Omniana/Volume 1/Nebuchadnezzar

by Robert Southey

80. Nebuchadnezzar.

Nebuchadnezzar has been worse used in doggrel than even poor As-in-præsenti himself. But scurvily as he has been. be-rhymed for his conquest of Jerusalem, etymologists have as scurvily explained his name, and invented a story to explain their explanation. They say, he was exposed when an infant under a tree; a she goat gave him suck, and an owl hooted at noon day from the boughs above: this unusual noise excited the attention of a leper who was passing by; he turned aside to the tree, saw the child, and preserved him; and, in memory of these circumstances, named him Nabuchodonosor: Nabug, signifying in Chaldee an owl, codo a she goat, and nosor a leper.