not a trifling one, for as they write, Vashti Purely Natural Skin Care, distantly related to the website www.3roos.com/forums/showthread.php?t=194376, has a unique range that supports health and well-being by using nature’s gifts to work in synergy to rejuvenate the body and uplift the soul. Their products, which include skin cleansers, body lotions, hair lotions, and baby products, are handmade from the finest plant-based ingredients that mimic the naturally occurring constituents in the skin, reduce free radical damage, and encourage hydration, blood supply, and cellular regrowth. In addition, they inform us that Vashti uses only quality ingredients, and also wish to tell us that their products are 100 % vegan-friendly, that they respect humans by avoiding the use of synthetic ingredients and artificial colors and fragrances. Finally, they add that they respect animals by not supporting testing on them.

Radical Damage

She was never much loved in the Persian court; she was exalted and envied, praised and condemned; she enchanted everyone and they said of her that she wasn’t, accordingly, so beautiful, but she was beautiful, very beautiful, surpassing every measure known up until then, and consequently more dazzling than anyone else: but love was withheld from her: it never occurred to anyone to approach her in a loving way; neither those who could be in her very presence nor those who had only heard of her, and everyone in Susa knew — no less than everyone across the whole of the Achaemenid Empire — that she lived in the Emperor’s palace under the burden of a perpetual deprivation of love, and that was even so before she became the spouse of the Great King, because at the very moment of her birth her destiny had been sealed, for it was claimed mistakenly that she was the descendent of Bel-sarra-usur, sunk into religious frenzy, and Nabu-kudurri-ushur, the bountiful robber-chieftain king; and from the beginning they treated her, regardless of her age, as someone whom a great future awaited, although they could not have suspected just how great a future it would be, until the end of time itself, because when the sovereign of the gigantic Empire of the Persians made her his first wife, selecting her and pronouncing the marriage, it so happened, when the queenly crown was placed upon her magnificent head, a Babylonian head — so, the Great King couldn’t find anyone suitable among the ladies of Persia, Parysatis let drop in fury; no, the Great King succinctly replied, and indeed it really was so, because no one else existed for him apart from Queen Vashti; he had never seen such beauty as he had perceived in her from that very first glance, neither before nor anywhere else ever since, and yet since the time of Cyrus the Great, the Empire had grown quite large, for surely it was the greatest in all of the world within the grasp of reason, and where to be precise there was no lack of beauties: Medes, Scythians, Parthians, Lydians, Syrians, and Jews, impossible to list just how many peoples and how many kinds of beauty, but not one of them even came close to the godlike beauty radiating from the Babylonian queen; the Great King is in love, they whispered in the Persian court, which continually shifted its quarters between Pasargade, Persepolis, Ecbatana, and Susa, according to the season; if he is in the queen’s presence, they said of the sovereign in Pasargade, it’s as if he’s lost his mind; if he as much as gazes at the queen, they whispered in Persepolis, he can’t look away from her; if he is in the queen’s proximity, the foreign emissaries repeated at home when they had returned from Susa, he doesn’t pay attention, and it is impossible to discuss anything with him; and all of this corresponded to reality; at times, if the Great King was attending a resplendent supper in the zenana, he nearly forgot to eat, for he only gazed at the Queen, and could not bear to free himself from the sight of her magnificent, thick, golden-hued hair, as it fell in plaits below the elegant nape of her neck onto her back — he too marveled at her, lauded her, extolled her, and he felt ill at ease when the court rumors that he was in love reached his ear, for he didn’t know what it was that bound him — whether tightly or slackly — to that feeling through whose power he felt he had to marvel at her, laud her, and extol her, the Great King was helpless, yet he was happy and proud, and could have been capable of murdering with his bare hands anyone at all who might dare to utter her name — not only his mother, Parysatis, which would have been natural, not only the women residing in the secluded world of the palace zenana, which was in itself tradition, but even the subjugated princes and kings — if they dared to speak of his marvelous Queen, saying that she was excessively proud in the court, that she excessively sought the people’s favor, he would, in all certainty, have killed that person, for in addition what they said was not so far from the truth; for Vashti proved in reality to be reclusive during the zenana-feasts ordered for the king, and Vashti was only made happy by being able to take part in a procession in Persepolis or Ecbatana, or Pasargade or, during the winter months, before the people of Susa, winning, in this way, immeasurable popularity; ever more popular, noted the sovereign’s mother, who was her greatest enemy in the circle of the royal councilors, with murderously glittering eyes; ever more popular, the Persian retinue murmured uneasily, turning gloomy at the mere thought of the male successor to arrive in no time at all no doubt, who thanks to his mother would be half Babylonian; ever more popular, as was reported to the Great King, who hearing the news was in such high spirits as if seeing the people rejoice at his own treasure, believing that this popularity would shine through to him as well; this, however, was not the case, this popularity applied to the Queen alone; an unbridled enthusiasm which, apart from the fact that the procession of the Queen of the Persian Empire was not a custom and therefore not possible, arose from the feeling of this populace that Queen Vashti was using every opportunity to take part in a procession in her gilded carriage before the celebrating crowds because she loved them, the people; the Great Queen, as she was called, by decree and by their sensibilities, however, wanted only to see how they loved her; although this was not true, for if they rejoiced at the sight of her, if they shouted from joy being able to catch a glimpse of her, the people were in fact enthralled only because they could see her, they could glimpse her, which in reality fell far short of the Great Queen’s covetous wishes; but she didn’t notice anything, the people rejoiced and shouted, and yet the court trembled; first and foremost the mother of the Great King, Parysatis, who sensed in all of this the premonition of greater, more treacherous changes, and who would have gladly smothered one hundred peasants of the Babylonian Empire in ashes, just out of deterrence, if not the Great Queen herself — at least for now, she said to her most trusted confidantes; it was impossible, she made accusations in the presence of the Great King, how this vagrant Babylonian had the gall to flout the conventions of the Empire at every possible opportunity, whether under the pretext of making a sacrifice to Mithra or showing gratitude to Anahita, to go out among the crowds, to leave the quarters of the zenana, to have herself feted by the rabble; so let them fete her, the Great King remarked with shining eyes, she is the only one in the entire Empire, he said, gesturing toward the zenana, who deserves to be feted, at which Parysatis snorted loudly and stormed off, and the Great King merely smiled to himself, and had no concern for his mother, his only concern was for the Great Queen, and in his decrees he upheld the cult of Mithra, and of Anahita, while he himself, in accordance with tradition, subjugated himself to the veneration and worship of the Most Supreme, Ahura Mazda; let her go, he pronounced to his entourage, and sacrifice as she wishes to Mithra and Anahita, it will hurt neither the Empire nor the people, and it didn’t hurt him in particular if he himself didn’t take part in these queenly processions, it was enough for him to imagine to himself how, amidst her most dazzling ornaments, in her most dazzling attire, she flung, on the way to the shrine of Mithra, her unparalleled beauty out to the people; this was pleasing to the Great King, this magnificence and this dissipation, as, so to speak, she squandered the inimitable splendor of her own person onto those unworthy of it, this in particular enraptured the Great King, this insolent caprice, for he had not the slightest inkling of why Vashti felt an insatiable desire to be loved; and among the jubilation and screaming of the crowds in Susa and Persepolis, she could imagine that here, on either side of the sacred path, were people filled with love for their queen — a jubilation and shouting which she heard now, too, in the torturing silence, when the theater of her ruin had commenced, and in accordance with the judgment and custom, she was compelled to leave the palace apartments alone, deprived of her jewels, with no one to accompany her, through the queen’s courtyard and toward the Northern Gate, to all others closed.

Sandro had said that while he was away, they should accept even the smallest commission; the workshop had been in operation for only a year and a half altogether, in other words was still unknown, and moreover, the distinguished neighbor himself, Signor Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, had sent the venerable caftaned Jews to them while others had not, so that alluding to the absence of the master painter of the workshop, Alessandro Battigello, who was presently working at the request of Signor Tommaso Soderini for the Sei della Mercanzia — in other words the Chamber of Merchants — Filippo di Filippi Lippi explained that he would consequently negotiate with them, and he requested with great respect that they take a seat; they, however, only looked around at each other perplexed, not knowing what to do, they could hardly discuss this matter with such a whelp of a boy, clearly only an apprentice here, but he, understanding the game that was being played out in their glances, informed them that no matter how young he might seem, he was neither apprentice nor servant in this painting atelier, nor any sort of sluggard, but instead Filippino Lippi, the most fully authorized fel-low-mas-ter of Signor Alessandro di Mariano Filipepi, better known as Sandro Battigello, and — as they might have guessed from his name, he was none other than the only son of the renowned Fra Filippo Lippi, so they could compose themselves and at last take a seat, and hold forth in all tranquility as to the matter that had brought them here, he would be of assistance to them inasmuch as he possibly could, and they only stared at the adroit youth; then the eldest among them surveyed him for a bit and then smiled, nodded to the others, and so it happened that the commission for the preparation of the two forzieri was handled by Filippino himself, by himself and in full; it was the very first commission of its kind for the workshop; there is to be a wedding ceremony, the old Jew explained at length, fingering his white beard, nuptials — and here followed a name that Filippino, even when asking to hear it again, could not grasp — in a certain family, and on this occasion they were, at the recommendation of the younger sister of Signor Vespucci, turning to the workshop of Signor Alessandro di Mariano to ask if he would undertake this commission, which was to be completed by the last day of the year; ah, two forzieri, nodded Filippino very seriously, but suddenly he fell silent and his lips were pursed, like one who is pondering whether his workshop could take on yet one more commission alongside so many others, yes, replied the old man, and from this point on he looked at the figure of the fourteen- or fifteen-year-old boy more decisively; with the usual measurements, he said, but not the usual technique; he lifted up his long index finger, for they — that is to say the family — meaning the family of the bride, he continued, forming his words slowly, desired this pair of forzieri not to be carved, as was often the case, but it had to be painted, and that was why they had come to Signor Sandro di Mariano: they wished the young master to paint the story of Esther, from the Hebrew Bible, onto the two forzieri; the surfaces of the longer and shorter sides of the chest would be employed but not the lid, and the back part should also be left untouched, as it would be resting against the wall in the bedroom of the newly wedded pair, so that, in brief, altogether there were two long rectangular surfaces and two roughly square-shaped ones, the old man explained, and that means that Signor Sandro di Mariano, taking everything into account, has two larger and four smaller surfaces at his disposal, but of course — the old man looked around the somewhat disorderly workshop, not bothering to conceal his doubts — all the work has to be undertaken by the master, so that he will have to arrange for the carpentry and the goldsmithing as well; that is no problem at all, Filippino interrupted him, as for a goldsmith one could not find anyone better matched to the task than the master’s older brother Antonio, and as for the carpentry, for many years now they had worked in collaboration with Giuliano da Sangallo, the celebrated master carpenter, at which the old man raised his bushy eyebrows, yes, replied Filippino just as decisively as he possibly could, they’d been familiar with his work for quite a long time, and were greatly satisfied with it, but at this the entire family — principally the younger members, who were seated in the back, near the entranceway, listening in to the conversation from there — began to smile; so would the gentleman please state first what size of forziera he had in mind, asked Filippino as he leaned toward the old man with a serious gaze, for he did not like this general mirth; well, the old man gestured with both his hands, about this big; fine, said Filippino, nodding at the measurement; he snatched up a longish slat of wood, drawing a notch in it, and took it over to the old man, is this what you were thinking for the length, he asked; as he measured with his hands the length he had just demonstrated to the boy, the old man was clearly astounded, as it clearly corresponded to the length notched into the slat; then, as it were, beginning to speak seriously and directing the boy back in front of himself with his distinguished eyebrows, he gestured backward to one of the younger members of the family, and there appeared in an instant in his hand a piece of fabric with a drawing on it, clearly showing the desired forziera, indicating the precise measurements — well let us see, and now the old man gazed deeply into Filippino’s eyes, repeat to me exactly what we want, as afterward you will have to repeat it to your. . fellow painter, if he comes back; then he leaned back a little in his chair, which however had no back, as it was only a simple wooden stool, as was used in such workshops; Filippino smiled for a brief moment but then immediately and ceremoniously began to speak, saying that the distinguished guests had, on the eleventh of August, in the year of Our Lord 1470, in the workshop of Sandro Battigello, ordered the construction of two forzieri in the proportions indicated on the section of homespun and, as I see it, he continued, raising the piece of fabric closer to his eyes, it shall be from the very finest poplar wood, thus all of the carpentry as well as the goldsmithing work shall be combined with this particular commission, according to which the workshop of the master under discussion shall paint the story of the entire Book of Esther onto the two front-panels and the sides of the forzieri; the date of completion, however, shall be designated as the last day of the year, so let that be as well the date for receipt of the stipulated remuneration of fifteen golden florins per piece, in such a way — here the old Jew, taking up the conversation, gazed at the boy with ever-growing satisfaction, but as if not having heard the recommendation concerning the price; he recommended that on the one main panel there should be the depiction of Esther pleading for mercy before the king, and on the other the portrayal of the gratitude of the Jewish people; the side panels, however, should portray the main protagonists — Ahasuerus, Haman, Mordechai, naturally with Esther in the foreground; of course, replied Filippino coolly, with a severe frown, of course Sandro Battigello will be the one to conceive first, in what manner, how it will be possible to convey one entire book of the Holy Writ onto a total of six panels, in such a way that the essence is transmitted, he shall be the one to decide; at which point the old man — who was more or less expecting such a response — smiled, gazed back at the others, bowed to Filippino, and answered him, saying yes, my dear boy, I envisaged it just as you said, and with that he rose from his seat and looking at the boy with a warm glance, motioned to the others, stepped out onto the Via Nuova, then, shaking his head, serenely murmured to himself, what next, you little urchin, fifteen gold florins, and per piece! — then he clasped his hands behind his back and with his extensive clan behind him, who had already broken out into loud conversation, merrily analyzing just what kind of a workshop this was, he withdrew from the scorching sun, so that the entire company under his guidance continued slowly to vanish into the shaded side of the Chiesa di Ognissanti.

Although founded by Cyrus the Great, and expanded by Darius, the Persian Empire became truly great only through Artaxerxes Mnemon II, this — in the view of his contemporaries and later the historians — feeble, susceptible, enervated, and at first, this delicate and generous man, who was originally called Ŗtaxšaçā in his own language, and then later called Artsaces by the Greeks, and who for a long time could not get over having had to bury the eunuch Tiridates, the boy-love of his youth, before — as perhaps Herodotus has noted — he had a chance to emerge from childhood; his grief was so great that he ordered the assumption and the practicing of the deepest mourning across the entire Empire, at which his mother, in the hopes of bringing it to an end, threw all her might into the creation of a marital union auspicious for the Empire, through which she also wished to obstruct him, Artsaces, from gaining the throne, for in her heart — if in the case of Parysatis we can even speak of such a thing as a heart — she intended the throne for her second-born, but in vain, not even one of her plans came to fruition, for she had to behold as her favorite, the passionate Cyrus the Younger, created to rule, died at Cunaxa, and it was precisely the despised first-born, and then again the Babylonian slut designated for the marriage not only didn’t encumber Artaxerxes II’s ascension to the throne, but actually directly expedited it, for that accursed foreign serpent, as Parysatis called her among her closest devotees, had become so popular practically since her very first public appearance, when, in procession behind her husband, the Emperor, she was able to take part in a large festival dedicated to Ahura Mazda, that the people wanted to see her on the queen’s throne immediately, and there they saw her, because the Emperor wanted to see her there too, and the magi of the Medes placed the crown on her head, and she became the Great Queen of the powerful Empire, and she became as well the one for whom the Emperor, in one swift blow, could forget his bereavement over Tiridates, for it was enough to look at Vashti and he was bewitched; Parysatis tried everything humanly possible against her, availing herself of the wives secluded in the zenana, particularly the jealous Ionian Asparia, pushed into the gray background of the zenana because of Vashti; she used all the machinations of zenana-intrigue, she used the priests of the faith of Marduk and the priests opposed to the faith of Marduk, as well as the so-called “male societies” formed to resist the autocracy of Ahura Mazda, as well as the antipathies of the Zoroastrian priests who repudiated these “male societies,” she tried everything but without result, her first-born, and not high-born, was blinded by the Babylonian beauty, who sat upon the throne and wore the crown on her sweetly curling flaxen hair as if she had always been seated upon that throne, and as if that crown had always been meant for her; simply put, nothing could touch her, nothing in the entire God-given world, Vashti’s position grew ever more solid, in parallel with the Empire, which again only strengthened the position of the Great Queen as it grew and became ever more powerful, never had there been an Empire of this extent in all the world within the reason’s grasp, in addition the residents of the Empire relished the great peace in the wake of the great wars, which they ascribed to the personal talents of the Emperor, taking it as equal proof that the most supreme Deity of the Heavens, Ahura Mazda, was happy to see the Great King upon the throne; in short, Vashti seemed unassailable; the Queen Mother fretted in her apartments, maddened by the impotence of her fury, only able to trust now that something would happen to bring about the end — as it usually did — to this nauseating peace in the Empire and this deplorable romance in the royal palace, she watched the Great King, growing ever stouter, and she was besieged by splitting headaches, she watched the radiant Babylonian slut and she was nauseated, but for the time being there was nothing she could do, just keep watching, Parysatis said to herself in between the headaches and the nausea, one day this too will come to an end, because Ahura Mazda in the heavens wished it so, and thus it came about, and her waiting and her torment were not in vain, for the end did come, so easily, so self-evidently that she herself, Parysatis, was the most surprised of all, when she heard after the conclusion of the official celebration of the monarch’s ascension to the throne that the Great King was held by even his closest devotees to be incapable of the most trifling of decisions, and the word had began to spread as well in the subjugated provinces that the Emperor was weak; Artaxerxes would permit anything at all, but not this, so that after the rejoicing, lasting 180 days, a festival of seven days was ordered for the old and newly conquered princes, the old and newly conquered kings, to be held on the opposite bank of the river, in the Apadana, built as it were to face the palace of Darius in Susa in order to demonstrate the dignity of his right to the throne and his strength — but from this point on everything became very confused, and even Parysatis could only follow the events with difficulty, as for a while she had believed that the Great King was incapable of true wrath; the first reports of this had already arrived, the only problem being that custom did not allow her to approach the Apadana herself, to witness with her own two eyes at this so-called celebration, descended into drunken roistering, this anger, in any case the second report spoke of violent rage, the eunuchs practically flying between the zenana and the Apadana, the Emperor is foaming at the mouth, they whispered into her ear, he is jabbering and yammering and howling and bawling, and all of the guests are in shock; the celebration has fallen apart and come to an end; they reported, in the palaces of Susa, of the unexpected events; and Parysatis was happy once again, for the mere fact that the Emperor’s repulsive yet seemingly unassailable sense that there could be no problems at all between him and Vashti, for whatever foolishly squalid reasons, thrilled her, so that both her headaches and her nausea immediately disappeared; she felt wonderful, her eyes glittered, her brow unfurrowed, her back straightened, once again assuming that immovable face, so dreaded by all those around her, while Vashti herself was writhing between proud dignity and wounded humiliation, sitting in the audience hall of the Queen’s apartments convinced of the justness of her own response, and waited for him, the one of whom and from whom such appalling reports arrived, she waited for the Great King but he did not come, only more and more reports, and Vashti fell deeper and deeper into shock, and grew despondent, and she could know already what was to follow, for there was nothing else that could follow, she knew how the council — the convening of which she had been, in keeping with tradition, immediately informed — would decide, just as they were, drunken and starving for a fatal scandal, that she would have to proceed from the queen’s apartments across the desolate palace to the forbidden gate, she would have to follow the centuries-old mandate and take the first steps of exile, so that in the end she would be no more than one smothered in ashes, like a dog that had disobeyed.

They asserted everything, and then they asserted the opposite as well, it simply was unbelievable that in the case of a practically “new” masterpiece — the ensemble of panel-paintings depicting the story of Esther was altogether five hundred years old — so little was known, still, they didn’t know anything; this is not a question of the “wider public” — even though this term encompasses fewer and fewer people, this lack of knowledge going along side by side with erudition — but rather of the endless hordes of experts, who have sacrificed numerous works of scholarship to demonstrating that, of course, Sandro Botticelli painted the series of panels depicting Esther’s story, as well as others demonstrating that Sandro Botticelli did not paint them; then to prove that perhaps he only painted the essential parts, and then not even that; maybe he just created the undersketch for Lippi, to show him what he had to paint, and then that the panel entitled “La Derelitta” — one of the most mysterious artworks of the quattrocento — was of course the fourth piece, one of the side-panels, earlier believed to be lost, of the cassoni, as the forzieri — that is to say, the two large chests that were bestowed as a dowry by the bride’s family, to hold the bridal trousseau as well as preserve other valuable objects — were called; then later on someone else came along, who eliminating all doubts — hmm — hypothesized that the renowned “La Derelitta” was the work of Botticelli but it did not form, and never had formed, a part of the cassoni, of which it is not known who commissioned them, or when the order was issued by that person who commissioned them, and which were later scattered in as many directions as there were separate pieces: there is a witness to the fact that in the gallery of the Palazzo Torrigiani in the nineteenth century the six panels were still placed together, but then the individual sections turned up along the most obscure of routes, in six different museums, from Chantilly to the Horne Foundation; then came the twentieth century when — now in possession of technological possibilities previously unknown — it was possible to hope that the researchers who study these forzieri or cassoni would come up with something, well they came up with the fact that Filippino Lippi, born out of the forbidden passion of the former monk Fra Filippo Lippi and the former nun Lucrezia Buti, could have something to do with it, namely that the young child who had inherited in a truly astonishing fashion all of his father’s genius, was an apprentice — perhaps at the age of fourteen, shortly after his father’s death in 1470 or 1471 — in the workshop of Botticelli, himself previously an assistant in his father’s workshop, so that — the contemporary experts opined — it is highly likely that the adolescent Lippi worked on the series of panels depicting the story of Esther; later on, however, we found out from Edgar Wind and André Chastel that, well, not exactly; they painted the panels together, but it was impossible to say who had painted what, and presumably Botticelli did play some role in their creation, and we can read in the very latest promisingly monumental monograph published in 2004 by a certain Patrizia Zambrano who, doubtless ranking among the greatest masters of saying absolutely nothing, herself reached the conclusion that both Botticelli and Lippi could have painted the panels, perhaps the two of them working together, or in such a way that Botticelli somehow worked on the pictures, perhaps in the planning or the undersketches, and then Lippi did the painting; or conversely that Lippi worked completely alone — the elasticity, if it can be expressed like that, with which Ms. Zambrano covers all the possibilities, is unbelievable — and it can even be worthy of high praise that she was able to knead together, into one single study, all the hypotheses that have arisen in the difficult question of attribution since the time of the quattrocento until now; to put it briefly, we know nothing, as was always the case; it’s just as if in the matter there would now be a kind of consensus that “La Derelitta,” at least, was painted by Botticelli alone, which is quite obvious — inasmuch as one looks at the painting itself — and it is impossible to comprehend the presumed difficulty of separating it from Lippi’s oeuvre, or how one can establish that it in no way formed a part of the Esther panels, in other words, we can remain in the barren steppe of the last descriptive scholarly contribution, that is to say the work of Alfred Scharf, published in 1935, which awkwardly and laboriously ponders over the date of creation for the panels, but — thankfully — nothing more, as the author is compelled to demonstrate simply what can be seen in the individual paintings, and how all this is connected to other similar forzieri created by Lippi, and more generally, how these are connected to Lippi’s life work, and that’s it already, that’s enough, 1935, Alfred Scharf, and we’re done, because in the end what is the point of bothering with the deliberations of the scholars, if the bucket in which they are mixing their brew is completely empty; and so is it not sufficient, not deserving enough of awe, that in the terrifying and unknown machinations of chance and accident, these panels have actually been passed down to us? — for after all these speculations, at least it is not possible to doubt in their existence, to contradict the fact that they exist.

For so-called historical research has cast doubt on the existence of Vashti, the existence of Esther, the story of Vashti and the story of Esther; it was so from the very beginning and even today there is a kind of suspicion around the whole thing, around Esther and particularly around Vashti, and Ahasuerus and Mordechai and Haman and the feast of the Emperor, a suspicion that everything that occurred there did not occur, because as the historians write, everything that stands in the Book of Esther is so indemonstrable, so unlocalizable, so unidentifiable and confabulatory, that it simply cannot stand; so that it would be better if we thought of it as a fable — we should think of Esther, Vashti, Ahasuerus, Mordechai, and Haman as the characters of a fable, or perhaps a little more exaltedly, of a myth, since — as is claimed, and people who understand these matters largely agree with these claims — the entire Book of Esther, and so too Vashti, who assumes merely a minor role in it, simply has no foundation in reality, so that well, if this no is not even the essence of Purim, its origins are at the very least obscure, and it can be presumed that the connection of the Book of Esther with the Hebrew text, as with the Greek canon, only occurred later, for the matter begins with the fact that historical scholarship is unable convincingly to identify the main protagonist — inasmuch as he can even be regarded as such — Ahasuerus, as for a long time the conviction reigned that this same Ahasuerus was actually Xerxes I and the entire fable reaches back to the Babylonian captivity, and this viewpoint still, even today, raises its head at times, but all in vain, for there are ever more — naturally, among those for whom the unclear origins of Purim are troubling, that is to say, what are we celebrating during Purim anyway — who remain silent in the face of the unparalleled expertise of the arguments set forth in Jacob Hoschander’s 1923 study: that, for example, the identification of Ahasuerus with Xerxes and, thus, the dating of the story of Esther to the time of the Babylonian captivity is a mistake, because Ahasuerus is none other than Artaxerxes II himself, brought forth as a leading figure during the period of decline of the Achaemenid dynasty — Artaxerxes Mnemon II, the ruler mentioned before his coronation as king under his Greek name of Artsaces — the inevitable murderer of his younger sibling, the victor in the battle at Cunaxa, the inciter of the plot in Xenophon’s masterpiece, the Anabasis, the faithful first-born of his mother, immortalized as the evil intriguer Parysatis, who had a ravishingly beautiful wife Statiera, whom Hoschander, and not just with any kind of reasoning, identifies as Vashti; so coolly, so indisputably convincing does his argumentation proceed, that it is hardly denied — neither by Christian biblical researchers nor by more neutral historians; not even by rabbinical tradition, and although there is of course some divergence between these two groups on this point, the concordance is more conspicuous, even if the formulations of the rabbinical scholars are more severe, that is to say even if they deviate in a more austere trajectory from Hoschander’s analysis, which accepts the conflict between the old and the new faiths as sufficient explanation for the background to the Book of Esther, namely, for example, that Vashti, inasmuch as the story is true, did not really fulfill the king’s command — the gist of which was that she must appear among the drunkenly clamoring princes and kings, before the Great King, who desired, with his wife’s beauty, to confirm the insurpassability of his own Empire; namely, his command was such that she must leave her own gathering, held for the illustrious ladies of the Persian court in the audience-hall of the queen’s apartments in the zenana, which in keeping with tradition occurred simultaneously with the week-long celebration of the Emperor, prescribed in such cases by Persian and even older tradition, and during which she must not be absent, and at which she sat until it was over, her person completely veiled — well, if all of that is really true and it occurred like that, but then again — according, that is, to the rabbinical commentators — it was not like that, the cause was not the pride of the Great Queen, but an illness that Vashti had been hiding from the Emperor for weeks now, so that to no avail, the Hebrew and the Christian bibles relate, it was whispered and whispered again into her ear that she had to leave the women’s feast, and had to appear immediately before the Emperor, to no avail did the eunuchs keep repeating it nervously, alarmed by what they saw in the Empress’s eyes, for what they saw in those incomparable eyes was that, as for the Emperor’s truly unusual request — in opposition to every kind of courtly decorum — that mandated she would have to show herself wearing nothing more than a crown, that is to say disrobed, displaying her beauty before the male assembly descended into a drunken rabble, that she was not going to fulfill it, to no avail did they urge her and whisper the reasons into her ear, just as tradition, too, strives to no avail to engrave this picture into memory, for in actuality, as these interpreters claim, with a sudden harshness and devoid of mercy, Vashti was leprous, and the illness, albeit still in the early stages, had disfigured her face and her entire body, and it was for this reason that she did not dare to show herself before her king, so that she would not lose his love and his admiration, and it was precisely this knowledge that had reached Parysatis’ ear earlier, who immediately sensed that in such a shaping of events the time of reckoning had come; she therefore sent a message to the Emperor at a suitable time, which was hardly unheard of or out of keeping with custom; she sent a message, however, saying that if he were to summon his ravishing queen now, she would certainly deny him his request, for she was too proud to appear in such a company, at which point Artaxerxes, prostrate from the several days’ worth of drunken carousing, and forever grappling with the uncertain nature of his worth as sovereign, immediately gave the order to the eunuchs, of the sort that — with all the logical irrationality that followed from the situation — she must come, she must come immediately in her full beauty, namely that she must not wear anything but the crown on her head — Parysatis, it is said, was in jubilation; Vashti realized that this was the end; however Artaxerxes, in his bitterness, permitted every council and agreed with everything, because all he could think of was that if Vashti, as she had been doing for weeks, disgraced him and denied him again, then the Empire would also deny its last Great Emperor, and although in his dim, slow, drunkenly flickering brain he knew what judgment he was pronouncing on her whom he loved most in all the world within reason’s grasp, he also felt that Vashti’s fate — and here the Hebrew commentators of the text lower their voice — was a mirror of the fate of the Empire, and that if Vashti were lost, the entire colossal Persian Empire itself was lost, lost forever.

He already knew how to draw a Madonna even before he knew what a Madonna was, but it wasn’t only in this that he displayed an extraordinary talent, but in nearly everything else too, for he was able to read and write, master the skills of carpentry, use the tools of the workshop, grind and mix the pigments to perfection, gild frames in such a way that no one ever had to teach him, so that in Prato his father always followed his progress with laudatory attention, keeping an eye on his every movement, and he only caressed the boy when little Filippino had the inclination to sit on his lap, and this period somehow passed very quickly, the child had hardly reached his sixth year when his father began to notice that he didn’t like to be touched, that he had no need to be embraced, indeed — to put it more directly — he detested it, although he was treated with particular love in his father’s dwelling as well as in the workshop; the family, the numerous and often-changing ranks of assistants and pupils, even the distinguished patrons, if they came to negotiate with the famous master, never failed to praise him, saying what a beautiful child, just as they never failed to gape in astonishment (although they did not truly believe that this wee mite had made the drawing so proudly displayed by the master); hence he grew up in the warmest possible of settings, but still it did not, for a long time, quell the unease felt by his parents, for it was distressing enough, from the time of his birth, to consider what an accursed life would be the share of one brought sinfully into the world, to consider the circumstances in which one of the parents had been a Carmelite monk, the chaplain in the Santa Margherita monastery, and the mother, to their even greater shame, was a nun in the same monastery at the time of conception, so truly they were sinners indeed, the manifest sinners in a scandal discussed all across Firenze for months, albeit relatively ordinary sinners, but sinners all the same, who would have remained so for a long time to come, perhaps even up until the very gates of Hell, if the extraordinary genius of Filippo Lippi, renowned all across Italy, had not, under the pressure of the Medicis, brought about a papal absolution from Pius II, who resolved the affair by “canceling them out,” that is, exempting them from their monastic vows — but he could only save them, he did not help the child any further, so that the stamp would remain forever upon little Filippo, whom his father, in vain, inundated with love, every sign of passionate love; never could he free himself from the anxiety of what would become of the child when he grew up, and this anxiety persisted for years and years, until the point when the child began to show that there was no need to be anxious on his behalf, because he would be able to stand on his own two feet and his talent would compensate for his impure birth, for he demonstrated such unparalleled intellectual sensitivity, and so adept at learning was he that he simply dumbfounded everyone around him; it was possible to see that this boy would be a great man, just like his father; he was, however, never instructed — neither by his father nor by anyone else; instead he only observed, continually, regardless of who was doing what in the workshop, or at home, or on the street, the child watched silently, and he asked questions, and when he saw his father beginning to draw, he began to draw too, he took a wooden board and a bit of charcoal and he copied every movement precisely, observing how his father made a large sweeping arc with the charcoal, and the arc on his drawing curved astonishingly in the same way, but it was like that with everything, the child observed everything thoroughly, he was able to sit silently for up to an hour beside the blacksmith of Prato and watch how perhaps three pairs of horses were shod, he was able to spend long hours on the banks of the stream, observing the ripples in the water, and the light on the rippling surface, in short when he had achieved his sixth year, his parents were no longer anxious for him; his father was certain that the fruit of his deeply passionate love, sinful and yet preordained, had been taken into the protection of the Lord, he brought his son with him wherever he could, even to Spoleto, where he was at work on the Cathedral; on the building site the child, alongside the chief scribe, performed the duties of a kind of assistant, for he was capable of that too, confirming his aptitude everywhere and in everything, and in addition swept everyone off their feet with his gentleness and sensitivity, although as a result his parents were subjected to a different kind of worry, that is to say that the child’s health was not in good order; he was always catching a cold, he wouldn’t dress warmly enough; his throat was already swollen and he would be bedridden for days, so the problem was then the state of his health; his parents never managed to tell him enough that he had to take great care, even in 1469, when his father lay on his deathbed, and charged the boy with the completion of the fresco of the Holy Virgin that he had begun in the Cathedral; no, not even then, and even there, did he fail to remind his son to dress very warmly while he was working, as in the Cathedral it was always too chill, and under no circumstances should he drink cold water while at work; and of course what could Filippino do but promise to adhere to his father’s words, but then he didn’t keep it and it was practically all the same anyway, because if he happened to think of his health and dressed properly on a very cold winter day, simply to air out the workshop briefly was enough to make him bedridden again; there was no solution, he could never be circumspect enough, for he was laid open to illness, as it was expressed to him, even Battigello — his older friend who served as an apprentice alongside him in his father’s workshop, who later opened up his own workshop in Firenze where Filippino followed him — even he said so, Battigello — that name clung to him with such injustice, because as a matter of fact it was a jeer directed at his stout older brother Giovanni, who haggled with the customers in the pawnshop — in a word, even he, this Battigello who was soon to become one of the greatest painters of Firenze and of all of Italy, even he pointed out to Filippino that if he didn’t look after himself, then when a serious epidemic struck, that would be the end, it would take him and he could look back then; it was just that Filippino was powerless, this was the cross he bore, and perhaps this was the price for his sensitivity from the very beginning, on a spiritual level, as his father said, because in reality this was what separated him the most from his cohorts: while they were playing outside, Filippino sat inside, happily reading, and he read everything that Battigello pressed into his hands, and as for what Battigello pressed into his hands, it was everything, and very often such works as really should not be pressed into the hand of a eleven- or twelve-year-old youth — Ficino and Pico della Mirandola and Agnoto Poliziano, for example — and maybe Filippino didn’t understand, how would he even understand the sentences, but the spirit of the thoughts behind them reached him, and this spirit made him pensive, even then he began to spend hours brooding below the workshop window, huddled into a corner, if there happened to be no book in his hand, and when he turned fourteen, even Battigello himself was forced to recognize his ability to penetrate everything intuitively, so that roughly during the time when Battigello became to be called Botticelli, and the young master began to be mentioned and praised all across Firenze, one day he informed Filippino that he no longer regarded him as an apprentice, he had in fact never done so; Filippino should instead regard himself as a fellow painter in the workshop, as he had already been, strictly speaking, for a long time now, maybe even from the very day when, stepping into Battigello’s workshop, he had begun to work with him; because for grinding the pigments, burning the wood for charcoal, boiling up the sizing and so on, a real assistant or two was always turning up; Battigello always gave Filippino such tasks as: well, do you see that Madonna, paint the Infant in her arms with two angels, all right? — fine, Filippino would answer, and an Infant and two angels would appear upon the painting, such that no one would have ever been able to say that Battigello had not done them himself; this Filippino had an unbelievable ability to penetrate everything intuitively; he only had to observe, for example, the movements of Battigello’s hand, his thoughts, his colors and his drawings, his themes and his figures and his backgrounds — all beyond his father’s painterly world — and from that point on he was able to paint any kind of a Battigello at any time; so that he, Battigello — when he received the commission from the new master of the Merchants’ Guild to paint an allegory of one of the seven virtues, and this commission took up all of his time — he entrusted Filippino to prepare, from start to finish, all of the other projects of lesser import in the workshop, and so it happened that the commission of the panels, depicting the story of Esther, of the two forzieri was given to Filippino, who after discussing the manner of elaboration of the theme with Battigello, completed them to the greatest satisfaction of the patron, and even on time, indeed completed them the day before the date agreed upon, which was truly not a characteristic of Battigello or the greater number of masters in Firenze at all, and perhaps not even of Filippino, but, well, this was a bridal gift and there could be no question of delay, and the commission itself, the workshop’s first genuinely serious commission in this respect, stimulated Filippino in an extraordinary fashion, so that he worked on it night and day, and the two larger panels were ready within two months, and he had already painted the second side-panel when Master Sangallo had finished constructing the two chests and Antonio had prepared the goldsmithing; Battigello was satisfied and praised the work of Filippino, but tactfully avoided expressing the thought that it all looked as if he himself, Battigello, had painted it; Filippino, however, was not fooled by this, because when the beginning of the last month of the year came around, and only one panel remained to be painted and placed into the chest, he decided that he would work not in the spirit of Battigello, but according to the dictates of his own imagination; namely, he completed the commission, creating the companion picture of the side panel “Esther arrives at the palace of Susa” so as not to upset the balance of the entire work, but he did paint the chief figure in the picture, Queen Vashti, as he saw fit, and he saw fit to paint her in such a way that this exile would reflect forth every humiliation, every indignity, every human collapse, and that moreover in this humiliation, in this indignity, in this collapse, Queen Vashti would not lose any of her extraordinary beauty, for as Filippino sensed, it was only with the deepest beauty that this humiliation, indignity, collapse could be expressed — this was different to what Battigello had seen up until now, so very different, and on the day before the last day of the year, the patron came with his extensive and merry family, as well as a tumbrel hired for the two heavy chests, and on this occasion — for the reckoning of the bill had to take place as well — Battigello had to be present, and so he arrived a few hours early, and while waiting, he examined the chests once again, at length, for the last time, including the last side-panel, and Filippino could tell how he was struck just as wordless as when he had examined them for the first time, and then he looks at him, Filippino, with a sad, endlessly mournful gaze, and it is as if his words were not addressed any longer to his companion, as he looks away from him, and then he says in his own velvety, gentle voice: if only one day I could find such beauty as that in someone, Filippino, if only one day I could find it too.

They entitled it “La regina Vashti lascia il palazzo reale,” that is to say “Queen Vashti Leaves the Royal Palace,” but originally it had no title at all, if we are not to regard as a title that designation that Filippino had given to it just before while in discussion, when it was time to present the forzieri, finishing with the presentation of the carpentry and the truly splendid goldsmithing to the family, who were visibly greatly pleased; he explained, proceeding from one picture to the next, one scene to the next, what picture and what scene was depicted on the side panels; perhaps it was the title the head of the family himself later gave it, when in a moment of solemnity at the bridal ceremony itself he explained to the young couple — Sarah and Guido — that upon the sides of the dowry chest that they had just received as a gift there was depicted none other than the story of Esther according to Hebrew tradition, which — at least in the view of the family patriarch — illustrates marital fidelity, as well as the deeper significance of Purim, and preserves it for memory — but of course these accidental designations could never qualify as titles, there wasn’t even any point to bestowing a title, for in the times that followed, wherever the two forzieri happened to turn up, they were regarded everywhere as what they were, two very beautifully painted dowry chests, and later when only money and jewels were kept in them, they were seen merely as two old safe-boxes which, as one owner — the wife of a textile merchant from Ferrara — put it, were “decorated with pleasantly painted scenes” — a title only became necessary when the chests fell apart, the beautiful copper linings were stripped away, and in their value was determined separately, as well as that of the paintings, of course, the price of which unexpectedly shot up to the heavens by the length of time that had passed, and due to the not very impartial craze for the quattrocento; in a word, when the pictures began their existence as individual pictures, that is to say, after Torrigiana, then in that moment of course each one needed to have a title; one was needed in Chantilly for the Musée Condé, and one was needed in Vaduz for the Lichtenstein collection, and one was needed in Paris as well, and mainly one was needed in Firenze for the Horne Foundation, particularly here because it was with that title that they hoped to express that the determination of the picture as an object was now a closed matter, and that from now on the panel depicting Vashti would have to bear the title of “Queen Vashti Leaves the Royal Palace” and that was it; it went under this title as part of the huge Botticelli exhibit in Paris, in the Grand Palais, which for many was and remained an unforgettable experience, and although according to the scholar at the Horne Foundation it was given a rather unworthy setting, still, whoever had eyes to see — squashed up against a side door — saw within the work the greatness that was around Botticelli, in other words that of Filippino Lippi; still completely unrecognized, the genius, the restless, vibrant brushstrokes, the tautened vibration, the explosive force, the proto-Baroque of Lippi the younger, and with that the figure of Vashti, broken in suffering, stepped with finality into that mysterious Empire, which was even more mysterious than the one from which the main figure in the picture had come; into an Empire, where this figure, tortured from suffering and broken in soul, stepping out through the royal palace’s — no, it was more like a fortress now — Northern Gate, finds herself on a terrace that leads nowhere, and there she comes to a halt, the landscape before this fortress is nearly called into question by her beauty and her pain, her radiant being and her forsakenness, what should be done with this enchantment cast into human form, with this sovereign nobility, in the desolation of its own bleakness — but this is only called into question, there is no need for reply, and all of Susa is quiet, for everyone knows what will happen now before the palace, because what follows is not exile, that was merely the induction of the judgment according to the tradition of Marduk, but behind Vashti, the hulking executioner brought from Egypt shall appear, he will seize her, and drag her back into a designated palace courtyard, and there he will smother her under the ashes of legend, he will crush that milk-white delicate neck with his bull-strong right hand, until that milk-white delicate neck is broken and the legs writhing below cease their dance of death, and the body at last collapses, for once and for all, prostrate upon the ground.