The ParthianGōsānand Iranian Minstrel Tradition

Abstract

The wordgōsānis known to occur twice in Persian literature. One passage is in the poemVīs u Rāmīn, now shown to be of Parthian origin. Here, while the king Mōbad is feasting with his wife and his brother Rāmīn, agōsān-i navāgarsings to them. His song is of a lofty tree, shading the whole earth. Beneath it is a sparkling spring, with sand in its sweet water. A bull of Gīlān grazes by it, drinking the water and eating the blossoms at its brink. “May this tree continue to cast its shade,” ends thegōsān, “the water ever flowing from the spring, the bull of Gīlān ever grazing at it!” His pretty song was well calculated, however, to frustrate this pious wish; for it was in fact a dangerous and provocative allegory, the tree representing Mōbad himself, the spring his wife Vīs, and the bull his brother Rāmīn, the queen's lover. This meaning the king instantly divined; but his rage flared up, not against thegōsān, but against his brother, on whom he sprang to kill him.