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 B

Bellerophon

Mythology
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

Corinthian hero who tamed the winged horse Pegasus with Athena's golden bridle and slew the monstrous Chimera. His attempt to fly to Olympus ended in his downfall and wandering.

Detailed Definition
Bellerophon was a Corinthian hero famed for taming the winged horse Pegasus and defeating the monstrous Chimera. Though initially blessed by the gods, his hubris led to his downfall when he attempted to fly to Mount Olympus. In poetry, Bellerophon often symbolizes the perils of overreaching ambition and the fragile boundary between divine favor and human limitation.
Example
Example in poetry:
Bellerophon rides Pegasus to slay the Chimera in Hesiod’s Theogony; Pindar’s Olympian Ode 13 recounts Bellerophon’s hubris in attempting to reach Olympus; In Horace’s Odes, Bellerophon’s fall warns against overreaching ambition; Alexander Pope references “Bellerophon on Pegasus” as a metaphor for poetic aspiration in “An Essay on Criticism”; The myth appears in Ovid’s Metamorphoses as a cautionary tale of divine punishment; John Keats alludes to Bellerophon’s tragic pride in his letters on the “vale of soul-making.”
Additional Notes
Bellerophon exemplifies the Greek tragic arc of hubris leading to nemesis. Though a mortal hero favored by the gods (given Pegasus by Athena), his attempt to ride to Olympus results in divine abandonment and a wretched end. Poets use him to caution against overreaching ambition or to explore the limits of human aspiration. His story appears in Hesiod, Pindar, and Ovid, and later in Renaissance and Romantic poetry as a metaphor for poetic or intellectual flight. Key themes include divine favor, the fragility of glory, and the consequences of defying cosmic order. Compare with Icarus; both involve flight and fall, but Bellerophon’s is moral, not merely physical. Useful in discussions of tragic heroism and classical allusion.
Also Known As
Slayer of Chimera Rider of Pegasus Corinthian Hero Bellerophontes
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