Golden youths that wanted gelding

• golden lads → Shakespeare, Cymbeline 4.2.237: “Golden lads and girls all must/ As chimney-sweepers come to dust” → in Warwickshire yellow dandelions in flower were called golden lads while white dandelions that had gone to seed were called chimney-sweepers

• gelding: (1) the act of castrating; (2) a castrated animal, especially a horse

• gelding: taxing (after the geld, a tax payed by landholders to the crown ijn late Anglo-Saxon and Norman England)

• gilding: coating with gold, or painting gold

• gilded youth (phrase) rich young people of fashion