Reck writes in verse throughout, keeping lines short and relatively plain. His diction is contemporary without being colloquial: "maniac rage" in Book 1 and "why whimper?" in Book 21 are direct and unornamented. Graves switches between prose and verse, sometimes within the same passage. His Book 1 opening is a rhyming couplet sequence ("bold, / Stern spirits by the thousandfold"), while his Book 21 speech is flat prose. That inconsistency changes the reading experience considerably. In the leaves passage, Reck gives four clean lines; Graves expands to a six-line rhyming stanza with "cold earth they rot." Graves in verse reaches for a formal, slightly archaic register. Reck stays at one consistent pitch across the whole text. Reck's priority is readable, speakable English verse that moves at roughly the pace of the original. He cuts the Greek's epithets when they slow the line: "silverfoot Thetis" appears once in Book 9, but Thetis's extended genealogy often goes compressed. Graves in prose adds explanatory material: "Thetis the Silver-Footed prophesied as follows" introduces an inset verse speech that has no prose/verse division in Homer. That approach makes the narrative easy to follow but changes the texture of the speech-act. In Book 5, Reck's Athena calls Ares "that crook, that lunatic, that renegade," and Graves gives "that mad, raving fellow, that universal curse, that renegade." Both add colour; Reck's word choices are blunter, Graves's slightly more elaborate.
Sing, Goddess, Achilles' maniac rage:
ruinous thing! it roused a thousand sorrows
and hurled many souls of mighty warriors
to Hades, made their bodies food for dogs
and carrion birds—as Zeus's will foredoomed—
from the time relentless strife came between
Atreus' son, a king, and brave 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.