Lattimore writes in a long, loose line that reaches toward the Greek hexameter without quite reproducing it. His register is formal and somewhat archaic: "hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls / of heroes" keeps Greek word order and a ceremonial weight that marks the verse as deliberately non-modern. Verity's lines are shorter and more regular, and his diction sits closer to contemporary educated prose. In the Book 21 passage, Lattimore gives "how huge, how splendid / and born of a great father," while Verity writes "how handsome and great" on a single line. The difference is not incidental: Lattimore's line sprawls as Achilles boasts, Verity's compresses. Both stay in verse, but they produce different rhythmic experiences on the page. Lattimore's translation prioritizes fidelity to Greek syntax and formulaic repetition. He preserves epithets and repeated phrases, which serves readers who want to feel the oral-traditional texture of the poem. The cost is occasional awkwardness: "the live timber / burgeons with leaves again" in the leaves simile from Book 6 is accurate but slightly stiff. Verity makes the same passage read more cleanly: "the forest breaks / into bud." Verity moves toward readability, and his word choices are more consistently idiomatic, which makes sustained reading easier. The Achilles speech in Book 9 shows this well: both translate the two-fates passage faithfully, but Verity's "two spectres carrying me towards the end of death" is plain where Lattimore's "two sorts of destiny" stays closer to the Greek "keres."
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.
SING, goddess, the anger of Achilles, Peleus' son,
the accursed anger which brought the Achaeans countless
agonies and hurled many mighty shades of heroes into Hades,
causing them to become the prey of dogs and
all kinds of birds; and the plan of Zeus was fulfilled.
Sing from the time the two men were first divided in strife—
Atreus' son, lord of men, and glorious Achilles.