Chapman writes in rhyming couplets with long, galloping lines that carry an Elizabethan cadence throughout. His register is archaic by design: "baneful wrath resound" and "that invisible cave / That no light comforts" push the language toward a heightened, formal English that was already slightly old-fashioned when he wrote it. Verity uses free verse with shorter, plainer lines and a contemporary register. His opening "SING, goddess, the anger of Achilles" is direct and unornamented, and his language across the passages stays close to ordinary English prose rhythm. In the leaves passage from Book 6, Chapman compresses the image into a syntactically tangled clause ("Man's leavy issue"), while Verity lays it out with plain statement: "one generation grows and another ceases." Chapman's version prioritises poetic performance and emotional amplification in the spirit of his own era, which means he adds material freely. In the Book 21 passage, he expands Achilles' taunt with theatrical flourishes ("rarely magnified") that have no equivalent in the Greek. Verity is more committed to the shape and sequence of the original: in the same passage, his "Can you not see what kind of a man I am, how handsome and great?" tracks the Greek closely. Chapman loses fidelity but gains momentum and rhetorical punch. Verity loses some of that energy but gives the reader a clearer sense of what Homer actually says. Readers who want the poem as a piece of English literature from a particular historical moment will find Chapman rewarding; readers who want proximity to the Greek text will find Verity more reliable.
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, the anger of Achilles, Peleus' son,
the accursed anger which brought the Achaeans countless
agonies and hurled many mighty shades of heroes into Hades,
causing them to become the prey of dogs and
all kinds of birds; and the plan of Zeus was fulfilled.
Sing from the time the two men were first divided in strife—
Atreus' son, lord of men, and glorious Achilles.