BETELGEUSE (Alpha Orionis). The great star Betelgeuse is one of the two that dominate mighty Orion of northern winter, the other Rigel, the pair respectively also called Alpha and Beta Orionis.
I was disposed straightway to search for other truths; and when I had represented to myself the object of the geometers, which I conceived to be a continuous body, or a space indefinitely extended in length, breadth, and height or depth, divisible into divers parts which admit of different figures and sizes, and of being moved or transposed in all manner of ways, (for all this the geometers suppose to be in the object they contemplate,) I went over some of their simplest demonstrations.
The name Betelgeuse is a corruption of the Arabic “yad al jauza,” which means the “hand of al-jauza,” al-jauza the ancient Arabs’ “Central One,” a mysterious woman.