Lattimore writes in long, unrhymed lines that stretch across the page and carry a formal, elevated register. His diction reaches for an archaic English that holds distance from ordinary speech. In the Book 1 opening, he keeps "Achaians" and "Achilleus" and writes "hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls," preserving the heavy front-loading of Homer's syntax. Rouse works in plain, modern prose. He uses "my lord King Agamemnon" and "An angry man, there is my story," and in Book 5 Athena calls Ares "Mr. Facing-all-ways," a phrase that reads like spoken English from the 1930s. The Book 6 leaves passage shows the gap cleanly: Lattimore writes "the live timber burgeons with leaves again," while Rouse gives "as they go and come agen so upon the earth do men," a looser, almost folk-song cadence. Lattimore prioritizes the sound and structure of the Greek, keeping compound epithets, long periodic sentences, and formulaic repetition. He keeps "grey-eyed Athene" and "silver-footed Thetis," maintaining the texture of oral-formulaic verse. The Book 9 speech reads as a formal declaration. Rouse prioritizes the pace of narrative and the clarity of meaning for a reader who wants story. In the same Book 9 passage he cuts "the excellence of my glory is gone" to "there will be no great fame for me," removing Lattimore's double qualification and gaining speed. In Book 21, Rouse's Achilles says "Don't you see me too, a fine big man?", which is direct and immediate. Lattimore's version carries weight but costs the reader effort; Rouse removes that effort and removes some of the gravity with it.
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.
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.