Saturday, August 13, 2005
Golden Handcuffs
Wordspy defines golden handcuffs as "attractive financial benefits that a corporate employee will lose by resigning from the company." I have not been able to trace the origin of this phrase in English. However, Quintus Curtius Rufus, History of Alexander 5.12.20 (tr. John Yardley), mentions some actual golden handcuffs that confined the Persian King Darius:
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To allow the king some mark of respect, however, they bound him with fetters of gold, for fortune kept on devising new kinds of insult for him.
ne tamen honos regi non haberetur, aureis conpedibus Dareum vinciunt, nova ludibria subinde excogitante fortuna.
