In locating the testicles on the object relations map, their function (actual and symbolic) in Sophocles' three plays (Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone), is considered as a basis for a theory of the testes as transgenerational containers of pathology. Two clinical vignettes are presented where the testes were salient in the course of psychoanalytic psychotherapy; firstly, in the treatment of a manic depressive patient who had developed testicular cancer after the birth of his son, and secondly, in a male patient with gender dysphoria who was seen for psychotherapy prior to operative gender re-assignment. It is argued that the psychobiological role of the testicles has been largely overlooked in psychoanalytic theory. Implications for future consideration of the testes are considered.