b
Bet
Origins: Bet is derived from the old French abeter meaning "to urge on."
In Literature:
• "'What'll you bet?' said Jimmy. The Strollers began to sit up and take notice.
The magic word 'bet,' when uttered in that room, had rarely failed to
add a zest to life." -- P.G. Wodehouse, The Intrusion of Jimmy (1910)
Betelgeuse
Mystique: "Rigel, Betelgeuse, and Orion, too, spoke to her. There was no
finer church, no finer choir, than the stars speaking in silence." 0 Star names
are sometimes invoked "as the words of a prayer" as one abandons oneself
to the vastness overhead and seeks to lose oneself below: "Betelgeuse. Sirius.
Orion. Antares. The sky is very large, and you are very small. ... The Pleiades. Cassiopeia.
Taurus. Heaven is wide, and you are very small. Dead, but none the less
powerful for being dead. . . . [He] turned his hands palm upward, in gesture
of surrender. He reached beyond the stars, searching."21 "And I search
among the signs / For the flare, the polestar, pulley toward the edge."
Origins: Betelgeuse is a giant red star, Alpha Orionis, in the constellation of
Orion. The star's name is a corruption of the Arabic yad al jawza ("hand of
the central one" or "hand of the great one").
Facts: Chanting the name Betelgeuse conjures a trickster spirit in the Tim
Burton film Beetlejuice (1988).
In H.P. Lovecraft's story "The Dweller in Darkness" (1944), Betelgeuse
is home to the Elder Gods.
In Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1978), the
character Ford Prefect comes from a planet "in the vicinity of Betelgeuse."
Variations and Incantations:
• Al Mankib
This is an Arabic name for the star meaning "the shoulder," describing the
star's position in the constellation.
• Bedalgeuze
This is the Medieval Latin spelling of the star's name.
20 Mark Helprin, Winter's Tale (198 )
21 Diana Gabaldon, Drums of Autumn (1997)
22 Ruth Stone, "On the Mountain," Book of Women Poets (1992)