to look after the Magi when they went to offer their gifts, and said she would wait to see them on their return; but they went another way, and Befana, every Twelfth Night, watches to see them. The name is a corruption of Epiphania.
Before the Lights in theatrical parlance, means on the stage, before the foot-lights.
Before the Mast To serve before the mast. To be one of the common sailors, whose quarters are
in the forward part of the ship. The half-deck is the sanctum of the second mate, and, in Greenland
fishers, of the spikeoneer, harpooners, carpenters, coopers, boatswains, and all secondary officers; of
low birth.
“I myself come from before the mast.”- Sir W. Scott: The Antiquary, chap. xx.