Now we shoot back to the time of Xerxes. Xerxes was the Persian king in between Cyrus and Artaxerxes. He was also the king who brought the Persian empire to it’s greatest level and was the king in the 300.
So king Xerxes was a pretty big deal at his time. They called him Xerxes the great and he definitely tried his best to show people that he had earned this title. He’d throw lavish seven day parties and demanded to his servers that everyone should be able to drink whatever the fuck they ask for and however much of it they want. Meanwhile, Queen Vashti would be throwing lavish parties for the women. Because even though the Persians were more progressive than pretty much everyone before them, this was still BCE and women were definitely not treated as equal.
One day Xerxes was all fucked up and decided he wanted Queen Vashti to come bang him. She refused. He couldn’t even believe that shit. He gathered his council and asked them, “What should I do about this shit? I know she’s my wife, but she disobeyed a direct order from the king.” The council decided, “Yes this is a problem. If women start hearing about this, then they’ll decide to occasionally not listen to their husbands, too! So get her the fuck out as queen and find a new queen. Also make it a rule she can never be in your presence again.”
So word spread that men were in charge of their households. Eventually Xerxes calmed the fuck down, but it was too late. He made a law that Vashti could never be in his presence again and so he had to find a new younger sexier virgin wife. Well it just happened there was an exiled Jew named Mordecai who had been taking care of his niece, Esther. He decided, “Well Esther’s pretty sexy. And as far as I know, she’s still a virgin. Man would my life be awesome if I just gave her right to Xerxes.”
Nobody knew that Esther was Jewish. That becomes important later. So anyways, She underwent 12 months of beauty treatments. Keep in mind this is 480 BCE or so, and beauty treatments have only gotten nicer and gentler over time. So she was super pretty and insanely submissive. Xerxes loved that shit, so he made her his queen and threw a lavish party.
Coincidentally, shortly after this all went down, Mordecai found out about a plot to assassinate Xerxes, which at the time had to have been pretty common. Mordecai told Esther and she told Xerxes. Xerxes killed the two guys responsible, and gave mad props to Mordecai.
So after all that shit and celebration and Esther becoming the queen and Mordecai being raised up into the royal area because he’s a snitch, Xerxes decided he liked this other guy named Haman, too. Haman raised himself through the ranks and became the second most powerful man in the kingdom after Xerxes himself. Haman would just swagger around the city and make everyone bow down to him like an asshole. He certainly let his power get to his head. Mordecai, however would never bow down to him. This little annoyance started eating away at Haman’s head until he made the rational decision, “I can’t just kill Mordecai, that’d be murder. I’ll just convince Xerxes to slaughter all of the jews and wipe them out of history all the fuck together.”
Apparently once a year, all the high ups would draw straws or something and whoever won, got to request a law. Haman won this year. He literally said to Xerxes, “There are people in your kingdom with different customs and traditions. It would be in your best interest to slaughter all of them. If you do, I will put 375 tons of silver into the royal treasury.” Sadly, Xerxes did not recognize this as just another ethnic cleanse, because ethnic cleansing was still an okay thing to do at this point. Also, sadly, this is basically how politics work to this day. So that’s rad. Anyways, Xerxes said, “I don’t even care about the money. Just go do whatever the fuck you want.” So the law was passed. Slaughtering Jews was totally the thing to do.
When Mordecai found out about this he tore all of his clothes off, which is pretty common way to express anger apparently, and put on a burlap sack and wandered around screaming and moaning. He didn’t enter the palace like this because that would be forbidden. A shitload of Jews living in the empire (which was pretty much every Jew that was alive) started also wearing burlap sacks in protest of not wanting to get slaughtered.
Esther found out about this but didn’t quite understand what the fuck was going on. She, apparently, just figured that Mordecai had lost his clothes, so she sent a bunch more to him. Mordecai was like, “Esther. Are you fucking dull? I’m not wearing a burlap sack because it’s all I have. I’m wearing a fucking burlap sack because your shitty husband whose life I saved just told Haman he can kill all of us if he pleases.”
Esther was like, “I don’t even know what to do about this. I haven’t been requested in a fucking month. And I can’t just go to the king whenever I want! That’s not how this shit works.” Mordecai warned her that she would totally either get slaughtered or be the only Jew left on Earth if she didn’t do something. Finally she said, “Go get everyone you know together and don’t eat or drink for 3 days. That’s important for some reason. I’ll go talk to Xerxes and if he kills me, he fucking kills me. Whatever.”
It’s super important to note 2 things.
1. Nobody knew that Esther was jewish and
2. Going in front of Xerxes without his request might bring up some bad memories of Vashti and he just might fucking murder Esther for doing it.
This is mind, Esther walked right up in front of Xerxes and luckily Xerxes was in a good mood. So he pointed his scepter (a gold staff covered in jewels for those who don’t know what that is) out at her and was like, “Hey sexy! What’s up?” Esther said, “I have a favor to ask.” And Xerxes was apparently in a great mood, cuz he responded, “Anything you want, boo. Up to half my fucking kingdom. I don’t care. Take whatever.” Esther said, “I just want you and Haman to come eat some fancy dinner with me.” Xerxes grabbed Haman and they went to eat and get faded. Xerxes couldn’t figure out why Esther would so boldy ask him to dinner and when he finally asked her, “What’s actually going on? What do you really want?” She just invited them both to dinner the next day.
The next day before dinner Haman was out walking around in high spirits until he saw Mordecai. He was just fucking blind with rage and he freaked out to his wife, “I’ve been eating fancy dinner with King Xerxes and Queen Esther! But I don’t even care about any of that shit, because this one random Jew whom I don’t even fucking know pisses me off so bad.” Haman’s wife asked the obvious question, “Why don’t you just fucking kill him?”
Haman decided this was a good idea and built the gallows to prepare for hanging Mordecai for no fucking reason at all. When he went to go tell Xerxes about it, though, Xerxes was busy honoring Mordecai for saving his life that one time. So Haman had to dress Mordecai up in fancy clothes and walk him through town. Then he freaked the fuck out and ran home to his wife. She was like, “Looks like you’re boned.” Just then, Haman got shipped off to the second dinner with Esther and Xerxes.
This time at dinner, Xerxes wasn’t even fucking around with Esther’s shit. He said, “So seriously. Don’t fuck with me. I know you’re not throwing these fancy dinner parties for no reason. Just tell me what you want, and I’ll fucking give it to you.” Esther said, “There’s a man who wants me, and my uncle, and all my people fucking slaughtered for no reason!” Xerxes started to get a little upset and he asked, “Who the fuck would ever want to do that? Who are they? I’ll fucking destroy them!” Esther pointed at Haman and said, “This fucking dingus!”
Xerxes was so pissed that he stormed outside for a second to think about what the fuck to do. While he was outside Haman started begging Esther for mercy. He begged a little too hard and when Xerxes came back in, he was on top of her on the couch. Xerxes was livid and said, “Not only are you trying to kill my wife and her people, now you’re trying to fucking rape her right here on my fucking couch? I will fucking kill you.” One of the eunuchs stepped forward and told Xerxes about the gallows that Haman had built to kill Mordecai on. Xerxes was just like, “Hang Haman from those gallows! That’ll make it easier!”
So Haman was hung, Xerxes made a new law that ethnic cleansing of the Jews was forbidden, he gave Esther everything Haman had previously owned, and he promoted Mordecai to Haman’s old position. Then the Jews made a new holiday named Purim which basically consists of drinking a lot and celebrating still being alive. I think Purim was the first happy Jewish holiday.
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