Mitchell writes in free verse, with lines that run at conversational length and a register that stays close to modern spoken English. Graves, despite the "prose" tag on some editions, renders much of the poem in rhyming couplets or stanzas, and the result sits in a different century from Mitchell's diction. In Book 1, Mitchell opens with "The rage of Achilles," clean and direct, while Graves opens with "Sing, Mountain Goddess, sing through me / That anger which most ruinously / Inflamed Achilles," where the rhyme scheme shapes what the words say. The leaves passage in Book 6 shows the same split: Mitchell gives plain declarative sentences, Graves turns the image into a four-beat stanza with end-rhymes. The rhyme costs Graves some fidelity but gives the lines a song-like quality Mitchell does not attempt. Graves wrote in 1959, and his translation prioritizes formal poetic music over close rendering of Homer's Greek. The rhyme in the Book 9 speech, where Achilles weighs glory against long life, produces a tidy epigram ("Either to stand fast on the Trojan shore / Until you die, renowned for evermore") that packages Achilles' dilemma neatly. Mitchell, writing half a century later, keeps the speech in plain lines and gets closer to the movement of thought in the Greek. In the Book 21 killing, Mitchell's Achilles says "you too must die," short and flat, where Graves has "Yes, friend, including you," which sounds warmer than the moment calls for. Graves suits a reader who wants the poem at some distance; Mitchell suits one who wants it close.
The rage of Achilles—sing it now, goddess, sing through me
the deadly rage that caused the Achaeans such grief
and hurled down to Hades the souls of so many fighters,
leaving their naked flesh to be eaten by dogs
and carrion birds, as the will of Zeus was accomplished.
Begin at the time when bitter words first divided
that king of men, Agamemnon, and godlike Achilles.
Sing, Mountain Goddess, sing through me
That anger which most ruinously
Inflamed Achilles, Peleus' son,
And which, before the tale was done,
Had glutted Hell with champions—bold,
Stern spirits by the thousandfold;
Ravens and dogs their corpses ate
For thus did Zeus, who watched their fate,
See his resolve, first taken when
Proud Agamemnon, King of men,
An insult on Achilles cast,
Achieve accomplishment at last.