THE BANISHED QUEEN.
"Also Vashti the queen made a feast for the women in the royal house which belonged to King Ahasuerus. On the seventh day when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven chamberlains that served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king, to bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to show the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on. But the Queen Vashti refused to come at the king's commandment by his chamberlains; therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him."—Esther i: 9-12.
We stand amid the palaces of Shushan. The pinnacles are aflame with the morning light. The columns rise festooned and wreathed, the wealth of empires flashing from the grooves; the ceilings adorned with images of bird and beast, and scenes of prowess and conquest. The walls are hung with shields, and emblazoned until it seems that the whole round of splendors is exhausted. Each arch is a mighty leaf of architectural achievement. Golden stars shining down on glowing arabesque. Hangings of embroidered work in which mingle the blueness of the sky, the greenness of the grass, and the whiteness of the sea-foam. Tapestries hung on silver rings, wedding together the pillars of marble. Pavilions reaching out in every direction. These for repose, filled with luxuriant couches, in which weary limbs sink until all fatigue is submerged. Those for carousal, where kings drink down a kingdom at one swallow.
Amazing spectacle!
Light of silver dripping down over stairs of ivory on shields of gold. Floors of stained marble, sunset red and night black, and inlaid with gleaming pearl.
In connection with this palace there is a garden, where the mighty men of foreign lands are seated at a banquet. Under the spread of oak and linden and acacia the tables are arranged. The breath of honeysuckle and frankincense fills the air. Fountains leap up into the light, the spray struck through with rainbows falling in crystalline baptism upon flowering shrubs—then rolling down through channels of marble, and widening out here and there into pools swirling with the finny tribes of foreign aquariums, bordered with scarlet anemones, hypericums, and many-colored ranunculi.
Meats of rarest bird and beast smoking up amid wreaths of aromatics. The vases filled with apricots and almonds. The baskets piled up with apricots and figs and oranges and pomegranates. Melons tastefully twined with leaves of acacia. The bright waters of Eulæus filling the urns and dropping outside the rim in flashing beads amid the traceries. Wine from the royal vats of Ispahan and Shiraz, in bottles of tinged shell, and lily-shaped cups of silver, and flagons and tankards of solid gold. The music rises higher, and the revelry breaks out into wilder transport, and the wine has flushed the cheek and touched the brain, and louder than all other voices are the hiccough of the inebriates, the gabble of fools, and the song of the drunkards.