A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter A

Armilustrium

Historical Festival
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Roman festival on October 19 to purify and store weapons of war, honoring Mars and marking the end of the military campaign season

Detailed Definition
The Armilustrium was a Roman religious observance held on the Aventine Hill where soldiers purified their arms through ritual and chanting before storing them for winter, signifying the close of the campaigning season. Dedicated to Mars, it reinforced the link between martial prowess and civic order. Though rarely detailed in surviving texts, in poetry it appears as a symbol of seasonal transition, the cessation of violence, and the return to domestic peace—often contrasted with spring festivals of war, offering a cyclical view of Roman civic and military life.
Example
Example in poetry:
Ovid notes in “Fasti” that Armilustrium marked the end of the military season with purification of arms; Poets use Armilustrium to meditate on the laying down of weapons and the hope for peace; In war elegies, Armilustrium symbolizes the ritual cleansing after violence; Contemporary poets reference Armilustrium to critique endless militarism; Armilustrium appears in seasonal poetry as an autumnal rite of closure and reflection; Poets evoke its October date to align martial rest with nature’s dormancy.
Additional Notes
Armilustrium (October 19) was a Roman festival where weapons were purified and stored for winter, honoring Mars; it marked the end of the military campaigning season and involved processions on the Aventine Hill; poets may use it to symbolize transition from war to peace, the ritual cleansing of violence, or seasonal closure—useful in elegies or martial poetry reflecting on the cost of conflict.
Also Known As
Armilustrium Festival
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