II. THE PERSIAN BUFFOON
Mr. Frazer now harms his cause, perhaps, by proving that just as, in Esther, Mordecai had a royal ride, so, in Persia, a beardless, and if possible one-eyed buffoon rode in mock royalty through the streets, collecting money or goods, exactly like our Robin Hood before and even after the Scottish Reformation.[13] It was une quête; examples are endless. After his second round he fled, for the people might beat him if they caught him, obviously in revenge, I think, for his robberies. But Mr. Frazer, as usual, supposes the right to beat the buffoon to 'point plainly enough to the harder fate' of the sacrificed mock-king. No date is given for this Persian custom, but, if it existed when the Jews were in Persia, did it coexist with sacrifice of a mock-king? If not, if it was a substitute for that obsolete cruelty, why are the Jews supposed to have borrowed the cruelty no longer practised? This is a question of dates, which may be implied, but are not given, though I understand Mr. Frazer to mean that the buffoon's ride is later than the origin of Purim.[14]
On the other hand, Lagarde, one of the most learned of Orientalists, thinks that the ride of the beardless was already customary at the time when the stories about Esther and Purim were composed. The Persians, says Lagarde, had the Feast of Farwardîgân, a feast of jollity, the rich making presents to the poor, as at Purim. They had also the Feast of the Massacre of the Magi (Magophonia), and, thirdly, they had the popular diversion of the Bide of the Beardless. Now the authors of the Esther legend 'had these three colours on their palette, and with these three painted, not a portrait of one feast, but a kind of mixed caricature for the Jewish carnival.'[15] The Magophonia lent the colours of the massacre, Farwardîgân lent the jollity and the presents, the ride of the beardless lent the procession of Mordecai.
In that case, and if Lagarde is right, the Jews found at Babylon, not a slaying of a mock-king, but the ride of the beardless. So they did not borrow the slaying of a mock-king, but introduced into the Esther legend an incident of a ride suggested by the ride of Mordecai, which Mr. Frazer calls 'a degenerate copy of the original,' namely the reign and death of the mock-king.[16]
Whether Lagarde's view be correct or not, this part of the evidence is far too sandy a foundation for a theory about a matter of solemn importance. The Jews could not borrow the hanging of a victim from the Sacæa, if in their exile they only found the ride of the beardless one, as in Lagarde's theory—not that he mentions the Sacæa.
Mr. Frazer, at all events, sees a connection between Purim and the ride of the beardless. But the latter is popular, not official, in spite of the fact that the king takes most of the goods facetiously robbed. As popular, the ride is more primitive, he thinks, and shows its meaning better than the Sacæa does. So Mr. Frazer says 'if there is any truth in the connection thus traced between Purim and the "Ride of the Beardless One," we are now in a position to finally unmask the leading personages in the Book of Esther,' and show how Marduk and Humman got into the plot.
Purim is not only the Sacæa, sacrifice and all, but is also connected with the 'Ride of the Beardless One,' in which there was no sacrifice. How this, if true, enables us 'to finally unmask' the characters in Esther, is not at first very clear. Apparently the buffoonery of the beardless one, who complained of the heat while the populace snowballed him in March, was a magical ceremony, to make hot weather by pretending that the weather, in fact, was hot.[17] Therefore, the hypothetical rites of
Haman
Vashti
Mordecai
Esther
represent, in the first pair, the decaying; in the second pair, the reviving, energies of vegetation, past and present. One pair mates and the male, at least, is slain; the other pair mates and survives, to encourage vegetable life.
By the hypothesis the first pair (Haman and Vashti) originally lived as man and wife for a whole year, 'on the conclusion of which the male partner' (Haman) 'was put to death.' Of course, even if Haman was the mock-king slain at the Sacæa (which we do not grant), his mock-kingship was very brief. However, it lasted for a year, Originally, we may conjecture.' The later fortunes of Vashti are wrapped up in mystery. But I cannot refrain from quoting one of my author's most eloquent passages on this obscure subject. We do not hear that Vashti was put to death, in fact we do not hear anything about her at all from our one authority; but I the nature of maternity suggests an obvious reason for sparing her a little longer, till that mysterious law, which links together woman's life with the changing aspects of the nightly sky, had been fulfilled by the birth of an infant god, who should in his turn, reared perhaps by her tender care, grow up to live and die for the world.'[18]