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whom the Emperor, in one swift blow, could forget his bereavement over Tiridates, for it was enough to look at Vashti and he was bewitched; Parysatis tried everything humanly possible against her, availing herself of the wives secluded in the zenana, particularly the jealous Ionian Asparia, pushed into the gray background of the zenana because of Vashti; she used all the machinations of zenana-intrigue, she used the priests of the faith of Marduk and the priests opposed to the faith of Marduk, as well as the so-called “male societies” formed to resist the autocracy of Ahura Mazda, as well as the antipathies of the Zoroastrian priests who repudiated these “male societies,” she tried everything but without result, her first-born, and not high-born, was blinded by the Babylonian beauty, who sat upon the throne and wore the crown on her sweetly curling flaxen hair as if she had always been seated upon that throne, and as if that crown had always been meant for her; simply put, nothing could touch her, nothing in the entire God-given world, Vashti’s position grew ever more solid, in parallel with the Empire, which again only strengthened the position of the Great Queen as it grew and became ever more powerful, never had there been an Empire of this extent in all the world within the reason’s grasp, in addition the residents of the Empire relished the great peace in the wake of the great wars, which they ascribed to the personal talents of the Emperor, taking it as equal proof that the most supreme Deity of the Heavens, Ahura Mazda, was happy to see the Great King upon the throne; in short, Vashti seemed unassailable; the Queen Mother fretted in her apartments, maddened by the impotence of her fury, only able to trust now that something would happen to bring about the end — as it usually did — to this nauseating peace in the Empire and this deplorable romance in the royal palace, she watched the Great King, growing ever stouter, and she was besieged by splitting headaches, she watched the radiant Babylonian slut and she was nauseated, but for the time being there was nothing she could do, just keep watching, Parysatis said to herself in between the headaches and the nausea, one day this too will come to an end, because Ahura Mazda in the heavens wished it so, and thus it came about, and her waiting and her torment were not in vain, for the end did come, so easily, so self-evidently that she herself, Parysatis, was the most surprised of all, when she heard after the conclusion of the official celebration of the monarch’s ascension to the throne that the Great King was held by even his closest devotees to be incapable of the most trifling of decisions, and the word had began to spread as well in the subjugated provinces that the Emperor was weak; Artaxerxes would permit anything at all, but not this, so that after the rejoicing, lasting 180 days, a festival of seven days was ordered for the old and newly conquered princes, the old and newly conquered kings, to be held on the opposite bank of the river, in the Apadana, built as it were to face the palace of Darius in Susa in order to demonstrate the dignity of his right to the throne and his strength — but from this point on everything became very confused, and even Parysatis could only follow the events with difficulty, as for a while she had believed that the Great King was incapable of true wrath; the first reports of this had already arrived, the only problem being that custom did not allow her to approach the Apadana herself, to witness with her own two eyes at this so-called celebration, descended into drunken roistering, this anger, in any case the second report spoke of violent rage, the eunuchs practically flying between the zenana and the Apadana, the Emperor is foaming at the mouth, they whispered into her ear, he is jabbering and yammering and howling and bawling, and all of the guests are in shock; the celebration has fallen apart and come to an end;