1957/04/01 by Mary Boyce · 4 citations
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Eurasian Exchange Networks #Ancient Near East History #Byzantine Studies and History #Brother #Wife #Queen (butterfly) #Poetry #Art #Ancient history #Meaning (existential) #Spring (device) #History #Art history #Literature #Theology #Philosophy #Sociology #Botany #Anthropology
paper · doi:10.1017/s0035869x0010735x
openalex publication_date 1957/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
The word gōsān is known to occur twice in Persian literature. One passage is in the poem Vīs u Rāmīn , now shown to be of Parthian origin. Here, while the king Mōbad is feasting with his wife and his brother Rāmīn, a gōsān-i navāgar 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 Gīlān grazes by it, drinking the water and eating the blossoms at its brink. “May this tree continue to cast its shade,” ends the gōsān , “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 the gōsān , but against his brother, on whom he sprang to kill him.