Genitive / Possessive Case
The genitive case is the only grammatical case that is still expressed through inflection during the Early Modern English period.
The following passage, which is taken from Benjamin Jonson's "The Alchemist", shows the three different kinds of expressing a genitive case:
I haue a paece of IASONS fleece, too,
Which was no other, then a booke of alchemie,
Writ in large sheepe-skin, a good fat ram-vellam.
Such was PYTHAGORA'S thigh, PANDORA'S tub;
And all that fable of MEDEAS charmes,
The manner of our worke: The Bulls, our furnace,
Still breathing fire; our argent-viue, the Dragon:
The Dragons teeth, mercury sublimate,
That keeps the whitenesse, hardnesse, and the biting;
And they re gather'd into IASON'S helme,
(Th'alembeke) and then sow'd in MARS his field,
And, thence, sublim'd so often, till they are fix'd.
Both this, th'Hesperian garde, CADMVS storie,
IOVE'S shower, the boone of MIDAS; ARGVS eyes,
BOCCACE his Demogorgon, thousands more,
All abstract riddles of our stone. How now?
Task:
In what different ways is the possessive case expressed in the passage above? Give examples!