Chapman writes in rhymed couplets with long, galloping lines that pull the reader forward but sometimes stretch the sense to fit the meter. His diction is Elizabethan: "loos'd / From breasts heroic," "that invisible cave / That no light comforts." In the Book 21 passage, he cuts Achilles' speech dramatically ("Die, die, my friend") and adds emotional color not in the Greek. Merrill uses dactylic hexameter, the meter of the original, with a contemporary but formal register. In the same book, he keeps Achilles' speech measured: "Even Patroklos has perished, a man far better than you are." The lines are longer on the page than Chapman's and follow a consistent rhythmic pattern, which makes them feel more even-paced but also more repetitive over long stretches. Chapman is free with the Greek: he rearranges, adds phrases, and occasionally replaces Homer's content with his own. In Book 5, Athena's long rebuke of Ares is compressed into a few lines and given a blunt moral edge ("he is inconstant, impious, mad") that comes from Chapman, not Homer. Merrill stays close to the Greek syntax and content. In Book 9, his version of Achilles' two fates follows the original structure carefully, repeating "lost is" to mirror Homer's parallel phrasing. What Chapman gains is energy and dramatic presence. What Merrill gains is accuracy to the structure and argument of the poem. A reader wanting to encounter Homer's actual choices will find Merrill more reliable. A reader wanting a vivid Elizabethan performance will find Chapman distinct from anything else in English.
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 now, goddess, the wrath of Achilles the scion of Peleus,
ruinous rage which brought the Achaians uncounted afflictions;
many the powerful souls it sent to the dwelling of Hades,
those of the heroes, and spoil for the dogs it made of their bodies,
plunder for all of the birds, and the purpose of Zeus was accomplished—
sing from the time when first stood hostile, starting the conflict,
Atreus' scion, the lord of the people, and noble Achilles.