of the same, when the king's commandment and his decree drew near to be put in execution, in the day that the enemies of the Jews hoped to have power over them (though it was turned to the contrary,—that the Jews had rule over them that hated them), the Jews gathered themselves together in their cities throughout all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus to lay hand on such as sought their hurt; and no man could withstand them, for the fear of them fell upon all people. And all the rulers of all the provinces, and the lieutenants and the deputies and officers of the king helped the Jews; because the fear of Mordecai fell upon them. For Mordecai was great in the king's house, and his fame went out throughout all the provinces; for this man Mordecai waxed greater and greater. So the Jews smote all their enemies with the stroke of the sword and slaughter and destruction, and did what they would unto those that hated them. And in Shushan the palace the Jews slew and destroyed five hundred men. And Parshandatha and Dalphon and Aspatha, and Poratha, Adalia and Arisatha, Parmashta, Arisai, Aridsi and Vajestha, the ten sons of Haman son of Hammedatha, the enemy of the Jews, they slew; but on the spoil laid they not their hand. On that day the number of those that were slain in Shushan the palace was brought before the king.]1

And the king said unto Esther the queen: The Jews have slain and destroyed five hundred men in Shushan the palace, and the ten sons of Haman; what then have they done in the rest of the king's provinces? Now, what is thy petition, and it shall be granted thee? or what is thy request further, and it shall be done. Then said Esther: If it please the king, let it be granted to the Jews to do to-morrow also according to this day's decree, and let Haman's ten sons be hanged on the gallows. And the king commanded it so to be done; and the decree was given at Shushan, and they hanged Haman's ten sons. For the Jews that were in Shushan gathered themselves together on the fourteenth day of the month of Adar also, and stood for their lives, and slew three hundred men in Shushan, and had rest from their enemies; but they laid not their hands on the prey. But the other Jews that were in the king's provinces gathered themselves together and stood for their lives, and slew of their foes seventy and five thousand; but they laid not their hands on the prey. On the thirteenth day of the month Adar, and on the fourteenth day of the same they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness. But the Jews that were at Shushan assembled themselves together on the thirteenth day and on the fourteenth thereof; and on the fifteenth day they rested, and made it a day of feasting and gladness. Therefore the Jews of the villages, that dwelt in the unwalled towns, made the fourteenth day of the month Adar a day of feasting and gladness and a good day and of sending portions one to another.

And Mordecai wrote these things, and sent letters unto all the Jews in all the provinces of the king Ahasuerus, near and far, to stablish this among them; that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth of the same, yearly, as the days wherein the Jews rested from their enemies, and the month which was turned unto them from sorrow into joy, and from mourning into a good day; that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor. And the Jews undertook to do as they had begun, and as Mordecai had written unto them; because Haman

1 The labored style and rigid attention to detail of ch. ix, 1-11, indicate the hand of an unskilled editor; it is an expansion of the points given in the following verses, and is in any case out of place. The passage is therefore here put in brackets.

son of Hammedatha the Agagite, the enemy of all the Jews, had devised against the Jews to destroy them, and had cast Pur, that is the lot, to consume them, and to destroy them; but when Esther came before the king, he commanded by letters that his wicked device which he devised against the Jews should return upon his own head, and that he and his sons should be hanged on the gallows. Wherefore they called these days Purim after the word Pur. Therefore, for all the words of the letter and what they had seen concerning the matter, and which had come upon them, the Jews ordained and took upon them, and upon all such as joined themselves unto them so that it should not fail, that they would keep these two days according to their writing and according to their time every year; and that these days should be remembered and kept throughout every generation, every family, every province and every city; and that these days of Purim should not fail among the Jews, nor the memorial of them perish from their seed.

Then Esther the queen, the daughter of Abihail, and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all authority to confirm this second letter of Purim. And he sent the letters unto all the Jews, to the hundred twenty and seven provinces of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, words of peace and truth, to confirm those days of Purim in their times appointed, according as Mordecai the Jew and Esther the queen had enjoined them, and as they had decreed for themselves and for their seed,-the matters of their fasting and their cry. And the decree of Esther confirmed these matters of Purim; and it was written in the book.

And the king Ahasuerus laid a tribute upon the land, and upon the isles of the sea. And all the acts of his power and of his might, and the declaration of the greatness of Mordecai whereunto the king advanced him, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia?

For Mordecai the Jew was next unto king Ahasuerus, and great among the Jews, and accepted of the multitude of his brethren, seeking the prosperity of his people, and speaking peace to all his seed.1

1 The author seems to speak in all good faith of the_enrollment of these events in the Persian records; but Herodotus, in his history of the Greco-Persian war in the reign of this very king, makes no mention of the Jews at all, though he gives the quota furnished by the inhabitants of their land (whom he calls the Philistines of Syria) to Xerxes' expedition.

THE SONG OF SONGS

SEVEN SCENES, ONE FOR EACH DAY OF A WEDDING-FESTIVAL 1

O for the kisses of thy mouth!
For thy love is sweeter than wine;
Thine ointments have a goodly fragrance,
Thy name is like ointments poured forth.
Therefore do maidens love thee. Draw me-

Above uprightness do

I am sun-burned but pleasing,
As the tents of Kedar,

Look not askance on me

(laughing)

they love thee!
(To her maidens)

O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
as the curtains of Solomon.
because I am swarthy,
Because the sun hath tanned me;
My mother's sons were incensed against me,
They made me keeper of the vineyards;

Alas, mine own vineyard have I not kept!

(To the Bridegroom approaching)

Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth,
Where thou feedest thy flock, where it resteth at noon?
For why should I be left to wander

Among the flocks of thy companions?

If 'tis not known to thee, O fairest of women,

Follow the tracks of the flocks

And feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents.

To the mares in Pharaoh's chariots have I likened thee, O my love!
Thy cheeks are comely with circlets of beads,
Thy neck with strings of coral;

We will make thee circlets of gold with studs of silver.

The age-old customs of a Syrian wedding, still observed, give the best interpretation of this Idyll. The festival lasts seven days. The bride and groom play the parts of king and queen. Each has numerous attendants who, like the bystanders listening to the Dionysian dithyramb that developed into the Greek Drama, interrupt the protagonists and vivify the action.

THE BRIDE

While the king sat at his table,

My spikenard sent forth its fragrance.
My beloved is unto me as a bundle of myrrh
That lieth between my breasts.

My beloved is unto me as a cluster of henna
In the vineyards of En-gedi.

THE BRIDEGROOM

Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair;
Thine eyes are the eyes of a dove.

THE BRIDE

Behold, thou art fair, my beloved; yea, pleasant;

Also our couch is green.

The beams of our house are cedars,

And our rafters are firs.

I am a rose of Sharon,

a lily of the valleys.

THE BRIDEGROOM

As the lily among thorns,

So is my love among the daughters.

THE BRIDE

As the apple-tree among the trees of the wood,
So is my beloved among the sons.

I sat down under his shadow with great delight,
And its fruit was sweet to my taste.

He hath brought me to the banqueting-house,
And his banner over me is love.

Stay me with dainties, refresh me with apples,
For I am love-sick.

(She sings)

Let his left hand be under my head,
And let his right hand embrace me.

I charge you, ye daughters of Jerusalem,
By the roes and the hinds of the field,
That ye stir not up, nor awaken love,
Until it please.

FOR THE SECOND DAY

(Ch. ii, 8-17; iii, 1-5)

THE BRIDE (sings)

The voice of my beloved!

Behold, he cometh

Leaping upon the mountains, skipping upon the hills.
My beloved is like a roe, or a young hart;
Behold, he standeth behind our wall;
He looketh in at the windows,
He showeth himself through the lattice.

My beloved spake, and said unto me:
Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away;

For lo, the winter is past,

The flowers appear on the earth,

the rain is over and gone;
the time of singing is come,

And the turtle-dove's voice is heard in the land.

The fig-tree ripeneth her figs,

Arise, my love,

the vine-blossoms give fragrance; my fair one,

And come away.

O my dove, that art in the clefts of the rock,
In the coverts of the cliffs,

Let me see thy countenance,
For sweet is thy voice,

let me hear thy voice;
and thy countenance is comely.

Let us catch the foxes, the little foxes, that spoil the vineyards, For our vineyards are in blossom.

and I am his;

He feedeth his flock among the lilies;

My beloved is mine,

(She sings)

Until the day breathe

and the shadows flee away,

Upon the cleft hills.

Turn, my beloved, be thou like a gazelle or a young hart

The watchmen that go about the city found me;
To whom I said: Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?
Scarcely had I left them

Than I found him whom my soul loveth.
I held him, and would not let him go,

Until I had brought him

And into the chamber

I charge you,

into my mother's house,
of her who conceived me.

(Sings)

O daughters of Jerusalem

By the roes, and the hinds of the field,
nor awaken love'

That ye stir not up,

Until it please.

FOR THE THIRD DAY, THE DAY OF THE ESPOUSALS (Ch. iii, 6—v, i)

(The Bystanders Discuss the Procession)

Who is this that cometh up out of the wilderness
Like pillars of smoke,

Perfumed with myrrh and frankincense
With all powders of the merchant?

Behold, it is [like] the litter of Solomon!
Threescore mighty men are about it

Of the mighty men of Israel.

They all handle the sword, and are expert in war.
Every man hath his sword on his thigh,
Because of dread in the night.

King Solomon made himself a litter
Of the wood of Lebanon.

He made the pillars thereof of silver, the top thereof of gold.
The seat of it of purple;

The sides thereof being lovingly broidered
By the daughters of Jerusalem.