Speaking animals are also prominent in ancient Attic comedy, particularly in the plays written by Aristophanes (ca. 446-386 BCE). His comedies such as Wasps, Frogs, Birds and Knights teem with animal choruses and individual characters with animal associations. These characters not only wear more or less complete animal costumes, but some of them also mix animal sounds into their Greek, such as the Brekekex koax koax! of the frog chorus or the tio tio tio tinx! of the bird chorus. This blurring of lines between animals and humans creates grotesque and humorous effects and is perfect for parody.

Archaic Greek bronze figure, 5th century BC, showing one of Odysseus’ companions turned into a pig swine by the sorceress Circe in Homer’s epic poem Odyssey. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.
(https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Greek_-_One_of_Odysseus%27_Men_Transformed_Into_a_Pig_-_Walters_541483_-_Profile.jpg)

Animal speech can also be used for philosophical reflections on the intellectual and emotive capacities of animals and the role of language and reason in moral distinctions. This is evident in a dialogue known as Gryllus by the Greek philosopher Plutarch (ca. 45-125 CE). Here Plutarch presents the Homeric hero Odysseus on the island of Circe debating with a former companion who has been transformed into a pig by the witch. Gryllus (“The Grunter”), as he is called, has been endowed with human speech by Circe for his conversation with Odysseus, to whom he explains why he and the other companions prefer to keep their animal form over returning home: animals are superior to humans due to their freedom from moral corruption and their natural capacity for virtue.

Ravens and crows are also popular motives in Roman mosaics and wall-paintings. In this mosaic from the Dominicans Museum in Rottweil, Germany, dated to the end of the 2nd century AD, a raven is sitting to the left of the famous singer Orpheus. (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Orpheus2.jpg)

A second sort of ‘animal speech’ in ancient Greek and Latin literature is found in contexts where a transcendental power uses a ‘mute’ animal as a mouthpiece to convey warning messages to humans. The most famous example is probably to be found in the 19th book of Homer’s Iliad. There, Xanthos, the horse belonging to the Greek hero Achilles, is given an articulate voice by the goddess Hera and prophesies his owner’s death (vv. 404–418). After this speech Xanthos is silenced again by the intervention of another divine power, the Furies.

Apart from these fictitious or supranatural cases of animal speech, various Greek and Latin literary sources provide more or less plausible evidence for the natural phenomenon that some animals can mimic human speech. Whether they ‘speak’ due to an intelligent use of human language or they just mechanically ‘parrot’ human sounds is the subject of philosophical debate. Most plausible are the reports of ‘speaking’ birds like parrots, crows or ravens, which in ancient Rome were trained to flatter the emperor and sold for a lot of money.

‘Speaking animals’ also become a widespread phenomenon in ancient Egyptian narratives from the New Kingdom onwards (ca. 1500 BCE), where they play a variety of roles. In the popular tale The Doomed Prince, a prince is fated to die through an attack by a crocodile, a snake or a dog, which gifts these animals with a certain numinosity and makes them agents of fate. Later in his life, a voiceless snake comes to attack the prince and is killed, but the fatal dog speaks to him, saying “I am your fate.” The prince flees into a lake where he encounters the fatal crocodile, saying “I am your fate that has come after you.” But instead of killing the prince, the crocodile enlists his help in its fight against a water demon.

In the same period, ostraca and ‘satirical papyri’ commonly interpreted as illustrations of long-lost folk tales depict animals behaving as and/or dressed up like humans. We might have to imagine these animals as speaking, although captions are missing in most of the cases. On the left of the papyrus below, a lion is playing a board game with a gazelle, while on the far right the same lion is standing over the gazelle which is lying on her back on a bed. The lion’s open mouth might suggest that he is speaking.

Turning from ancient Egypt to the Hebrew Old Testament, it is surprising that this text contains only two cases of animals talking with a humanlike voice: the serpent in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3) that causes the Fall of man, and the donkey of the seer Balaam (Numbers 22) whose mouth is opened by God. As the ancient Israelites had a close but strictly functional relationship to animals, they were generally subordinated to man and rarely have a say in the texts. The serpent in paradise is an exceptional instance and proves to be a very clever communicator in remarking that man will not die by eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge, because this will indeed not lead to immediate death but will make dying a necessity. The serpent’s role seems to be that of a ‘provocative mediator’ between God and man and the story explains the later enmity between serpents and humans.

Genesis 3

2 And the woman said to the serpent, We may
eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but
God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the
tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither
shall you touch it, lest you die.’ 4 But the
serpent said to the woman, “You will not
surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat
of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be
like God knowing good and evil.”

To sum up, these examples from ancient Greek and Roman, Egyptian and Hebrew literature show that ‘animal speech’ can have very different functions and effects in ancient texts. What they all have in common is the fact that animals that are gifted with humanlike speech challenge the traditional boundaries between animals and humans, nature and culture, ‘instinct’ and intelligence. Furthermore, there is a fine line between using animals as ‘screens’ for our own thoughts and feelings and giving them an actual ‘voice’ to articulate their own interests – if humans can grasp these at all. It is this questioning of the so-called ‘anthropological difference’ and this fine line that are crucial to understanding literature with ‘speaking animals’ today.

Hedwig Schmalzgruber is a research associate at the Department of Classics and Ancient History of the University of Potsdam, Germany.

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