Lattimore writes in long, loose lines of accentual verse that stay close to the length of the Greek hexameter. His diction is contemporary without being casual, and he avoids both archaism and slang. In the opening lines he gives "the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus" and "its devastation, which puts pains thousandfold upon the Achaians," phrases that read plainly and move forward without decoration. Chapman, writing in 1611, uses rhyming fourteener couplets and a register that is elevated and Jacobean throughout. His opening gives "Achilles' baneful wrath resound" and "many brave souls loos'd / From breasts heroic," where the rhyme and inversion push the syntax into contortions that Lattimore never needs. The two translations sound like different centuries because they are. Lattimore follows the Greek closely, preserving the order of ideas and the epithets ("grey-eyed Athene," "single-foot horses"). In the Book 9 passage, his Achilles says "my return home is gone, but my glory shall be everlasting," which tracks the Greek antithesis plainly. Chapman's Achilles at the same moment adds an editorial conclusion: "t'were foolish pride, t'abridge my life for praise," a phrase with no equivalent in the Greek. Chapman adds interpretive glosses and rhetorical punch that the Greek does not carry. That makes his version more immediately dramatic in performance but less reliable as a guide to what Homer wrote. Lattimore removes those additions and stays with the structure of the original, at the cost of some theatrical energy.
Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilleus
and its devastation, which puts pains thousandfold upon the Achaians,
hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls
of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting
of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished
since that time when first there stood in division of conflict
Atreus' son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus.
Achilles' baneful wrath resound, O Goddess, that impos'd
Infinite sorrows on the Greeks, and many brave souls loos'd
From breasts heroic; sent them far to that invisible cave
That no light comforts; and their limbs to dogs and vultures gave:
To all which Jove's will gave effect; from whom first strife begun
Betwixt Atrides, king of men, and Thetis' godlike son.