EELS. plural in a similar manner. Accordingly, Aristophanes, in his Acharnensians, says—
Behold, O boys, the noble eel ([Greek: enchelyn]);
and, in his Lemnian Women, he says—
[Greek: Enchelyn Boiôtian]:
but he uses the nominative case in his Daitaleis—
And smooth too [Greek: hôsper enchelys].
And Cratinus, in his Pluti, says—
The tunny, orphus, grayling, eel, and sea-dog.
But the Attic writers do not form the cases in the plural number as Homer does. Aristophanes says, in his Knights—
For you have fared like men who're hunting eels ([Greek: encheleis]);
and, in his second edition of the Clouds, he says—
Imitating my images of the eels ([Greek: encheleôn]);
and in his Wasps we find the dative case—
I don't delight in rays nor in [Greek: enchelesin]
And Strattis, in his Potamii, said—
A cousin of the eels ([Greek: encheleôn]).
Simonides, too, in his Iambics, writes—
Like an eel ([Greek: enchelys]) complaining of being slippery.
He also uses it in the accusative—
A kite was eating a Mæandrian eel ([Greek: enchelyn]),
But a heron saw him and deprived him of it.
But Aristotle, in his treatise on Animals, writes the word with an [Greek: i], [Greek: enchelis]. But when Aristophanes, in his Knights, says—
Your fate resembles that of those who hunt
For mud-fed eels. For when the lake is still
Their labour is in vain. But if they stir
The mud all up and down, they catch much fish.
And so you gain by stirring up the city;
he shows plainly enough that the eel is caught in the mud, ([Greek: ek tês ilyos],) and it is from this word [Greek: ilys] that the name [Greek: enchelys] ends in [Greek: ys]. The Poet, therefore, wishing to show that the violent effect of the fire reached even to the bottom of the river, spoke thus—The eels and fish were troubled; speaking of the eels separately and specially, in order to show the very great depth to which the water was influenced by the fire.
55. But Antiphanes, in his Lycon, jesting on the Egyptians after the manner of the comic poets, says—
