Rouse writes in prose throughout, keeping his sentences short and direct. His register is plain English with occasional colloquial notes: in Book 5, Athena calls Ares "Mr. Facing-all-ways," which gives the speech a breezy, almost comic tone. Graves opens in rhyming couplets (Book 1: "Sing, Mountain Goddess, sing through me / That anger which most ruinously"), then shifts to prose for narrative stretches, returning to verse for set pieces and speeches. His Book 6 leaf simile expands two Greek lines into a four-stanza elegy. The two translations ask different things of a reader's ear. Rouse moves quickly and sounds like spoken English. Graves asks the reader to adjust to rhyme, which carries its own rhythm and occasionally pulls a phrase away from the sense. Rouse prioritises readability. He keeps the famous Achilles speech in Book 9 as plain statement, and it reads like a man talking through a hard choice. He cuts the formal structure of the Greek prophecy and loses some of the original's weight. Graves adds that structure back, quoting Thetis in verse as though she were delivering an oracle. That decision gives the moment more ceremony. The trade-off appears in Book 21: where Rouse has Achilles say "Come, my friend, die too," Graves gives "Yes, friend, including you," which sounds like contemporary argument. Rouse trained as a classicist and aimed his prose at readers with no Greek. Graves's mixed format shows attention to Homer as a performed text, though the rhyme scheme sometimes requires word order that the Greek does not support.
An angry man—There is my story: The bitter rancour of Achillês, prince of the house of Peleus, which brought a thousand troubles upon the Achaian host. Many a strong soul it sent down to Hadês, and left the heroes themselves a prey to dogs and carrion birds, while the will of God moved on to fulfilment.
It began first of all with a quarrel between my lord King Agamemnon of Atreus' line and the Prince Achillês.
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.