Walter Williams credited as playing...
Hegai
- Hegai: A plain white gown. Such simplicity! Was it your choice?
- Esther: Yes.
- Hegai: Indeed. One might think you have no desire to win a queen's crown. A most becoming modesty. It pleases me. An unassuming virtue that needs rewarding.
- [to the servants]
- Hegai: Fetch me the cloak of gold!
- [to the maidens]
- Hegai: You may rest, my little doves.
- [Hegai brings the golden cloak]
- Esther: I am grateful, but I don't wish to be so favored.
- Keresh: I will accept it.
- Esther: Oh, yes. Yes, give it to her.
- Hegai: [to Keresh] Speak only when you're spoken to!
- Keresh: Take care, eunuch! I have mighty friends.
- Hegai: In the brothels of the street of the soldiers, no doubt!
- [to Esther]
- Hegai: Here, my child. I ask you to wear it. Please.
- [wraps the cloak around Esther]
- King Ahasuerus: I choose you, Esther, but I do not command you. I ask you to remain here for a while. Let time be the king. Let it command your heart to go or to stay.
- [to Hegai]
- King Ahasuerus: Attend her, Hegai, as if she already wore the crown.
- Hegai: My Queen to be!
- Hegai: [Keresh steals Esther's golden cloak, wraps it around herself, and leaves the harem to go to the throne room] Vanity! Avarice! That cloak won't hide your wickedness!
- Hegai: [Keresh has stolen Esther's golden robe and now it is Esther's turn to present herself to the King] Do not grieve that you've lost the splendor of the golden robe. Nothing can prevail against the King's mistrust of female ambition. What a squandering of beauty! The fairest from all the provinces and now they will be sent home to milk goats.