Both translations are in verse, but they handle line and sentence differently. Fitzgerald writes shorter, more compressed lines, often letting a sentence end mid-thought for effect: "carrion / for dogs and birds" breaks across lines to isolate the ugliness. Wilson writes longer, more complete sentences that move steadily through the Greek idea by idea. In the Book 9 passage on Achilles' choice, Fitzgerald gives "if I sail back to my own land my glory / fails," cutting the clause tight. Wilson writes "I lose my glory but I gain long life," completing the trade-off in one clean line. Fitzgerald's register sits in a mid-century formal English, dignified without being archaic. Wilson's is contemporary and plain, closer to educated modern speech without dropping into the colloquial. Fitzgerald was translating at a time when verse translations were expected to carry a certain literary weight, and his choices show it: he compresses, selects, and sometimes condenses several Greek lines into fewer English ones. In Book 21, he ends on "yet death waits for me, / for me as well, in all the power of fate," which gives the moment a gravity that comes partly from the repetition and partly from a phrase he constructed rather than strictly rendered. Wilson stays close to the Greek sequence and includes details Fitzgerald omits, such as naming Thetis directly in Book 9 and giving "Death cannot run so fast to overtake me" at the close. She adds that line; the Greek does not include it in quite that form. Fitzgerald gains intensity through selection. Wilson gives the reader more of the poem's actual content, line by line.
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.
Goddess, sing of the cataclysmic wrath
of great Achilles, son of Peleus,
which caused the Greeks immeasurable pain
and sent so many noble souls of heroes
to Hades, and made men the spoils of dogs,
a banquet for the birds, and so the plan
of Zeus unfolded—starting with the conflict
between great Agamemnon, lord of men,
and glorious Achilles.