Queens and Power in Medieval and Early Modern England

8. Crafting Queens: Early Modern Readings of Esther

8 Crafting Queens Early Modern Readings of Esther michele osherow The Old Testament’s Queen Esther, heroine of the biblical book that bears her name, was an extremely popular figure in early modern England. Her story appears on canvases, papers, and silks. Sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestant ministers and those attending to female behavior considered Esther the embodiment of feminine virtue and praised her beauty and obedience. In 1582 Thomas Bentley remarked that Esther, “Though . . . a royal queene, yet was obedient unto . . . her poore kinsman . . . and did in everything after his counsel and advise.”1 Similarly, Thomas Heywood claimed that none is “better, more obedient than [Esther].”2 While the duty Esther demonstrates is palpable, she also assumes an unmistakable authority in her narrative—a narrative that ends with the deaths of thousands at the hands of the Jews. There are moments when Esther would seem to uphold the silence and obedience prescribed for early modern women, but it becomes clear that the display of these virtues conceals Esther’s larger, more severe purposes. The early modern practice of cloaking Esther in obedience is a reaction, I believe, to the threat contained within her story; interpretations, ฀142 michele osherow retellings, and reimaginings of Esther reveal a grappling with early modern concepts of female authority and the performance of femininity . Esther’s virtue depends upon artifice. Her clever deceptions benefit her people and enable her to undermine the male authority she is engaged to serve. The book of Esther begins with an apparent loss of feminine authority when Queen Vashti is banished from Persia. In the earliest verses it is feminine performance—or the refusal of performance— that propels the story: Vashti disobeys the drunken King Ahasuerus ’s command to appear before him and his advisors.3 Vashti’s modesty seems appropriate for a queen and is commended in some early modern readings, but her refusal shakes the foundations of Persian patriarchy.4 The queen is exiled in order that—and the Bible could not be more clear—“euerie man shulde beare rule in his owne house.”5 Esther is introduced in her narrative as a solution to the problem of a disobedient wife. Her arrival on the scene fulfills the king’s sexual and social needs, but her presence at court requires a series of feminine displays that facilitate deception. Esther will appear in a royal beauty pageant, the preparations for which last nearly one year. She is costumed, doused with scent and oils, and surrenders herself entirely to the hands of the court eunuch.6 Early modern readers delighted in Esther’s “makeover” and used it to justify their own cosmetic indulgences.7 “We may read that queen Esther made use of sweet perfumes . . . and . . . whatsoever was then in fashion,” writes Hannah Woolley, “and this was in her so far from a sin, that it had been almost a sin in her not to have done it.”8 The narrative makes clear Esther’s willingness to follow instruction. This may be considered a show of obedience, but more important, it facilitates disguise. She drops her Hebrew name and follows her cousin Mordecai’s advice to conceal her Jewish identity.9 143 crafting queens Esther’s disguise will prove her greatest asset in overcoming her enemy, and it is a cunning practice for which the Bible prepares us. Esther and her cousin are identified immediately in the narrative as descendants of the Tribe of Benjamin.10 Of all Israel’s tribes, the Benjaminites have a most suspicious history. In the Hebrew Bible they are associated with lechery and trickery—a biblical reading that extends back to the early modern period. John Mayer delicately observes that Benjaminites used “their left hands as their right”11 ; and he reminds his audience of the biblical injunction “Curseth bee hee that giveth his daughter to Benjamin to wife.”12 In the story of Esther, the heroine’s link to the Tribe of Benjamin signals an approaching deceit. It also helps to explain the apparently unholy purpose that prompts Esther’s arrival at the palace. Before Esther’s royal selection, the king amuses himself by deflowering virgins, and the narrative details the routine: “In the evening [the virgin] went, and on the morrow shee returned into the second house . . . which kept the concubines: shee came into the king no more, except . . . that she were called by name.”13...