Jordan writes in verse, though without strict meter; his lines are compact and end-stopped, keeping each unit of sense brief. Rouse writes in flowing prose paragraphs. The tonal gap shows clearly at the opening: Jordan has "ruinous, that caused the Greeks untold ordeals," while Rouse opens with "An angry man, There is my story," a conversational aside with no equivalent in the Greek. Rouse's register throughout is contemporary and sometimes colloquial, as in Book 5 where Athena calls Ares "Mr. Facing-all-ways." Jordan stays plainly readable without reaching for modernity. In the leaves passage (Book 6), Jordan gives "Wind scatters leaves on the ground, yet the forest / prospers," a clean two-beat contrast; Rouse writes the same moment as a single loose sentence with no line breaks slowing the reader down. Rouse prioritizes readability and ease of spoken delivery; he keeps sentences moving and does not pause on formal structures. Jordan holds closer to the episodic shape of the original, letting speeches and narrative beats occupy separate lines, which helps a reader track the poem's architecture. In Book 21, when Achilles tells Lykaon to accept death, Jordan renders the moment with controlled brevity: "so you die too, my friend, but why complain?" Rouse gives "Come, my friend, die too; why do you cry like that?" which is plainer and more direct but loses some of the formal distance Achilles keeps between himself and the man he is about to kill. Both translations cut the epithets Rouse includes to varying degrees, though Jordan is more consistent in retaining them.
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.
An angry man—There is my story: The bitter rancour of Achillês, prince of the house of Peleus, which brought a thousand troubles upon the Achaian host. Many a strong soul it sent down to Hadês, and left the heroes themselves a prey to dogs and carrion birds, while the will of God moved on to fulfilment.
It began first of all with a quarrel between my lord King Agamemnon of Atreus' line and the Prince Achillês.