Pope writes in heroic couplets, the dominant English literary verse form of his era, which means every two lines rhyme and carry a strong iambic pentameter beat. The effect is formal and compressed. In the Book 9 passage, he cuts Achilles' speech to six tight lines: "Short is my date, but deathless my renown" lands with epigrammatic force, while Merrill gives the same thought in seven lines, including "lost is my homeward return, but never will perish my glory." Pope's diction is elevated and period-specific, with "dost thou" and "what boots it" in Book 21. Merrill writes in contemporary English with occasional inversions ("so am I now to you a supporter") that signal verse without archaic vocabulary. His register sits closer to formal modern prose than to either Homer's Greek or Pope's Augustan English. Merrill wrote his translation in dactylic hexameter, the actual meter of the Iliad, which adds roughly two syllables per line compared to Pope's pentameter. This gives Merrill more room to include details Pope drops. In the Book 1 opening, Merrill carries the Greek's reference to Peleus, the dogs, the birds, and Apollo across seven lines; Pope reaches Apollo in the full passage but trims the inventory. Pope's priority is a readable, elegant English poem, and he changes the Greek freely to achieve it, adding interpretive weight ("sovereign doom") that has no equivalent in Homer. Merrill's translation shows commitment to the Greek line structure and to keeping Homer's repeated phrases, which matters to readers interested in how the original was built. Pope gives a self-contained English poem. Merrill keeps closer to the Greek text's architecture.
Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring
Of woes unnumbered, heavenly goddess, sing!
That wrath which hurled to Pluto's gloomy reign
The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain;
Whose limbs, unburied on the naked shore,
Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore.
Since great Achilles and Atrides strove,
Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove!
Sing now, goddess, the wrath of Achilles the scion of Peleus,
ruinous rage which brought the Achaians uncounted afflictions;
many the powerful souls it sent to the dwelling of Hades,
those of the heroes, and spoil for the dogs it made of their bodies,
plunder for all of the birds, and the purpose of Zeus was accomplished—
sing from the time when first stood hostile, starting the conflict,
Atreus' scion, the lord of the people, and noble Achilles.