Fagles writes in free verse with loose, variable line lengths and a contemporary register. His diction runs from plain to colloquial: in Book 21, Achilles says "Come, friend, you too must die. Why moan about it so?" — direct, almost blunt. Pope writes in heroic couplets, with strict rhyme and iambic pentameter throughout. His register is elevated and self-consciously poetic. The same moment becomes "Die then, my friend! what boots it to deplore?" — archaic phrasing, rhetorical address, metered symmetry. The difference in rhythm is consistent across all five passages. Fagles breaks his lines for emphasis and speed; Pope closes each couplet with a balancing click. Readers who find formal verse tiring will notice that more in Pope; readers who want rhythmic consistency will find it only there. Pope's translation, published in 1715, adds material and ornamentation. In the "leaves" passage, Homer's image is spare. Fagles keeps it close: "Now the wind scatters the old leaves across the earth." Pope adds the couplet structure and a summarizing line, "So generations in their course decay," which the Greek does not have. Fagles aims at readability alongside fidelity to the movement of the Greek. He removes Pope's rhetorical embroidery and stays nearer to the original sequence of thought. What Pope gains is a formal grandeur that makes the poem feel ceremonial. What he loses is closeness to Homer's plainness. Fagles loses the ceremonial weight but keeps the Greek's directness of statement.
Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing!
That wrath which hurled to Pluto's gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain;
Whose limbs, unburied on the naked shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore.
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove!