Lombardo writes in short, punchy lines with a contemporary American register. His opening cuts straight to "Achilles' rage, / Black and murderous," dropping the formal invocation of Peleus and collapsing the Greek into tight, muscular phrases. The diction stays close to everyday speech: in Book 21, Achilles tells his victim "You die too, friend. Don't take it hard." Jordan's lines are longer and more complete, keeping names and epithets that Lombardo removes. His opening runs "Peleus' son Achilles' anger, / ruinous, that caused the Greeks untold ordeals," which is cooler and more formal without reaching for archaic elevation. Both are in verse, but Jordan's lines carry more syntactic weight per line, while Lombardo's break earlier and hit harder. Lombardo cuts for performance and immediate impact. In the Leaves passage, he gives "Human generations are like leaves in their seasons" and moves on in four lines, choosing clarity over fidelity to the Greek's parallel structure. Jordan stays closer to the original's shape: "Wind scatters leaves on the ground, yet the forest / prospers and leafs again when spring returns" tracks the Greek's movement more carefully. In Book 9, Jordan includes Thetis and the two fates, where Lombardo starts mid-thought and omits the framing. The gain in Lombardo is speed and readability aloud; the loss is some of the Greek's careful logic. Jordan keeps more of the argumentative scaffolding, which readers who want to follow Homer's reasoning closely will find useful.
Sing, Goddess, Achilles' rage,
Black and murderous, that cost the Greeks
Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls
Of heroes into Hades' dark,
And left their bodies to rot as feasts
For dogs and birds, as Zeus' will was done.
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.