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 C

Cardea

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

Goddess of door hinges and thresholds, protector of homes from evil spirits.

Detailed Definition
Cardea, sometimes conflated with Carna, guarded entrances and domestic space. In poetic charms or hymns (like Ovid’s Fasti), she wields whitethorn to repel striges (night hags), symbolizing the liminal power of thresholds and the need for spiritual defense in daily life.
Example
Example in poetry:
Cardea, goddess of door hinges and thresholds, guards domestic space: "Cardea, with hawthorn wand, bars evil from the lintel"; Ovid links her to Janus and the protection of homes; A household verse: "At dusk, we name Cardea—may her charm hold night at bay"; She symbolizes transitions: "Every doorway holds Cardea’s whisper—enter wisely"; In charm poetry: "Cardea’s thorn pierces the eye of envy."
Additional Notes
Cardea, a nymph granted divine powers by Janus, protected doorways—the most vulnerable point of a Roman home; she wielded hawthorn, a wood believed to repel evil; Ovid links her to the myth of the striges (owl-like child-snatchers) whom she helped defeat; as a liminal deity, she shares functions with Janus and Porta; poets use her in domestic hymns, protective charms, or metaphors for thresholds in life; her cult illustrates the Roman belief that safety begins at the threshold, blending architecture, magic, and divine guardianship.
Also Known As
hinge goddess door protector threshold spirit
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