英语词汇go west的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

go west; occident. An unknown poet may have indepen- dently coined the phrase to go west, “to die,” in the trenches of World War I. The expression was common then, possibly suggested by the setting of the sun in the west. But the phrase is much older. In America, Indian legend had it that a dying man had gone to meet the setting sun, and, later, when ex- plorers and prospectors didn’t return from dangerous coun- try west of the Mississippi, they were said to have gone west. In 16th-century England the phrase was used of criminals going to be hung at Tyburn, which is west of London, and an early 14th-century English poem with the refrain “his world is but a vanity” had the lines: “Women and many a willful man,/ As wind and water are gone west.” The idea behind the expression is even older. The Egyptians spoke of the west as the home of departed spirits, and among the Greeks the as- sociation of death with the west was proverbial, as in Ulysses:

Of all the western stars, until I die. Even our word Occident, for “the west,” is associated with death. It comes from the Latin occidens, “the place where the sun died at the end of each day,” which is from the verb occidere, “to die.”

词汇	go west
词源	go west; occident. An unknown poet may have indepen- dently coined the phrase to go west, “to die,” in the trenches of World War I. The expression was common then, possibly suggested by the setting of the sun in the west. But the phrase is much older. In America, Indian legend had it that a dying man had gone to meet the setting sun, and, later, when ex- plorers and prospectors didn’t return from dangerous coun- try west of the Mississippi, they were said to have gone west. In 16th-century England the phrase was used of criminals going to be hung at Tyburn, which is west of London, and an early 14th-century English poem with the refrain “his world is but a vanity” had the lines: “Women and many a willful man,/ As wind and water are gone west.” The idea behind the expression is even older. The Egyptians spoke of the west as the home of departed spirits, and among the Greeks the as- sociation of death with the west was proverbial, as in Ulysses: My purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the paths Of all the western stars, until I die. Even our word Occident, for “the west,” is associated with death. It comes from the Latin occidens, “the place where the sun died at the end of each day,” which is from the verb occidere, “to die.”
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