Q. Why are boys apt to change their voices about fourteen years of age?  A. Because that then nature doth cause a great and sudden change of voice; experience proves this to be true; for at that time we may see that women’s paps do grow great, do hold and gather milk, and also those places that are above their hips, in which the young fruit would remain.  Likewise men’s breasts and shoulders, which then can bear great and heavy burdens; also their stones in which their seed may increase and abide, and in their privy members, to let out the seed with ease.  Further all the body is made bigger and dilated, as the alteration and change of every part doth testify, and the harshness of the voice and hoarseness; for the rough artery, the wind pipe, being made wide in the beginning, and the exterior and outward part being unequal to the throat, the air going out the rough, unequal and uneven pipe doth then become unequal and sharp, and after, hoarse, something like unto the voice of a goat, wherefore it has its name called Bronchus.  The same doth also happen to them unto whose rough artery distillation doth follow; it happens by reason of the drooping humidity that a slight small skin filled unequally causes the uneven going forth of the spirit and air.  Understand, that the windpipe of goats is such by reason of the abundance of humidity.  The like doth happen unto all such as nature hath given a rough artery, as unto cranes.  After the age of fourteen they leave off that voice, because the artery is made wider and reacheth its natural evenness and quality.

Q. Why do hard dens, hollow and high places, send back the likeness and sound of the voice?  A. Because that in such places also by reflection do return back the image of a sound, for the voice doth beat the air, and the air the place, which the more it is beaten the more it doth bear, and therefore doth cause the more vehement sound of the voice; moist places, and as it were, soft, yielding to the stroke, and dissolving it, give no sound again; for according to the quantity of the stroke, the quality and quantity of the voice is given, which is called an echo.  Some do idly fable that she is a goddess; some say that Pan was in love with her, which without doubt is false.  He was some wise man, who did first desire to search out the cause of the voice, and as they who love, and cannot enjoy that love, are grieved, so in like manner was he very sorry until he found out the solution of that cause; as Endymion also, who first found out the course of the moon, watching all night, and observing her course, and searching her motion, did sleep in the daytime, and that she came to him when he was asleep, because she did give the philosopher the solution of the course herself.  They say also that he was a shepherd, because that in the desert and high places, he did mark the course of the moon.  And they gave him also the pipe because that the high places are blown with wind, or else because he sought out the consonancy of figures.  Prometheus also, being a wise man, sought the course of the star, which is called the eagle in the firmament, his nature and place; and when he was, as it were, wasted with the desire of learning, then at last he rested, when Hercules did resolve unto him all doubts with his wisdom.