Murray writes in prose, with no line breaks, and his diction reaches back to early twentieth-century English: "putteth forth," "bourgeons," "consorteth." These forms signal a deliberate distance from everyday speech. Verity writes in verse, keeping lines close to the length of Greek hexameters, and his word choices are contemporary without being casual. In the Book 6 leaves passage, Murray writes "the forest, as it bourgeons, putteth forth others," while Verity writes "the forest breaks into bud and makes more." Both carry the same information, but Murray's register feels like a document from another era. In Book 21, Murray's Achilles says "do thou too die," and Verity's says "you too must die." The shift from second-person archaic to plain modern English is consistent across both translations. Murray's prose follows the Greek sentence order closely and rarely expands it, which means a reader gets a reliable, if sometimes dense, path through the original. His 1924 Loeb edition was made for readers with the Greek on the facing page, and that context shaped his priorities: accuracy over flow. Verity's verse aims to read independently. In the Book 5 passage, Murray calls Ares "a full-wrought bane, a renegade," while Verity gives "this crazed god, this shape formed of evil, this two-faced scoundrel." Verity's version adds weight and clarity to Athena's contempt. Murray's version preserves something stranger and more compressed. Verity gains readability at the cost of that compression; Murray preserves compression at the cost of readability.
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.
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.