Rouse renders the Iliad as straight English prose, broken into paragraphs rather than lines. He was an English schoolmaster who wanted Homer to read like a story told aloud, and his diction is plainly modern and often colloquial. In Book 5 he calls Ares "Mr. Facing-all-ways" and "that graven image of wickedness," which gives you the flavor: he picks a chatty English equivalent rather than a formal epithet. The opening drops the invocation of the Muse and begins "An angry man, there is my story." The famous leaves simile in Book 6 gets a brief rhyming jingle. Grand moments lose their weight; Achilles on his two fates in Book 9 sounds matter-of-fact. Good for a reader who wants the plot moving quickly and finds verse translations stiff.
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.