The Parthian "Gōsān" and Iranian Minstrel Tradition

The word gosan is known to occur twice in Persian literature. One passage is in the poem Vis u Ramin, now shown to be of Parthian origin. Here, while the king Mobad is feasting with his wife and his brother Ramin, a gosan-i navigar sings 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 Gîlan grazes by it, drinking the water and eating the blossoms at its brink. " May this tree continue to cast its shade," ends the gosan, " the water ever flowing from the spring, the bull of Gîlan 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 Mobad himself, the spring his wife Vis, and the bull his brother Ramin, the queen's lover. This meaning the king instantly divined ; but his rage flared up, not against the gosan, but against his brother, on whom he sprang to kill him.