Fitzgerald writes in verse and keeps a fairly elevated register throughout. His lines tend toward the stately: "Anger be now your song, immortal one" opens with an inversion that signals epic distance from the start. Reck also writes in verse but pulls the register down, often into something closer to plain speech. His opening, "Sing, Goddess, Achilles' maniac rage," uses "maniac" where Fitzgerald has "doomed and ruinous," a word choice that is blunter and more immediate. In the Athena passage, Reck has her call Ares "that crook, that lunatic, that renegade," while Fitzgerald gives "this maniacal god / by nature evil, two-faced everywhere." Reck's phrase lands harder and faster. Fitzgerald's lines carry more internal weight and suspension; Reck's move quickly and land flat on the key word. Fitzgerald stays close to the emotional texture of the Greek and tends to let images build across several lines. His version of the leaves passage, "old leaves, cast on the ground by wind, young leaves / the greening forest bears when spring comes in," keeps the contrast between falling and growing across two beats. Reck compresses: "wind spins them to the ground, but the forest / brings new ones forth again when springtime comes." In Book 9, Reck adds "decent obscurity" for the idea of living long but without glory, a phrase with no Greek equivalent, while Fitzgerald stays within the original terms. Reck generally reads fast and asks little of the reader. Fitzgerald asks the reader to slow down and let the syntax do some work. Each choice has a cost.
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, 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.