'A clear reminiscence' of the time when Esther was the goddess bride of
Mordecai (her cousin) appears in modern Jewish plays in which Mordecai
is the lover (I hope merely platonic) of Esther.[12] And a very natural
modern touch it is. The pair were cousins, and Esther was extremely
pretty. In exactly the same way two little girls of my acquaintance
dramatised 'Bluebeard,' and made the _brother_ (who rescues Mrs.
Bluebeard in the tale) the _lover_ of Mrs. Bluebeard. She had preferred
to marry Bluebeard for his money, on which, in this most immoral drama,
Mrs. Bluebeard and her lover, her husband's slayer, lived happily ever
afterwards. This is modern! The original tale does not run thus.
Again, Mr. Frazer says that the Babbis maintain that Xerxes only wedded
a shadow Esther, 'while the real Esther sat on the lap of Mordecai.'
A most natural shift to save Esther's character in a case of mixed
marriages. So Stesichorus and Euripides, long before, gave a shadow
Helen into the arms of Paris. The real Helen, meanwhile, saved her
character by leading a life of remarkable purity in Egypt. These
late shifts and evasions have no real bearing on the question of the
original relations between Esther and Mordecai.