The Instructor 2.10.84

hyena should not rush into adultery. I agree that the all-wise Moses, by this prohibition, clearly hints that we should not become like these animals; but I do not assent to this interpretation of what was said symbolically. For nature could never be forced to change; what has once been formed cannot be reshaped by a passion; for passion is not nature; passion is accustomed to counterfeit, not to remodel, the form. For even if many birds are said to change both their color and their voice with the seasons (the blackbird, for example, becoming tawny from black, and chattering instead of singing; likewise the nightingale changes both color and song with the turning of the year), they do not change their very nature, so that a female comes from a male by transformation. The new growth of feathers, like a new garment, blooms with a dye of feathers, and a little later fades in the threat of winter, the color withering like a flower. The voice too, in the same way, worn down by the cold, withers; for when the surface of the body is contracted by the surrounding air, the arteries around the neck, compressed and contracted, squeeze the breath, and this, greatly confined and choked, gives out a stifled sound.