again to the neuter--settling down with a noise giving the proper
agreement to the general word of the species.

The poet often changes the number as well as the gender (I. xv. 305):--

The crowd approach the ships of the Achaeans.

First comes a singular then a plural verb, plainly looking to the sense,
for although the word "crowd" is called singular, yet it embraces many
individuals.

Like it in the opposite way is when the plural precedes the singular
follows (I. xvi. 264):--

They having a martial heart each one rushes on.

The word [Greek omitted] is singular, being applied to a multitude has
the same effect as all ([Greek omitted]). The same kind of figure is the
following (O. iii. 4):--

And they reached Pylas, the stablished castle of Neleus, and
the people were doing sacrifice on the seashore.

The people of Pylas are meant.

He has changes of cases, the nominative and the vocative being
interchanged in the following verse (I. ii. 107):--

To Agamemnon last Thyestis left it,--

and (I. i. 411):--

Cloud-compelling Zeus,--

and (0. xvii. 415):--

Friend [Greek omitted] give me for thou dost not seem to me
to be the worst of the Greeks.

The genitive and dative are changed in the next example (I. iii. 16):--

Godlike Paris fights in front for the Trojans,--

instead of "in front of." And the contrary in the next (O. v. 68):--

There about the hollow cave trailed a gadding vine.

Where in the original the Greek word "cave" is in the genitive case,
not as it should be, dative. And the cause of the mutation is that the
nominative accusative and vocative seem to have a certain relation
to one another. On which account nouns of the neuter gender and many
masculine and feminine ones have these three cases alike. Likewise the
genitive has a certain affinity with the dative. This is found in the
dual number of all words. Hence the cases are changed contrary to
what is usual. Sometimes it is possible to discover the reason for the
change, as in the expression (I. v. 222):--

Understanding of the field,--

and (I. ii. 785):--

They crossed the field,--

just as if he had used the preposition "through."

A fine example of change of case is found in the beginning of both his
poems:--

Sing, O Muse, the vengeance, etc., whence to Greece unnumbered
ills arose.

Tell me, Muse, of that man, of many a shift and many the w