英语词汇gold fever的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

gold fever. A term, first recorded in 1847, for the excitement produced by the gold rush to the Golden Land (California) when gold was discovered there. Also called the gold mania. The lust for gold was of course one of the main reasons for the exploration of the New World, long before the California gold rush. This is reflected in what may be the first American proverb—“gamble the sun before sunrise”—though it isn’t re- corded in Bartlett’s or any other book of quotations. The ex- pression surely is old enough, dating back to 1533, when Piz- arro conquered Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire, and stripped the Peruvian metropolis of gold and silver. One caval- ryman got as his share of the booty a splendid golden image of the Sun “on a plate of burnished gold spread over the walls in a recess of the great temple” and which was so beautifully crafted that he did not have it melted down into coins, as was the usual practice. But the horseman came to symbolize the vice of gam- bling. That same night, before the Sun had set on another day, he lost the fabulous golden image of the sun at cards or dice, and his comrades coined the saying “Juega el Sol antes que amanezca” (He gambles [or plays] away the Sun before sun- rise), which crossed the ocean from America on Pizarro’s gold- laden galleons and became proverbial in Spain.

词汇	gold fever
词源	gold fever. A term, first recorded in 1847, for the excitement produced by the gold rush to the Golden Land (California) when gold was discovered there. Also called the gold mania. The lust for gold was of course one of the main reasons for the exploration of the New World, long before the California gold rush. This is reflected in what may be the first American proverb—“gamble the sun before sunrise”—though it isn’t re- corded in Bartlett’s or any other book of quotations. The ex- pression surely is old enough, dating back to 1533, when Piz- arro conquered Cuzco, the capital of the Inca Empire, and stripped the Peruvian metropolis of gold and silver. One caval- ryman got as his share of the booty a splendid golden image of the Sun “on a plate of burnished gold spread over the walls in a recess of the great temple” and which was so beautifully crafted that he did not have it melted down into coins, as was the usual practice. But the horseman came to symbolize the vice of gam- bling. That same night, before the Sun had set on another day, he lost the fabulous golden image of the sun at cards or dice, and his comrades coined the saying “Juega el Sol antes que amanezca” (He gambles [or plays] away the Sun before sun- rise), which crossed the ocean from America on Pizarro’s gold- laden galleons and became proverbial in Spain.
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