Vashti
Encyclopedia
Queen Vashti is the first wife of King Ahasuerus
in the Book of Esther
, a book included in the Hebrew Bible
(Old Testament
) and read on the Jewish holiday of Purim
. She is banished for her refusal to appear at the king's banquet, and Esther
is chosen to succeed her as queen. In the Midrash
, Vashti is described as wicked and vain. Or by Talmud from Jerusalem she is also and often viewed as an independent-minded heroine in feminist
interpretations of the Purim story.
, Vashti is the wife of King Ahasuerus
. While the king holds a magnificent banquet for his princes, nobles and servants, she holds a separate banquet for the women. On the seventh day of the banquet, when the king's heart was "merry with wine," the king orders his seven chamberlains to summon Vashti to come before him and his guests wearing only her royal crown, in order to display her beauty. Vashti refuses to come, and the king becomes angry. He asks his advisers how Vashti should be punished for her disobedience. His adviser Memucan tells him that Vashti has wronged not only the king, but also all of the husbands of Persia, whose wives may be encouraged by Vashti's actions to disobey. Memucan encourages Ahasuerus to dismiss Vashti and find another queen. Ahasuerus takes Memucan's advice, and sends letters to all of the provinces that men should dominate in their households. Ahasuerus subsequently chooses Esther
as his queen to replace Vashti.
King Ahaseurus's command for the appearance of Queen Vashti is sometimes interpreted as an order to appear unclothed and/or dance for attendees. Though it was common in the culture for dancers to entertain the king's guests, this interpretation is inconsistent with Persian customs that "the queen, even more than the wives of other men, was secluded from the public gaze". In further dispute of this interpretation is the fact that the Hebrew Bible
, the most exhaustive collection of ancient Hebrew writings from the era of Esther, contains no instances of the Hebrew word "יֳפי" ("yopî"—transliterated, pron: "yof-ee", English: "beauty") describing Queen Vashti in the Biblical account of the story in any context associating it with nudity or indecency.
and Vashti with a wife named Amestris
mentioned by Herodotus
. Traditional sources, however, identify Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes II. Jacob Hoschander supporting the traditional identification suggested that Vashti may be identical to a wife of Artaxerxes mentioned by Plutarch, named Stateira
. These identifications are problematic however. Amestris remained in power well into the reign of her son Artaxerxes I and moreover the identification of Ahasuerus with Xerxes was rejected by later scholars. Similarly details of Stateira do not accord with Vashti as Stateira was an early wife murdered by Artaxerxes II's mother while the events of Purim occur late in his reign. (Artaxerxes II is said to have had 350 wives.)
Persian tradition recorded by Al-Tabari
regards Vashti as a distinct historical figure.
, with the feminine termination -ī; hence "excellent woman, best of women".
Hoschander proposed that it originated as a shortening of an unattested vashtateira which he also proposed as the origin of the name "Stateira".
Hitchcock' Bible Names Dictionary of the 19th century, attempting to interpret the name as Hebrew, suggested the meanings "that drinks" or "thread". Critics of the historicity of the book of Esther proposed that the name may have originated from a conjectured Elam
ite goddess whom they called "Mashti."
Vashti is one of a very few proper names in the Tanakh
that begins with the letter waw
, and by far the most prominently mentioned of them. Hebrew names that begin with waw are rare because of the etymological tendency for word-initial waw to become yodh
(e.g. Hebrew יין yáyin "wine" < Proto-Semitic *wayn).
, Vashti was the great-granddaughter of King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, the granddaughter of King Amel-Marduk and the daughter of King Belshazzar
. During Vashti's father's rule, mobs of Medes and Persians attacked. They murdered Belshazzar that night. Vashti, unknowing of her father's death, ran to her father's quarters. There she was kidnapped by King Darius of Persia. But Darius took pity on her and gave her to his son, Ahasuerus, to marry.
Based on Vashti's descent from a king who was responsible for the destruction of the temple as well as on her unhappy fate, the Midrash presents Vashti as wicked and vain. Since Vashti is ordered to appear before the king on the seventh day of the feast, the rabbis argued that Vashti enslaved Jewish women and forced them to work on the Sabbath. They attribute her unwillingness to appear before the king and his drinking partners not to modesty, but rather to an affliction with a disfiguring illness. One account relates that she suffered from leprosy, while another states that the angel Gabriel came and "fixed a tail on her." The latter possibility is often interpreted as "a euphemism for a miraculous transformation to male anatomy."
According to the Midrashic account, Vashti was a savvy politician, and the ladies' banquet that she held in parallel to Ahasuerus' banquet represented an astute political maneuver. Since the noble women of the kingdom would be present at her banquet, she would have control of a valuable group of hostages in case a coup occurred during the king's feast.
and Harriet Beecher Stowe
, admired Vashti's principle and courage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that Vashti "added new glory to [her] day and generation...by her disobedience; for "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Harriet Beecher Stowe called Vashti's disobedience the "first stand for woman's rights."
Some more recent feminist interpreters of the Book of Esther compare Vashti's character and actions favorably to those of her successor, Esther, who is traditionally viewed as the heroine of the Purim story. Michelle Landsberg, a Canadian Jewish feminist, writes: "Saving the Jewish people was important, but at the same time [Esther's] whole submissive, secretive way of being was the absolute archetype of 1950's womanhood. It repelled me. I thought, 'Hey, what's wrong with Vashti? She had dignity. She had self-respect. She said: 'I'm not going to dance for you and your pals.'"
Dianne Tidball argues that while Vashti is a feminist icon, Esther is a "post-feminist
icon".
What beauty is there, but thou makest it?
How is earth good to look on, woods and fields,
The season's garden, and the courageous hills,
All this green raft of earth moored in the seas?
The manner of the sun to ride the air,
The stars God has imagined for the night?
What's this behind them, that we cannot near,
Secret still on the point of being blabbed,
The ghost in the world that flies from being named?
Where do they get their beauty from, all these?
They do but glaze a lantern lit for man,
And woman's beauty is the flame therein.
Ahasuerus
Ahasuerus is a name used several times in the Hebrew Bible, as well as related legends and Apocrypha. This name is applied in the Hebrew Scriptures to three rulers...
in the Book of Esther
Book of Esther
The Book of Esther is a book in the Ketuvim , the third section of the Jewish Tanakh and is part of the Christian Old Testament. The Book of Esther or the Megillah is the basis for the Jewish celebration of Purim...
, a book included in the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
(Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
) and read on the Jewish holiday of Purim
Purim
Purim is a Jewish holiday that commemorates the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire from destruction in the wake of a plot by Haman, a story recorded in the Biblical Book of Esther .Purim is celebrated annually according to the Hebrew calendar on the 14th...
. She is banished for her refusal to appear at the king's banquet, and Esther
Esther
Esther , born Hadassah, is the eponymous heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther.According to the Bible, she was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus...
is chosen to succeed her as queen. In the Midrash
Midrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....
, Vashti is described as wicked and vain. Or by Talmud from Jerusalem she is also and often viewed as an independent-minded heroine in feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
interpretations of the Purim story.
In the Book of Esther
In EstherBook of Esther
The Book of Esther is a book in the Ketuvim , the third section of the Jewish Tanakh and is part of the Christian Old Testament. The Book of Esther or the Megillah is the basis for the Jewish celebration of Purim...
, Vashti is the wife of King Ahasuerus
Ahasuerus
Ahasuerus is a name used several times in the Hebrew Bible, as well as related legends and Apocrypha. This name is applied in the Hebrew Scriptures to three rulers...
. While the king holds a magnificent banquet for his princes, nobles and servants, she holds a separate banquet for the women. On the seventh day of the banquet, when the king's heart was "merry with wine," the king orders his seven chamberlains to summon Vashti to come before him and his guests wearing only her royal crown, in order to display her beauty. Vashti refuses to come, and the king becomes angry. He asks his advisers how Vashti should be punished for her disobedience. His adviser Memucan tells him that Vashti has wronged not only the king, but also all of the husbands of Persia, whose wives may be encouraged by Vashti's actions to disobey. Memucan encourages Ahasuerus to dismiss Vashti and find another queen. Ahasuerus takes Memucan's advice, and sends letters to all of the provinces that men should dominate in their households. Ahasuerus subsequently chooses Esther
Esther
Esther , born Hadassah, is the eponymous heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther.According to the Bible, she was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus...
as his queen to replace Vashti.
King Ahaseurus's command for the appearance of Queen Vashti is sometimes interpreted as an order to appear unclothed and/or dance for attendees. Though it was common in the culture for dancers to entertain the king's guests, this interpretation is inconsistent with Persian customs that "the queen, even more than the wives of other men, was secluded from the public gaze". In further dispute of this interpretation is the fact that the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
, the most exhaustive collection of ancient Hebrew writings from the era of Esther, contains no instances of the Hebrew word "יֳפי" ("yopî"—transliterated, pron: "yof-ee", English: "beauty") describing Queen Vashti in the Biblical account of the story in any context associating it with nudity or indecency.
Identification in history
In the 19th and early 20th century, Bible commentators attempted to identify Vashti with Persian queens mentioned by the Greek historians. Upon the discovery of the equivalence of the names Ahasuerus and Xerxes, Bible commentators attempted to identify Ahasuerus with Xerxes I of PersiaXerxes I of Persia
Xerxes I of Persia , Ḫšayāršā, ), also known as Xerxes the Great, was the fifth king of kings of the Achaemenid Empire.-Youth and rise to power:...
and Vashti with a wife named Amestris
Amestris
Amestris or Amastris was the wife of Xerxes I of Persia, mother of king Artaxerxes I of Persia. She was known to have been poorly regarded by ancient Greek historians....
mentioned by Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
. Traditional sources, however, identify Ahasuerus with Artaxerxes II. Jacob Hoschander supporting the traditional identification suggested that Vashti may be identical to a wife of Artaxerxes mentioned by Plutarch, named Stateira
Stateira (wife of Artaxerxes II)
Stateira was the wife of king Artaxerxes II of Persia.Asteroid 831 Stateira is named in her honour.- Biography :Stateira was the daughter of the Persian nobleman Hydarnes. She married Artaxerxes II, the oldest son of Darius II of Persia and his wife Parysatis...
. These identifications are problematic however. Amestris remained in power well into the reign of her son Artaxerxes I and moreover the identification of Ahasuerus with Xerxes was rejected by later scholars. Similarly details of Stateira do not accord with Vashti as Stateira was an early wife murdered by Artaxerxes II's mother while the events of Purim occur late in his reign. (Artaxerxes II is said to have had 350 wives.)
Persian tradition recorded by Al-Tabari
Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari
Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari was a prominent and influential Sunni scholar and exegete of the Qur'an from Persia...
regards Vashti as a distinct historical figure.
Meaning of the name
The meaning of the name Vashti is uncertain. As a modern Persian name it is understood to mean "beauty" or "goodness". It may have originated from the reconstructed Old Persian *vaištī, related to the superlative adjective vahišta- "best, excellent" found in the AvestaAvesta
The Avesta is the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language.-Early transmission:The texts of the Avesta — which are all in the Avestan language — were composed over the course of several hundred years. The most important portion, the Gathas,...
, with the feminine termination -ī; hence "excellent woman, best of women".
Hoschander proposed that it originated as a shortening of an unattested vashtateira which he also proposed as the origin of the name "Stateira".
Hitchcock' Bible Names Dictionary of the 19th century, attempting to interpret the name as Hebrew, suggested the meanings "that drinks" or "thread". Critics of the historicity of the book of Esther proposed that the name may have originated from a conjectured Elam
Elam
Elam was an ancient civilization located in what is now southwest Iran. Elam was centered in the far west and the southwest of modern-day Iran, stretching from the lowlands of Khuzestan and Ilam Province, as well as a small part of southern Iraq...
ite goddess whom they called "Mashti."
Vashti is one of a very few proper names in the Tanakh
Tanakh
The Tanakh is a name used in Judaism for the canon of the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh is also known as the Masoretic Text or the Miqra. The name is an acronym formed from the initial Hebrew letters of the Masoretic Text's three traditional subdivisions: The Torah , Nevi'im and Ketuvim —hence...
that begins with the letter waw
Waw (letter)
Waw is the sixth letter of the Northwest Semitic family of scripts, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic ....
, and by far the most prominently mentioned of them. Hebrew names that begin with waw are rare because of the etymological tendency for word-initial waw to become yodh
Yodh
Yodh is the tenth letter of many Semitic alphabets, including Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew Yud , Syriac and Arabic...
(e.g. Hebrew יין yáyin "wine" < Proto-Semitic *wayn).
In the Midrash
According to the MidrashMidrash
The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....
, Vashti was the great-granddaughter of King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon, the granddaughter of King Amel-Marduk and the daughter of King Belshazzar
Belshazzar
Belshazzar, or Balthazar , was a 6th century BC prince of Babylon, the son of Nabonidus and the last king of Babylon according to the Book of Daniel . Like his father, it is believed by many scholars that he was an Assyrian. In Daniel Belshazzar, or Balthazar , was a 6th century BC prince of...
. During Vashti's father's rule, mobs of Medes and Persians attacked. They murdered Belshazzar that night. Vashti, unknowing of her father's death, ran to her father's quarters. There she was kidnapped by King Darius of Persia. But Darius took pity on her and gave her to his son, Ahasuerus, to marry.
Based on Vashti's descent from a king who was responsible for the destruction of the temple as well as on her unhappy fate, the Midrash presents Vashti as wicked and vain. Since Vashti is ordered to appear before the king on the seventh day of the feast, the rabbis argued that Vashti enslaved Jewish women and forced them to work on the Sabbath. They attribute her unwillingness to appear before the king and his drinking partners not to modesty, but rather to an affliction with a disfiguring illness. One account relates that she suffered from leprosy, while another states that the angel Gabriel came and "fixed a tail on her." The latter possibility is often interpreted as "a euphemism for a miraculous transformation to male anatomy."
According to the Midrashic account, Vashti was a savvy politician, and the ladies' banquet that she held in parallel to Ahasuerus' banquet represented an astute political maneuver. Since the noble women of the kingdom would be present at her banquet, she would have control of a valuable group of hostages in case a coup occurred during the king's feast.
Vashti as a feminist icon
Vashti's refusal to obey the summons of her drunken husband has been admired as heroic in many feminist interpretations of the Book of Esther. Early feminists, such as Elizabeth Cady StantonElizabeth Cady Stanton
Elizabeth Cady Stanton was an American social activist, abolitionist, and leading figure of the early woman's movement...
and Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
, admired Vashti's principle and courage. Elizabeth Cady Stanton wrote that Vashti "added new glory to [her] day and generation...by her disobedience; for "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God." Harriet Beecher Stowe called Vashti's disobedience the "first stand for woman's rights."
Some more recent feminist interpreters of the Book of Esther compare Vashti's character and actions favorably to those of her successor, Esther, who is traditionally viewed as the heroine of the Purim story. Michelle Landsberg, a Canadian Jewish feminist, writes: "Saving the Jewish people was important, but at the same time [Esther's] whole submissive, secretive way of being was the absolute archetype of 1950's womanhood. It repelled me. I thought, 'Hey, what's wrong with Vashti? She had dignity. She had self-respect. She said: 'I'm not going to dance for you and your pals.'"
Dianne Tidball argues that while Vashti is a feminist icon, Esther is a "post-feminist
Postfeminism
Post-feminism is a reaction against some perceived contradictions and absences of second-wave feminism. The term post-feminism is ill-defined and is used in inconsistent ways...
icon".
Popular culture
- Vashti is the name of one of the principal characters in E. M. ForsterE. M. ForsterEdward Morgan Forster OM, CH was an English novelist, short story writer, essayist and librettist. He is known best for his ironic and well-plotted novels examining class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society...
's prophetic science fiction piece "The Machine StopsThe Machine Stops"The Machine Stops" is a science fiction short story by E. M. Forster. After initial publication in The Oxford and Cambridge Review , the story was republished in Forster's The Eternal Moment and Other Stories in 1928...
".
- In Charlotte BrontëCharlotte BrontëCharlotte Brontë was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters who survived into adulthood, whose novels are English literature standards...
's novel VilletteVillette (novel)Villette is a novel by Charlotte Brontë, published in 1853. After an unspecified family disaster, protagonist Lucy Snowe travels to the fictional city of Villette to teach at an all-girls school where she is unwillingly pulled into both adventure and romance...
, the protagonist Lucy Snowe calls an actress she admires Vashti. A chapter of this novel is called Vashti.
- A reference to Vashti's dethroning by EstherEstherEsther , born Hadassah, is the eponymous heroine of the Biblical Book of Esther.According to the Bible, she was a Jewish queen of the Persian king Ahasuerus...
also appears in the short story "A Strayed Allegiance" by Lucy Maud MontgomeryLucy Maud MontgomeryLucy Maud Montgomery OBE , called "Maud" by family and friends and publicly known as L.M. Montgomery, was a Canadian author best known for a series of novels beginning with Anne of Green Gables, published in 1908. Anne of Green Gables was an immediate success...
.
- Vashti is the name of a character in Karen HesseKaren HesseKaren Hesse is an American author of children's literature and literature for young adults, often with historical settings.-Life:...
's 1997 book "A Time of Angels", set during the influenza epidemic of 1918 in Boston. Vashti is a stern, stubborn, complex woman with great gifts of healing.
- Jane WithersJane WithersJane Withers is an American actress best known for being one of the most popular child film stars of the 1930s and early 1940s, as well as for her portrayal of "Josephine the Plumber" in a series of TV commercials for Comet cleanser in the 1960s and early 1970s.-Biography:Withers began her career...
played a character named Vashti Snythe in the 1956 James DeanJames DeanJames Byron Dean was an American film actor. He is a cultural icon, best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause , in which he starred as troubled Los Angeles teenager Jim Stark...
-Elizabeth TaylorElizabeth TaylorDame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
-Rock HudsonRock HudsonRoy Harold Scherer, Jr., later Roy Harold Fitzgerald , known professionally as Rock Hudson, was an American film and television actor, recognized as a romantic leading man during the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in several romantic comedies with Doris Day.Hudson was voted "Star of the Year",...
epic film Giant.
- Vashti (1894) is the name of a poem by Anglo-American poet, lawyer and politician John Brayshaw KayeJohn Brayshaw KayeJohn Brayshaw Kaye was an English-born American poet, lawyer and politician.-Life and works:John Brayshaw Kaye was born in Yorkshire, England, June 10, 1841, the fifth child and the fourth son of Abram and Mary Kaye, in a family of fourteen children...
. Kaye portrays Vashti as a wise and virtuous woman who finds herself exiled because of court politics; she adopts an orphan girl, Meta, and takes care of her, and lives out her life after the palace in solitude, but also close to nature and beauty, and loved by her adopted daughter.
- The African American poet Frances E.W. Harper wrote an admiring poem about Vashti ("Vashti," 1895) in which she found self-respect to be Vashti's motivating force in her decision not to appear when the drunken king called her to show herself to his courtiers; in the last lines of the poem, she calls Vashti "A woman who could bend to grief, /But would not bow to shame."
- James Weldon Johnson's poem "Vashti" (published in Fifty Years & Other Poems, 1863-1913) is a meditation in the voice of an enamored male servant of a princess whom he meets later, in exile, finding a greater gulf between them than before, even. Names are not used within the poem itself; the name "Vashti" appears only in the title.
- Lascelles Abercrombie (1881–1938), a British poet also known as "The Georgian Laureate," wrote a 40-page poem entitled "Vashti" which contains the famous lines, spoken by Ahasuerus to Vashti, on women's beauty:
What beauty is there, but thou makest it?
How is earth good to look on, woods and fields,
The season's garden, and the courageous hills,
All this green raft of earth moored in the seas?
The manner of the sun to ride the air,
The stars God has imagined for the night?
What's this behind them, that we cannot near,
Secret still on the point of being blabbed,
The ghost in the world that flies from being named?
Where do they get their beauty from, all these?
They do but glaze a lantern lit for man,
And woman's beauty is the flame therein.