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

ass

Archaic Terms
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

An archaic term for a foolish or stubborn person, derived from the animal’s perceived stupidity and obstinacy; used in poetry to convey contempt for ignorance or willful dullness.

Detailed Definition
In archaic poetry, “ass” served as a potent symbol of stupidity and stubbornness, drawn from the animal’s cultural associations with dullness, braying, and resistance to guidance. Poets used it not merely to insult but to allegorize moral failure—those who refused enlightenment, clung to ignorance, or acted with brute obstinacy. It appeared frequently in medieval moralities and Renaissance satire, often paired with imagery of burden, braying, or being ridden by fools, reinforcing the idea that the foolish were not just ignorant but enslaved to their own nature. Its brevity and primal sound made it devastatingly effective in couplets and epigrams, where a single word could summon a full portrait of human folly.
Example
Example in poetry:
He brays like an ass, unheeding the storm that gathers near; O stubborn ass, why dost thou scorn the warning seer?; The courtier bowed with ass-like pride, blind to the king’s disdain; Thou art an ass to trust that snake in velvet guise; Like an ass beneath the yoke, he bears his shame in silence; An ass he was, and as an ass he met his end in folly.
Additional Notes
The term “ass” in archaic poetry draws on deep cultural associations of the animal as stubborn, unthinking, and burdened—qualities poets exploited to critique moral blindness or social pretension; unlike modern usage, it rarely referred literally to the animal but symbolized willful ignorance, as in Shakespeare’s “Troilus and Cressida,” where characters are called asses to expose their refusal to perceive truth; its monosyllabic harshness made it ideal for satirical couplets, and it often appeared alongside terms like “fool” or “dolt” to layer ridicule; poets used “ass” to contrast divine reason with base instinct, especially in religious allegories where the beast represented the soul’s fall from grace; students should note its frequent pairing with imagery of burden, braying, or being ridden—suggesting the foolish are not merely stupid but enslaved by their own nature.
Also Known As
donkey jackass beast brute mule
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