Since not for long would they endure his voice, Nor suffer unintelligible sounds Fruitlessly to be dinned into their ears. Lastly what should there be to wonder at So much in this, that mankind, when their voice And tongue were in full vigour, should name things By different sounds as different feelings bade them, Since dumb cattle, and even the wild beasts, Are wont to emit distinct and varied sounds, When they feel fear or pain, or when joy moves them. This indeed may be learnt from manifest facts. When the large soft mouths of Molossian dogs Begin to growl, angrily laying bare Their hard teeth, then far different is the tone In which they threaten, savagely thus drawn back, From the clear sound which, when they bark outright, Fills the whole neighbourhood. And when they essay In gentle mood to lick their cubs, or when They toss them with their paws, and snapping at them Tenderly make as though they would devour them With half-closed teeth, thus fondling them they yelp With a quite different sound from their deep bay When left alone in houses, or from the whimper With which crouching they shrink away from blows. Furthermore does not a young stallion’s neigh Seem different, when he rages among the mares Pierced in his flower of age by winged love’s goads, From when with wide-stretched nostrils he snorts out The battle signal, or when at other times Perchance he whinnies trembling in all his limbs? Lastly the race of fowl and varied birds, Hawks and ospreys and gulls that seek their living In the salt waters of the ocean waves, Utter at different times quite different cries From those they make when they fight over food, Or struggle with their prey. And some will change Their harsh notes in accordance with the weather, As do the long-lived tribes of crows, and flocks Of rooks, when they are said to call for rain, Or sometimes to be summoning wind-storms. Since therefore various feelings can compel Animals, speechless though they be, to utter Such varying sounds, how much more natural Is it that in those days men could denote Dissimilar things by many different sounds!