3 January 2025
Gold is a chemical element with atomic number 79 and the symbol Au. It is a bright, orange-yellowish, malleable, and ductile metal. It is also one of the least reactive of the elements, which, in addition to its use in jewelry and as an item of monetary value, makes it extremely useful in a variety of applications, especially in the manufacture of corrosion-free electrical wires and connectors.
The metal has, of course, been known since antiquity. The English word gold has its roots in Proto-Germanic and has survived unchanged in form since Old English. Here is the word used in the poem Beowulf, in a passage describing the treasures bestowed on the titular hero for killing the monster Grendel:
Him wæs ful boren, ond freondlaþu
wordum bewægned, ond wunden gold
estum geeawed, earmreade twa,
hrægl ond hringas, healsbeaga mæst
þara þe ic on foldan gefrægen hæbbe.
Nænigne ic under swegle selran hyrde
hordmaððum hæleþa syþan Hama ætwæg
to þære byrhtan byrig Brosinga mene,
sigle ond sincfæt.
(A cup was brought, and friendship offered with speeches, and wrought gold generously presented to him: two armbands, a mail coat and rings, the greatest necklace on earth. I have never of a finer hoard-treasure of heroes under heaven since Hama carried off the necklace of the Brosings—gems and a precious setting—to his magnificent stronghold.)
The symbol Au comes from the Latin word for the metal, aurum.
In antiquity and in the Middle Ages, seven of the elemental metals were each associated with a god and with a planet, with tin associated with Jupiter. We see this association in a variety of alchemical writings, including Chaucer’s The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale:
I wol yow telle, as was me taught also,
The foure spirites and the bodies sevene,
By ordre, as ofte I herde my lord hem nevene.
The firste spirit quyksilver called is,
The seconde orpyment, the thridde, ywis,
Sal armonyak, and the ferthe brymstoon.
The bodyes sevene eek, lo, hem heere anoon:
Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe,
Mars iren, Mercurie quyksilver we clepe,
Saturnus leed, and Juppiter is tyn,
And Venus coper, by my fader kyn!
(I will tell you, as it was taught also to me,
The four spirits and the seven metals,
In the order as I often heard my lord name them.
The first spirit is called quicksilver,
The second orpiment, the third, indeed,
Sal ammoniac, and the fourth brimstone.
The seven metals also, lo, hear them now:
The Sun is gold, and the Moon we assert silver,
Mars iron, Mercury we call quicksilver,
Saturn lead, and Jupiter is tin,
And Venus copper, by my father’s kin!)
Sources:
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Canon’s Yeoman’s Tale.” The Canterbury Tales. In Larry D. Benson, ed. The Riverside Chaucer, 8.819–29, 273. Also, with minor variation in wording, at https://chaucer.fas.harvard.edu/pages/canons-yeomans-prologue-and-tale .
Dictionary of Old English: A to Le, 2024, s.v. gold, n.
Fulk, R.D., Robert E. Bjork, and John D. Niles. Klaeber’s Beowulf, fourth edition. Toronto: Toronto UP, 2008, lines 1192–1200a, 42.
Middle English Dictionary, 2024, s.v. gold, n.
Miśkowiec, Pawel. “Name Game: The Naming History of the Chemical Elements—Part 1—From Antiquity till the End of 18th Century.” Foundations of Chemistry. 1 November 2022. DOI: 10.1007/s10698-022-09448-5.
Oxford English Dictionary, third edition, December 2018, s.v., gold, n.1 & adj.
Photo credit: Slav4|Ariel Palmon, 2014. Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.