Jordan writes in unrhymed verse throughout; Graves in this edition mixes rhyming couplets and quatrains with prose passages depending on the moment. The opening lines show the gap plainly. Jordan gives "ruinous, that caused the Greeks untold ordeals," which reads as direct speech, close to modern idiom. Graves opens with "Sing, Mountain Goddess, sing through me / That anger which most ruinously / Inflamed Achilles," a rhymed couplet that sits closer to English ballad tradition than to Homer's hexameter. In the Book 5 dialogue, Graves switches to prose, writing "Up with you, and go for that mad, raving fellow," which is colloquial and immediate. Jordan's equivalent, "a frenzied two-faced pest," is also contemporary but stays inside a verse line. Graves's register shifts between passages; Jordan's stays consistent. Jordan keeps close to the sequence and content of the Greek without attempting to reproduce the meter. In the Book 9 passage, he gives Achilles' two fates in plain parallel clauses: "if I stay and fight... I will die soon but my fame will never die." Graves converts the same speech into a quoted prophecy in rhyme, which adds theatrical distance Thetis does not have in the Greek. In Book 21, both translators include Achilles' observation about his own looks and lineage, but Graves's prose runs the lines together into a single speech block, while Jordan separates them into distinct verse units. Graves gains energy and spoken drama; Jordan keeps the passage-by-passage architecture of the original more intact.
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.
Sing, Mountain Goddess, sing through me
That anger which most ruinously
Inflamed Achilles, Peleus' son,
And which, before the tale was done,
Had glutted Hell with champions—bold,
Stern spirits by the thousandfold;
Ravens and dogs their corpses ate
For thus did Zeus, who watched their fate,
See his resolve, first taken when
Proud Agamemnon, King of men,
An insult on Achilles cast,
Achieve accomplishment at last.