Esther 2:12

After that she had been twelve months] Time spent without spare, and woefully wasted in making provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof; which the prophet Amos rightly calleth a thing of nought, Amo 6:13; Amo 4:5-6. Is time no better worth than to be thus rioted out in vanity? doth not eternity depend upon it, even the heaviest weights upon the weakest wires? It is therefore a good rule that one giveth,

Corrige praeteritum, rege praesens, cerne futurum.

According to the manner of the women] Who of themselves are apt enough (without an order to do so, as here) to cast away too much time and cost in tricking and trimming their bodies (those painted sheaths), as the comedians have tartly taxed them. Negotii quantum in muliere una est! saith Plautus. What a deal of do is there with one woman in this kind! And Nosti mores mulierum, saith Terence, dum moliuntur, dum comuntur, annus est. And as for the Persian women, Aelian saith that they were above all others most addicted to this vanity (Lib. xii. cap. 1); and yet the haughty daughters of Zion are deeply censured, and heavily threatened, Isa 3:18, where the prophet gives us an inventory of those ladies’ gallantry, and tells them that their fineness shall be turned into filthiness, their neatness become nastiness.

For so were the days of their purification accomplished] What strange preparation was here for the impure bed of a heathen! Every virgin must be six months purified, and six months perfumed. O God, saith one, what care and cost is requisite to that soul which should be addressed a fit bride for thy holy and glorious Majesty!

To wit, six months with oil of myrrh] To cleanse them, and to clear up their countenances.

And six months with sweet odours] Of these there is a lawful use (why else were they created?), to please the sense, refresh the spirits, comfort the brain, &c. But the excess and abuse of them is utterly unlawful, and was justly punished in Darius, the last Persian monarch, and Muleasses, king of Tunis, who so far affected sweet odours, that he could not be without them whiles he was in the field against his enemy, thereby it came to pass, that being overcome in battle by his own son Amidas (another Absalom), and pursued among the rest that fled, he was found and known who he was by the perfumes that he had about him, though to prevent it he had besmeared himself with blood and dust. Martial, writing to his sweet friend, saith,

Posthmne, non bene olet, qui bene semper olet.

And another saith, That woman smells best who smells of nothing. Spiret autem foemina Christum, saith Clement of Alexandria, Let women learn and labour to smell of Christ, who is the royal unction, and let them ever be anointed with chastity, that chiefest ointment (Paedag. lib. 2, cap. 8).

And with other things for the purifying of women] Here was no end of excess and of expense; and all to satisfy the lust of this impure prince. Silver is lavished out of the bag, and much wealth cast away upon these minions, who had nothing else to do but to exercise their wits in devising ornaments and artifices, whereby they might get the king’s favour, and attain to the queendom. Cicero telleth us that it was ordinary with the kings of Persia to bestow upon their women such a city to buy them bracelets, and such a city for head-tires, &c., Haec in collum, haec in crines (Orat. 5, in Verr.). This was luxus plane monstrosissimus et prodigalissimus, as one saith, most prodigious and prodigal luxury. So eagerly are the wicked bent upon the satisfying of their lusts, that they care not what cost they cast away upon them. Ask me never so much dowry, saith that Amouretto, Gen 34:11-12. Judah let go his signet, bracelets, and staff, to the harlot. Josephus reports of one Decius Mundus (Immundus rather), a nobleman, that to one Paulina, a lady in Rome, he offered as much as came to six thousand pounds to satisfy his lusts but one night, and yet he could not bring her to his lure by such a large offer; though afterwards (under the mask of Anubis, to which dog’s head she was devoted) he found means to abuse her; which was the destruction both of those bawdy priests and their temple.