Addition C · The prayers of Mordecai and Esther · Greek after 4:17 · unit 18
She hates the royal ornament she must wear in public, like an unclean thing.
Rahlfs 4:17r (lettering not yet checked against Rahlfs) · Swete, Esther 4.1a–30a · .txt · .json
σὺ οἶδας τὴν ἀνάγκην μου, ὅτι βδελύσσομαι τὸ σημεῖον τῆς ὑπερηφανίας μου ὅ ἐστιν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς μου ἐν ἡμέραις ὀπτασίας μου· βδελύσσομαι αὐτὸ ὡς ῥάκος καταμηνίων, καὶ οὐ φορῶ αὐτὸ ἐν ἡμέραις ἡσυχίας μου.
You know my necessity, that I abhor the sign of my pride that is upon my head on the days I appear in public; I abhor it as a menstrual cloth, and I do not wear it on the days I am at rest.draft English
What the rabbinic bench shows
0 verbatim · 3 motif · 4 flagged · 8 candidates examined and rejected.
- Lost intermediary: an earlier written aggadic source, no longer extant, stands between
- Oral: shared narrative tradition, thematic rather than literary contact
- Aramaic: carried by a targum; how the targum came by it is open
Motif — candidate parallels
Unverified at pair level: in a seeded sample of forty motif pairs, 58% failed the study's own test. Read each as a candidate.
Hegai specifically asks why Esther alone does not adorn herself like all the other women -- her habitual refusal of the royal ornament/adornment, matching Addition C's explicit loathing of 'the sign of my pride... upon my head.'
Show the witness text (30 words)
Esther showing her menstrual blood to the sages is the same unusual niddah imagery attached to Esther independently of MT, matching the plus's 'menstrual cloth.'
Show the witness text (33 words)
Esther keeping sabbaths and festivals privately while serving publicly as queen matches the plus's distinction between the royal ornament worn in public and what she rejects in her days of rest -- a private/public split not in MT.
Show the witness text (60 words)
Flagged for further study (4)
A specific, non-stock niddah image links the two: Addition C has Esther loathe the royal diadem 'as a menstrual cloth,' and this letter complains that even the king looks to Jewish eyes 'like a menstruant woman' -- the same image, inverted between petitioner and grievance.
Show the witness text (602 words)
Both independently attach menstrual/niddah imagery to Esther's crisis -- an unusual, specific, extra-MT motif shared between the Talmud's 'she menstruated' and the plus's 'as a menstrual cloth.'
Show the witness text (13 words)
Esther's 'va-titchalchal' is explained as menstruation (piresah niddah) -- the same concrete image of menstrual impurity that Addition C's Esther invokes for her loathing of the royal diadem ('I abhor it as a menstrual cloth').
Show the witness text (41 words)
Esther sets her crown down beside Haman's purely to breed jealousy -- handling the royal ornament as a political tool rather than as honor, the same instrumental, non-honoring attitude toward the diadem that Addition C states outright.
Show the witness text (75 words)
Hebrew retroversions
Machine-assisted reconstructions of a Hebrew the Greek might render, made under Tov's principles and used only as search queries. They are hypotheses, not evidence.
אתה ידעת את אנסי כי תעבתי את אות גאוני אשר על ראשי בימי הראותי תעבתיהו כבגד עדים ולא אשאנו בימי שקטי
אתה ידעת את מצוקתי כי מאסתי את כתר גאותי אשר על ראשי ביום הראותי אותו מאסתי כמו כלי דוה ולא אלבשנו בימי מנוחתי