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A eunuch (; ) is a man who (by the common definition of the term) may have been castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences. In some ancient texts, "eunuch" may refer to a man who is not castrated but who is impotent, celibate, or otherwise not inclined to marry and procreate. Castration was typically carried out on the soon-to-be eunuch without his consent in order that he might perform a specific social function; this was common in many societies. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 21st century BC.〔Maekawa, Kazuya (1980). Animal and human castration in Sumer, Part II: Human castration in the Ur III period. Zinbun (of the Research Institute for Humanistic Studies, Kyoto University ), pp. 1–56.〕〔Maekawa, Kazuya (1980). Female Weavers and Their Children in Lagash – Presargonic and Ur III. Acta Sumerologica 2:81–125.〕 Over the millennia since, they have performed a wide variety of functions in many different cultures: courtiers or equivalent domestics, treble singers, religious specialists, soldiers, royal guards, government officials, and guardians of women or harem servants. Eunuchs would usually be servants or slaves who had been castrated in order to make them reliable servants of a royal court where physical access to the ruler could wield great influence. Seemingly lowly domestic functions—such as making the ruler's bed, bathing him, cutting his hair, carrying him in his litter, or even relaying messages—could in theory give a eunuch "the ruler's ear" and impart ''de facto'' power on the formally humble but trusted servant. Similar instances are reflected in the humble origins and etymology of many high offices (''e.g.'', chancellor originally denoted a servant guarding the entrance to an official's study). Eunuchs supposedly did not generally have loyalties to the military, the aristocracy, or to a family of their own (having neither offspring nor in-laws, at the very least), and were thus seen as more trustworthy and less interested in establishing a private 'dynasty'. Because their condition usually lowered their social status, they could also be easily replaced or killed without repercussion. In cultures that had both harems and eunuchs, eunuchs were sometimes used as harem servants (compare the female odalisque) or seraglio guards. In Latin, the words ''eunuchus'', ''spado'', and ''castratus'' were used to denote eunuchs. ==Etymology== ''Eunuch'' comes from the Greek word ''eunoukhos'', first attested in a fragment of Hipponax, the 6th century BCE comic poet and prolific inventor of compound words. The acerbic poet describes a certain lover of fine food having "consumed his estate dining lavishly and at leisure every day on tuna and garlic-honey cheese paté like a Lampsacene ''eunoukhos''". In ancient classical literature from the early 5th century onward, the word generally designates some incapacity for or abstention from procreation, whether due to natural constitution or to physical mutilation. For instance, Lucian suggests two methods to determine whether someone is a eunuch: physical inspection of the body, or scrutiny of his ability to perform sexually with females (Lucian, ''Eunuchus'' 12). The earliest surviving etymology of the word is from late antiquity. The 5th century (CE) ''Etymologicon'' by Orion of Thebes offers two alternative origins for the word eunuch: first, ''to tēn eunēn ekhein'', "guarding the bed", a derivation inferred from eunuchs' established role at the time as "bedchamber attendants" in the imperial palace, and second, ''to eu tou nou ekhein'', "being good with respect to the mind", which Orion explains based on their "being deprived of male-female intercourse (''esterēmenou tou misgesthai''), the things that the ancients used to call irrational (''anoēta'', literally: 'mindless')". Orion's second option reflects well-established idioms in Greek, as shown by entries for ''noos'', ''eunoos'' and ''ekhein'' in Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon, while the first option is not listed as an idiom under ''eunē'' in that standard reference work. However, the first option was cited by the late 9th century Byzantine emperor Leo VI in his New Constitution 98 banning the marriage of eunuchs, in which he noted eunuchs' reputation as trustworthy guardians of the marriage bed (''eunē'') and claimed that the very word eunuch attested to this kind of employment. The emperor also goes further than Orion by attributing eunuchs' lack of male-female intercourse specifically to castration, which he said was performed with the intention "that they will no longer do the things that males do, or at least to extinguish whatever has to do with desire for the female sex". The 11th century Byzantine monk Nikon of the Black Mountain, opting instead for Orion's second alternative, stated that the word came from ''eunoein'' (eu "good" + nous "mind"), thus meaning "to be well-minded, well-inclined, well-disposed or favorable", but unlike Orion he argued that this was due to the trust that certain jealous and suspicious foreign rulers placed in the loyalty of their eunuchized servants. Theophylact of Ohrid in a dialogue ''In Defence of Eunuchs'' also stated that the origin of the word was from ''eunoein'' and ''ekhein'', "to have, hold", since they were always "well-disposed" toward the master who "held" or owned them. The 12th century Etymologicum Magnum (s.v. ''eunoukhos'') essentially repeats the entry from Orion, but stands by the first option, while attributing the second option to what "some say". In the late 12th century, Eustathius of Thessalonica (Commentaries on Homer 1256.30, 1643.16) offered an original derivation of the word from ''eunis'' + ''okheuein'', "deprived of mating". In translations of the Bible into modern European languages, such as the Luther Bible or the King James Bible, the word ''eunuchus'' as found in the Latin Vulgate is usually rendered as officer, official or chamberlain, consistent with the idea that the original meaning of eunuch was bed-keeper (Orion's first option). Modern religious scholars have been disinclined to assume that the courts of Israel and Judah included castrated men, even though the original translation of the Bible into Greek used the word ''eunoukhos''. The early 17th century scholar and theologian Gerardus Vossius therefore explains that the word originally designated an office, and he affirms the view that it was derived from ''eunē'' and ''ekhein'' (i.e. "bed-keeper"). He says the word only came to be applied to castrated men in general because such men were the usual holders of that office. Still, Vossius notes the alternate etymologies offered by Eustathius ("deprived of mating") and others ("having the mind in a good state"), calling these analyses "quite subtle". Then, after having previously declared that eunuch designated an office (i.e., not a personal characteristic), Vossius ultimately sums up his argument in a different way, saying that the word "originally signified continent men" to whom the care of women was entrusted, and later came to refer to castration because "among foreigners" that role was performed "by those with mutilated bodies". Modern etymologists have followed Orion's first option. In an influential 1925 essay on the word eunuch and related terms, Ernst Maass suggested that Eustathius's derivation "can or must be laid to rest", and he affirmed the derivation from ''eunē'' and ''ekhein'' ("guardian of the bed"),〔 without mentioning the other derivation from ''eunoos'' and ''ekhein'' ("having a well-disposed state of mind"). One major problem, however, with the derivation from ''eunē'' ("bed") is that, according to the rules of Greek vowel contractions (see crasis), the ''ou'' in ''eunoukhos'' requires an ''o''-sound between the contracted words, specifically ''e''+''o'', ''e''+''ou'', ''o''+''e'', ''o''+''ei'', ''o''+''o'' or ''o''+''ou'', and cannot feature an ''a''-sound there. As an ''alpha''-declension noun, ''eunē'' features the stem-vowel ''-a-'', but an ''a''-sound will not combine with any other vowels to produce the ''ou'' that occurs in ''eunoukhos''. All words (other than ''eunoukhos'' anyway) that are formed by adding onto ''eunē'' have an ''a''-sound or long ''e''-sound in the combined syllable, as in ''eunater'' or ''eunēter'' ("bed-fellow"), ''eunaios'' ("in one's bed") or ''eunēthen'' ("from or out of bed"). By analogy, a compound between ''eunē'' and ''ekhein'' would be expected to come out as ''eunēkhos'', or in English "eunech". Even if the form ''okhos'' ("carrier" or "holder") were compounded with ''eunē'', as many dictionaries suggest, the stem-vowel ''a'' from ''eunē'' combined with the initial ''o'' from ''okhos'' would combine to form an ''omega'', and the resulting word ("bed-carrier") would be expected to come out as ''eunōkhos'', with the English word becoming "eunoch". On the other hand, the etymology offered by Eustathius (''eunis'' + ''okheuein'') would work only if ''eunis'' contributes an ''e''-sound or ''o''-sound to the compound. Unfortunately, there are no known compounds of ''eunis'' to use for comparison. Consequently, the rules of Greek vowel contraction at any rate favor the derivation from ''eunoos'' and ''ekhein'' ("having a well-disposed state of mind"). And in fact, other words that have the same ending ''-oukhos'' feature a stem-vowel ''o'' in the first word of the compound, such as ''skēptoukhos'', ''rabdoukhos'', ''lampadoukhos'', ''ofioukhos'' and ''kleidoukhos''. Be that as it may, virtually all modern reference works cite the derivation from ''eunē'' and ''ekhein'' ("keeper of the bed"). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「eunuch」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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