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

Buphonia

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

Athenian festival featuring the ritual slaughter of an ox at the Dipolieia, followed by a mock trial judging the murder of the sacred animal

Detailed Definition
The Buphonia (ox-murder) was the central ritual of the Dipolieia, where an ox was slain at Zeus Polieus's altar, then participants held a mock trial prosecuting the axe for murder while the ox received honorable burial. This paradoxical rite acknowledged the guilt inherent in killing sacred animals for sacrifice. In poetry, Buphonia represents sacrificial ambivalence, ritual guilt, and theological complexity, appearing in works exploring the moral dimensions of sacrifice, humanity's conflicted relationship with necessary killing, and Greek awareness that sustaining life through death required acknowledgment of the profound transgression involved in slaying sacred creatures.
Example
Example in poetry:
The Buphonia ox-slaying ritual appears in poetry exploring sacrifice and guilt; Ancient poets reference the bizarre trial of the axe after the killing; "At Buphonia, the axe stands accused of murder" captures its paradox; The festival provides material for verses on ritual pollution and atonement; Poets use Buphonian imagery when exploring sacrifice's moral complexity; Contemporary verse employs the term for themes of violence and religious anxiety
Additional Notes
Buphonia's ox-slaughter ritual at the Dipolieia represents one of Greek religion's most peculiar ceremonies, where the murder weapon was tried and convicted after the sacrifice. This ritual dramatizes Greek anxieties about sacred violence and the paradox of honoring gods through killing. For poetry students, Buphonia offers insight into Greek attitudes toward sacrifice, guilt, and ritual purity. The festival's archaic character and unusual legal drama make it valuable for understanding how Greeks ritualized and rationalized religious violence.
Also Known As
Bouphonia Dipoleia
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