Murray writes in prose, and Green writes in verse. That difference shapes the reading experience throughout. Murray's sentences are long and accumulative, with archaic diction: "sent forth to Hades many valiant souls of heroes, and made them themselves spoil for dogs." The elevated register is consistent but formal to the point of distance. Green writes lines that break and pause, and his diction is contemporary, sometimes blunt: in Book 21, "a far better man than you are" lands as a flat statement where Murray gives "who was better far than thou." Green also allows colloquial phrasing in the Athena passage, where Ares becomes "a sick piece of work, a two-faced / liar," which Murray renders as "a full-wrought bane, a renegade." The registers are genuinely different, not just in degree but in kind. Murray's translation was a scholarly working version, produced for the Loeb Classical Library, where a Greek text runs on the facing page. It prioritizes close correspondence to the Greek syntax, which is why the word order sometimes reads as awkward. The Achilles speech in Book 9, "lost is my home-return, but my renown shall be imperishable," follows the Greek construction closely. Green works from a stated commitment to capturing the rhythm and spoken quality of Homer's verse. He adds clarifying words and rearranges for readability: "If I stay here, and fight around the Trojans' city / I'll lose my homecoming." Murray's approach gives the reader a reliable guide to what is in the Greek; Green gives a reading experience closer to what performance of the poem might feel like.
The wrath sing, goddess, of Peleus' son, Achilles, that destructive wrath which brought countless woes upon the Achaeans, and sent forth to Hades many valiant souls of heroes, and made them themselves spoil for dogs and every bird; thus the plan of Zeus came to fulfillment, from the time when first they parted in strife Atreus' son, king of men, and brilliant Achilles.
Wrath, goddess, sing of Achilles Pēleus's son's
calamitous wrath, which hit the Achaians with countless ills—
many the valiant souls it saw off down to Hādēs,
souls of heroes, their selves1 left as carrion for dogs
and all birds of prey, and the plan of Zeus was fulfilled
from the first moment those two men parted in fury,
Atreus's son, king of men, and the godlike Achilles.