Chapman writes in rhyming couplets of long fourteeners, which gives his verse a rolling, almost ballad-like momentum. His diction is Elizabethan: "loos'd / From breasts heroic," "that invisible cave / That no light comforts." A modern reader will feel the distance immediately. Jordan writes in unrhymed lines of more regular, shorter length, and his diction stays close to contemporary speech: "ruinous, that caused the Greeks untold ordeals" from Book 1, against Chapman's "Infinite sorrows on the Greeks." In the Book 9 passage, Jordan gives "I will forfeit glory, but gain long life," where Chapman writes "much of my fame decays, / But death shall linger his approach." Chapman's line is more elaborate; Jordan's is more direct. Chapman's freedom with the Greek is considerable. In the Athena passage from Book 5, he cuts Athena's specific account of Tydeus at Thebes almost entirely and replaces it with a short rhetorical summary: "He is inconstant, impious, mad." Jordan stays close to the Greek sequence, naming Ares "a frenzied two-faced pest," which matches the sense of the original epithet more precisely. Chapman prioritizes rhetorical energy and readability for a stage-era ear; he adds phrases and changes emphasis freely. Jordan appears to prioritize fidelity to the Greek content and clear modern readability. Chapman's version has more personality and verbal surprise; Jordan's loses some of that color but keeps the structural logic of each scene intact.
Achilles' baneful wrath resound, O Goddess, that impos'd
Infinite sorrows on the Greeks, and many brave souls loos'd
From breasts heroic; sent them far to that invisible cave
That no light comforts; and their limbs to dogs and vultures gave:
To all which Jove's will gave effect; from whom first strife begun
Betwixt Atrides, king of men, and Thetis' godlike son.
Sing, goddess, of Peleus' son Achilles' anger,
ruinous, that caused the Greeks untold ordeals,
consigned to Hades countless valiant souls,
heroes, and left their bodies prey for dogs
or feast for vultures. Zeus's will was done
from when those two first quarreled and split apart,
the king, Agamemnon, and matchless Achilles.