Page - 1512 - in The Complete Aristotle

gains more strength in each animal, so that they change into the opposite condition, the high-voiced becoming deeper-voiced than they were, and the deep-voiced higher-voiced, which is why bulls have a higher voice than calves and cows. Now the strength of all animals is in their sinews, and so those in the prime of life are stronger, the young being weaker in the joints and sinews; moreover, in the young they are not yet tense, and in those now growing old the tension relaxes, wherefore both these ages are weak and powerless for movement. And bulls are particularly sinewy, even their hearts, and therefore that part by which they set the air in motion is in a tense state, like a sinewy string stretched tight. (That the heart of bulls is of such a nature is shown by the fact that a bone is actually found in some of them, and bones are naturally connected with sinew.) All animals when castrated change to the female character, and utter a voice like that of the females because the sinewy strength in the principle of the voice is relaxed. This relaxation is just as if one should stretch a string and make it taut by hanging some weight on to it, as women do who weave at the loom, for they stretch the warp by attaching to it what are called ‘laiai’. For in this way are the testes attached to the seminal passages, and these again to the blood-vessel which takes its origin in the heart near the organ which sets the voice in motion. Hence as the seminal passages change towards the age at which they are now able to secrete the semen, this part also changes along with them. As this changes, the voice again changes, more indeed in males, but the same thing happens in females too, only not so plainly, the result being what some call ‘bleating’ when the voice is uneven. After this it settles into the deep or high voice of the succeeding time of life. If the testes are removed the tension of the passages relaxes, as when the weight is taken off the string or the warp; as this relaxes, the organ which moves the voice is loosened in the same proportion. This, then, is the reason why the voice and the form generally changes to the female character in castrated animals; it is because the principle is relaxed upon which depends the tension of the body; not that, as some suppose, the testes are themselves a ganglion of many principles, but small changes are the causes of great ones, not per se but when it happens that a principle changes with them. For the principles, though small in size, are great in potency; this, indeed, is what is meant by a principle, that it is itself the cause of many things without anything else being higher than it for it to depend upon. The heat or cold also of their habitat contributes to make some animals of such a character as to be deep-voiced, and others high-voiced. For hot breath being thick causes depth, cold breath being thin the opposite. This is clear also in pipe-playing, for if the breath of the performer is hotter, that is to say if it is expelled as by a groan, the note is deeper. 1512