Both Reck and Jordan write in verse, but their line lengths and registers differ noticeably. Reck runs shorter, often clipping below the natural length of a hexameter. His Book 1 opening calls Achilles' rage a "maniac rage" and closes the invocation at line seven, dropping the continuation of the Greek entirely. The diction is contemporary and occasionally blunt: "crook, that lunatic, that renegade" in Book 5 compresses Athena's speech into something almost conversational. Jordan holds closer to the Greek line count and keeps a somewhat more formal register throughout. His Book 1 gives "untold ordeals" and "matchless Achilles," phrases that stay elevated without reaching for archaism. Reck reads faster and sounds more immediate; Jordan moves at a pace closer to formal recitation. Reck cuts material when the Greek is expansive. His Book 9 passage on glory and long life ends after Achilles states the two fates, dropping the three lines in which Achilles tells the others to sail home. Jordan includes all of it: "I will forfeit glory, but gain long life / and not encounter death till many years pass," then continues with the counsel to the Greeks. That pattern holds across passages. Reck prioritizes momentum and readable English over completeness; Jordan prioritizes fidelity to the Greek's structure and content, even when that produces slightly more measured phrasing. The leaves passage in Book 6 shows this too: Reck gives four lines, Jordan gives four but adds "In like manner the stock of men survives," a closing phrase absent from the Greek that nonetheless feels explanatory rather than inventive.
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, goddess, of Peleus' son Achilles' anger,
ruinous, that caused the Greeks untold ordeals,
consigned to Hades countless valiant souls,
heroes, and left their bodies prey for dogs
or feast for vultures. Zeus's will was done
from when those two first quarreled and split apart,
the king, Agamemnon, and matchless Achilles.