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MORDECAI: From whence comes the purpose of a person's life?
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Come it by chance, a casting of the lot,
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or does a call of destiny beckon to each of us?
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sah
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and why a simple Jewish orphan
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was chosen to stand against the annihilation of her people.
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And yet the mystery of the girl most know as Esther
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begins not where one might think,
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but 500 years earlier
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with a single act of disobedience.
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King Saul of the Israelites
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had been sent by the Prophet Samuel
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to wipe out an ancient child-sacrificing enemy.
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So pervasive was their evil
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that not even their oxen nor sheep were to be spared,
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and above all, no survivors left breathing.
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My lord, I give you Agag, king of the Amalekites.
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We have also seized for you his livestock.
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Even his queen.
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What dark portent bid me haste to cross this land of ours?
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How would you accuse me now, O Prophet?
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I carried out your lord's command.
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ears ring
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with the lowing of oxen and the bleating of sheep?
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Your Majesty, the Amalekite queen,
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she escaped.
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We have the king.
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What is one woman?
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You fool,
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she is with child.
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MORDECAI: While the Prophet Samuel put a swift end to King Agag,
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Agag's queen,
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fleeing with the seed of vengeance growing within her,
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the Jews never found.
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HADASSAH: Uncle Mordecai!
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Rebecca, what kind of housekeeper do you think you are?
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Serves you right for bringing home your work.
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HADASSAH: The caravan arrived this morning.
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Well, Susa is the capital of the new world.
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Caravans arrive every day.
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Not from Jerusalem.
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Well, perhaps you ought to go back and ask them
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if they'll arrive the same time next year.
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Next year? You promised.
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Rebecca! REBECCA: Fight your own battles.
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You don't pay me enough to fight the battle for you.
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Good morning, Hadassah.
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And where have you been?
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I'm sorry, Grandmother, the markets were really busy.
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There's a new caravan in from...
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(SHUSHING) Sore subject.
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Uncle Mordecai,
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does not your own heart long to see our people restored to glory?
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It does.
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Did not Cyrus the Great conquer Babylon
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and free our people from captivity?
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He did.
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But do we embrace our freedom and leave this pagan empire
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to embrace our destiny?
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Of course not.
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MORDECAI: Lord,
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I pray to you day and night
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to give me the patience of Job,
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give me the wisdom of Solomon.
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And what do you give me?
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You give me the endless equivocations
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of a beautiful, young woman.
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Look.
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Hadassah, always dreaming.
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Maybe...
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Here, then, you be the princess.
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While many Jews had forgotten the acts of centuries past,
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the descendants of Agag had not.
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For Agag's queen did indeed survive
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and gave birth to a son.
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And she forged for him a mark,
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prophesying that one day an Agagite would arrive,
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a descendant of Agag,
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who would finally exact vengeance upon the Jews.
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GIRL 1: Hadassah, read us a story!
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GIRL 2: Read us a story!
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A story? You want a story?
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GIRL: Hadassah, help!
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Over here.
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Are y
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HADASSAH: "And King Saul said to David,
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"'You cannot go before this Goliath
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"'for you are but a youth.'
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"David replied,
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"'While keeping my father's sheep, there came a l
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"'And I slew them both.
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"'This Goliath
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"'for he defied the armies of the Lord.'"
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As will Jesse Ben-Joseph,
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should he but take one step closer.
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With peace, Haman.
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There's little but random news I bear.
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I judge that.
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Rumor has it
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Queen Vashti plans not
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the King's banquet this evening,
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in protest of the war.
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Apparently the King has no idea.
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Some see random news.
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Others, opportunities.
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Of course, this is why you are a dispatch rider,
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and I am a prince of the Fars.
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Tell me, Agagite,
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what do you do with the extra darics you connive from me?
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I have 10 sons, my lord,
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and a wife that makes many demands.
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(CHUCKLES)
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Ten sons?
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You serve the great king well.
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Come, come. Go you now.
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Speak of me as you lavish your wife and sons.
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ABIHAIL: Happy birthday, Hadassah!
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HADASSAH: A stone ball?
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Remember, Hadassah, it is the glory of God
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to conceal a matter,
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the honor of kings to seek it out.
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It's from the Promised Land.
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Your great-grandmother brought it with her.
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And like you, its true treasure
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is etched within.
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PRIEST: Reconsider my proposition.
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There is much ed for leadership
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More stew, my lord?
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I don't suppose that in your entire caravan
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you have a cook one half as good
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as our Rebecca.
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Here you are but a poor palace scribe,
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one who passes as a Persian, at that.
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Are you a Jew?
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Or have you become a Gentile?
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We're a small people
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caught up in a vast and violent empir.
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We have capricious princes
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who could order our annihilation with the flick of a finger.
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And your presence in the palace might prevent it?
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Probably not.
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Look, tell me what I want to hear about.
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Tell me about the Temple.
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What ecstasy to stand in the presence
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Like the intimate embrace of a husband and wife.
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It's so much deeper than mere mortal love.
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Oh, hello.
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MORDECAI: Now, it came to pass in the days of King Xerxes,
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who ruled over the empire of the Medes and Persians,
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from Ethiopia to India,
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that in the third year of his reign,
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he decreed a season of feasting.
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Rumors of war were in the wind, however,
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and some thought this the King's way
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of stalling off a much-debated decision
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to march on Greece in retaliation for his father's death
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four years before.
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MAN: Queen Vashti, Your Maje
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Enter.
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The night's festivities hold not your interest, dear?
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It is long since you summoned me here.
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Your hands have not been idle.
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Not idle,
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not gifted either.
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MORDECAI: Later, Hadassah, we'll discuss this later.
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I have run out of laters.
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The caravan leaves tomorrow.
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Did not the priest even say it would be good for me?
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me?
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You have so much er
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And perhaps I'm just being a very selfish old man.
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Do you really want to go to Jerusalem?
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Truly.
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Then go with my blessing.
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Rebecca!
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Yes, well, I will be late coming back tonight.
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The feasting has been extended.
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All Susa is invited.
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All of Susa?
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A drunken brawl is no place for a young lady of purity.
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Then why is a good Jew like you going?
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All the scribes have to go!
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There is war in the air!
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(ALL CHATTERING)
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The Queen indeed holds her own feast in protest.
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All is prepared as you have asked.
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You do know why the princes have asked you to extend the feast another night.
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You are too late if you seek me to deny them.
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Especially now.
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Such clamoring to march upon Greece and avenge my father's death.
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How long have you dreamt of molding Persia
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int and
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A flame to make eve but
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as I,
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this is not something that is won in battle
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but in the hearts of men.
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You would have me do nothing, then?
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You're no warrior,
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no soldier.
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I'd have you stay,
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enhance your kingdom,
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preserve your throne.
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Looking for someone?
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hank you.
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You can run back to Rebecca now.
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Oh, I'm sure you're fine.
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Only tell me, Hadassah,
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or whoever you are,
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how do you intend ace?
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You didn't come to take me back?
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Come, or I shall call you Hadassah the mouse.
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Wait!
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I appear to you by the gracious command
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of the great king of kings,
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the emperor of the world, Xerxes, son of Darius.
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Great king.
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(ALL CHEERING)
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We drink.
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We drink also to my guard, the immortal 10,000,
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but I fear I would soon have to send them out
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to conquer new vineyards for me.
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(
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Then let us drink to Queen Vashti,
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the most beautiful in the land.
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Bring forth Vashti!
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Vashti!
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(ALL CHANTING)
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Bring forth Vashti!
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They are serious? They demand Vashti be here before all?
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Already rumors circulate as to why the Queen holds her own feast
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instead of attending yours.
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They sound riotous, my lord.
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They fear a divided kingdom.
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My lord, you know the Queen's position on the war.
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They go She mus
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reigning in a place such as this.
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None is more lovely than you, my queen.
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My thanks, fair prince. Prince?
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Why is it for years you threatened to join the caravans to Jerusalem,
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yet you never do?
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What holds you back?
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Perhaps the courage to face it alone.
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What if you had someone to join you?
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MAN: The herald returns!
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The Queen asks the King's forgiveness.
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She cannot leave her guests.
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VASHTI: I'm queen, not a pawn,
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and I will not lower my dignity
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or shame my reign
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by wearing the royal crown before your drunk
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and thinly veiled war council.
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MAN 1: What news of the Queen?
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MAN 2: Where is our queen?
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MAN 3: Queen Vashti!
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Am I to be a mockery before my subjects?
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Or Greece as well?
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Continue, Cousin.
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Might not this
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deed of refusal
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travel abroad to all women,
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making their husbands contemptible in their eyes?
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Will not it be said by all,
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"Xerxes commanded his wife to come before him,
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"but she came not"?
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Vashti's guilty not only the crown
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but against the protocol of our fathers.