Bert wrote:So [face=SPIonic]ei(=j [/face]and [face=SPIonic]tij[/face] don't belong to the next word but to the one after that, ie; to [face=SPIonic]a)nh\r[/face]
This does make sense in the translation but why would the word [face=SPIonic]a)rxo\j [/face]be inserted.
It's hard for me to decide about this. On the one hand,
[face=spionic]tij, ti[/face] can be quite far from the word they go with, and have very strong urges in their phrase placement which adds to the confusion. For example, here's one with three words between it and what it goes with:
[face=spionic]te/loj d' ou)/ pw/ ti pe/fantai.[/face] B.122
But I share your concern about an intervening word which agrees with the indefinite, even if Pharr pushes for that interpretation indirectly in the greek-to-english exercise #4. We could take the
[face=spionic]a)nh\r boulhfo/roj[/face] to be in aposition, "there there be some leader, a discreet man, ..." But I'm not entirely confident in that.
When I run into these confusions, I remember these words of Calvert Watkins, from
How to Kill a Dragon chapter 16 "The hidden track of the cow: Obscure styles in indo-european:"
In the poetic traditions of most or all of the early Indo-European languages we find texts, often in large numbers, which for one reason or another present, or seem to present, some sort of obstacle between the hearer - the "reader" - and the message. And it often seems that that "obstacle" is in some sense what that society considers art. paro 'ks.akaamaa hi devaah. 'For the gods love the obscure', as we read in the Shatapathabraahmana 6.1.1.2 and many places elsewhere in Vedic literature.
So Homer was probably sometimes difficult for Greeks, too.
Is there any significance in the fact that the verb is right at the end?
I don't think so.