Chapter Babouc to Back of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Babouc to Back

Babouc (See Bacbuc .)

Babouin Taisez-vous, petite babouin; laissez parlez votre mère, qui est plus sage que vous. The tale or fable is this: A girl one day went to make an offering to Venus, and prayed the goddess to give her for husband a young man on whom she had fixed her affections. A young fellow happened at the time to be behind the image of Cupid, and hearing the petition, replied, "So fine a gentleman is not for such as you." The voice seemed to proceed from the image, and the girl replied, "Hold your tongue, you little monkey; let your mother speak, for she is wiser than you."

Baby Charles So James I used to call his son Charles, afterwards Charles I.

Babylon The modern Babylon. So London is sometimes called, on account of its wealth, luxury, and dissipation.

Babylonian Numbers Ne Babylonios tentaris numeros. Do not pry into futurity by astrological calculations and horoscopes. Do not consult fortunetellers. The Chaldæans were the most noted of astrologers. (Horace: Odes, book i. xi. 2.)

Babylonish Captivity The seventy years that the Jews were captives in Babylon. They were made captives by Nebuchadnezzar, and released by Cyrus (B.C. 538).

Babylonish Garment (A) Babylonica vestis, a garment woven with divers colours. (Pliny, viii. 74.)

"I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment." - Joshua vii. 21.

Baca The Valley of Baca, also called the Valley of Tears, translated in the New Version "the Valley of Weeping," apparently a dry sterile valley, the type of this earth spoilt by sorrow and sin. "Blessed is the man ... in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well ..." (Psalm lxxxiv. 6). That man is blessed whose trust in God converts adverse circumstances into proofs of divine love. "Whom He loveth He chasteneth." They "go from strength to strength."

In the mountains of Lebanon is a valley called Baca, but it is described as fertile and very delicious. The Valley of Lebanon (Joshua xi. 17) is encompassed by mountains, one of which is very barren, and abounds in thorns, rocks, and flints, but another is called a terrestrial paradise. Baca means "mulberry trees," but Bekah means a "plain." Perowne says Bacah is from a Hebrew root which means "weeping."

"Our sources of common pleasure dry up as we journey on through the vale of Bacha." - Sir Walter Scott: The Antiquary.

Bacbuc The Holy Bottle, and also the priestess of the Holy Bottle, the oracle of Lantern-land consulted by Panurge on the momentous question whether or not he ought to marry. The Holy Bottle answered with a click like the noise made by a glass snapping. Bacbuc told Panurge the noise meant trinc (drink), and that was the response, the most direct and positive ever given by the oracle. Panurge might interpret it as he liked, the obscurity would always save the oracle.

So Pic or Glück (say I) or neither,
Or both, for aught I care, or either;
More undecided than Bacbuc,
Here's heads for Pic, and tails for Glück. E.C.B.

Bacchanalia Festivals in honour of Bacchus, distinguished for their licentiousness and debauchery. Plato says he has seen the whole population of Athens drunk at these festivals.

Bacchanalian Drunken, rollicksome, devoted or pertaining to Bacchus (q.v.).

Bacchant A person given to habits of drinking; so called from the "bacchants," or men admitted to the feasts of Bacchus. Bacchants wore fillets of ivy.

Bacchante (2 syl.) A female winebibber; so called from the "bacchantes," or female priestesses of Bacchus. They wore fillets of ivy.

Bacchis A sacred bull which changed its colour every hour of the day. (Egyptian mythology.)