Fagles writes in free verse with variable line lengths and a contemporary American register. His diction has energy and informality: in Book 1 he opens with the single-word exclamation "Rage," isolating it before any verb, and in Book 5 he calls Ares "manic, / born for disaster, double-dealing, lying two-face god," piling on adjectives in a way that feels closer to speech than to literature. Reck keeps tighter, more compressed lines and a plainer register. His Book 1 opens "Sing, Goddess, Achilles' maniac rage," folding the invocation and subject into a single grammatical unit with no theatrical pause. In the Leaves passage from Book 6, Fagles adds "Now" twice and expands the image with "living timber bursts with the new buds," while Reck gives four lines and stops. Fagles prioritises performance and emotional immediacy. He wants the lines to feel urgent when read aloud, and he adds words or images to keep momentum going. In Book 21, Achilles tells the dying Trojan "Come, friend, you too must die," which reads as direct address with a colloquial edge. Reck is closer to the Greek line count across these passages and adds less connective tissue. His Book 9 Achilles says "live in decent obscurity," a phrase with no strong parallel in the Greek but one that reads as an honest paraphrase of the idea. Fagles omits the equivalent line entirely. Reck's gains are concision and proximity to Homer's structure. Fagles gains forward drive. Both lose something when those priorities pull against the original.
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.
Sing, Goddess, Achilles' maniac rage:
ruinous thing! it roused a thousand sorrows
and hurled many souls of mighty warriors
to Hades, made their bodies food for dogs
and carrion birds—as Zeus's will foredoomed—
from the time relentless strife came between
Atreus' son, a king, and brave Achilles.