Both translations are in verse, but they handle line length and register very differently. Fitzgerald writes in looser, more literary English, with lines that compress and sometimes drop clauses the Greek spells out. In the Book 1 opening, he gives "Anger be now your song, immortal one" and then moves quickly to a six-line unit that stops before the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles is even named. Jordan opens with "Sing, goddess, of Peleus' son Achilles' anger" and stays closer to the Greek sentence order, naming both heroes by line seven. Fitzgerald's diction tilts toward the elevated ("undergloom," "carrion"), while Jordan's stays in plain contemporary English. In the leaves passage of Book 6, Fitzgerald writes "old leaves, cast on the ground by wind," a phrase with clear rhythmic shaping; Jordan gives "Wind scatters leaves on the ground," which is flatter but immediately clear. Fitzgerald shapes scenes for sustained literary effect and is willing to cut or compress where a fuller rendering would slow momentum. In the Book 9 passage on Achilles' choice, he gives only five lines where Jordan gives seven, omitting Thetis and the specific framing of "two pathways to death." Jordan keeps that material and names it explicitly: "fate offers me two pathways to death." The gain for Jordan is completeness and a reader who can follow the argument without cross-referencing. Fitzgerald's cuts produce a tighter emotional beat but occasionally remove context the Greek carries. In the Book 21 killing, Fitzgerald closes with "yet death waits for me, / for me as well, in all the power of fate," a phrase with rhetorical weight; Jordan's version adds the dawn-to-dusk image, which is present in the Greek and Jordan retains it.
Anger be now your song, immortal one,
Akhilleus' anger, doomed and ruinous,
that caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss
and crowded brave souls into the undergloom,
leaving so many dead men—carrion
for dogs and birds; and the will of Zeus was done.
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.