Chapter XXXII: Section II: Esther

Khshayarsha, from _Kshaya_ (a king), and _arsha_ (venerable), was the word that was converted in Hebrew into Achashverosh, and in our Bible into Ahasuerus, while the Greeks called it Xerxes. In Illyria people are christened from him Kserksas, and called Sersa, and a few seekers of Scripture names, chiefly in America, have called their sons Ahasuerus, in common life Hazzy.

The reigning wife of Xerxes is known to have been Amestris, the daughter of an Achæmenian noble, and she might well have been Vashti, set aside only for a time when the address of the nobles gained a victory over her. The fair daughter of the tribe of Benjamin, whose royalty ensured her people’s safety, was in her own tongue Hadassah, or the Myrtle; some say, Atossa; but the Persian epithet by which we know her may have been taken from _satarah_, a word showing the ancient union of the languages, since Aster is Arab and Greek; and from thence and the Latin _stella_ have sprung the modern _étoile_, _estrella_, star, _stern_, _stjorna_, which the Septuagint gave as Ἑστὴρ, the Romans as Esthera and Hestera; whence the occasional variations in English of Esther or Essie, and Hester or Hetty.

Not till the days of Racine was Esther much in vogue. The tragedian, being requested to write a sacred drama to be acted by the young ladies of St. Cyr, chose this subject in compliment to Madame de Maintenon, as the faultless Esther preferred before the discarded Vashti, namely, Madame de Montespan! Esther thereupon became a favourite lady’s name in France, and vied in popularity with the cumbrous splendours taken from the Scudery cycle of romance. At the same time it was borne by the two ladies who had the misfortune to be the object of Dean Swift’s affection, Esther Johnson and Esther Vanhomrigh, whom he called, one by the Latin name Stella; the other, by the generic title of our finest English butterflies, Vanessa. Estrella was the heroine of a Spanish pastoral, whence the Abbé Florian borrowed his theatrical shepherdess Estelle, which thus became a French name, though chiefly on the stage, and both Estelle and Stella are sometimes used as Epiphany names for girls.

Roschana, as it is now pronounced, is still common in Persia, and means the dawn of day. Roxane and Statire, as rival heroines of Racine, became proverbs in France for the stately or the languishing form of tragedy dame. Roxana, or Roxy, is one of the favourite American grandiloquent style of names.