After these things, when the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased, he remembered Vashti, and what After these things, when the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased, he remembered Vashti, and what she had done, and what was decreed against her.
After these things, when the wrath of king Ahasuerus was appeased. On recovering from the violent excitement of his revelry and rage, the king was pierced with poignant regret for the unmerited treatment he had given to his beautiful and dignified queen. But, according to the law, which made the word of a Persian king irrevocable, she could not be restored. His counselors, for their own sake, were solicitous to remove his disquietude, and hastened to recommend the adoption of all suitable means for gratifying their royal master with another consort of equal or superior attractions to those of his divorced queen.
The Persian monarch could legally choose a wife only from six noble ramifies (Herodotus, 3:, 84). But, of course, in the exercise of absolute power, he could break through this restriction; and in existing circumstances, irritable, and depressed by the disastrous issue of his expedition into Greece, he was urged by his politic counselors, who were desirous of diverting his mind from gloomy reflections, to search the kingdom for a queen.
In the despotic countries of the East the custom obtains that, when an order is sent to a family for a young damsel to repair to the royal palace, the parents, however unwilling, dare not refuse the honour for their daughter; and although they know that when she is once into the royal harem they will never see her again, they are obliged to yield a silent and passive compliance.
In some countries of the East, at the present day, the method adopted by the Persian counselors to procure a wife for their royal master continues to be pursued. From the 'Courier Russe,' June, 1868, copied into all the English newspapers, we learn that the young Emperor of China, having reached the age of 14, the time had come when a wife had to be chosen for him. One hundred and twenty young girls, from eleven to twelve years old, were admitted to the palace on an appointed evening (27th March), as candidates for the queenship. Seven were selected from the number who had to submit to an examination before the empress mother-whose business it is, in the court of Pekin, to make the choice. Letters from Pekin (2nd April) give the additional intelligence that the young lady upon whom the choice of the prince and his mother fell was born at Monkdon, in the province of Chiug-King, that she has attained her eleventh year, and that she was extremely beautiful.
On the occasion referred to in Shushan (Herodotus, b. 6:, 32), a general search was commanded to be made for the greatest beauties throughout the empire, in the hope that, from their ranks, the disconsolate monarch might select one for the honour of succeeding to the royal honours of Vashti. The damsels, on arrival at the palace, were brought to the "house of the women" х beeyt (H1004) hanaashiym (H802)] - i:e., the harem, a portion of the palace constituting an entire and separate domicile, and furnished largely, as the 'Targum' says, with baths, unguents, and every material conducive to luxury, ornament, and cleanliness. They were placed under the custody of "Hege the king's chamberlain, keeper of the women" [cªriym], the chief eunuch-usually a repulsive old man, on whom the court ladies are very dependent, and whose favour they are always desirous to secure.