ABSTRACT
All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. The Animal speech is devoid of reason, the uniquely human trait which expresses itself in words, discrete, conventional units of meaning. Descartes was responding specifically to Montaigne's speculations, in the Apology of Raymond Sebond, that animals might speak a language that we do not understand, an idea much debated in the ancient world and still compatible with Montaigne's humanism. According to myth, Orpheus received from Apollo the gift of the seven-stringed golden lyre, corresponding to the seven vowels of the Greek alphabet. In his work on Greek myth, Robert Graves maintains that the name Orpheus may be derived from ophruoeis, meaning "on the banks", and may refer to sacred alder trees that grew there. Animals continue to speak among themselves and to humans in the Age of Iron.
