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.

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

Curiosity killed the cat

Idiomatic Phrase
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

Curiosity killed the cat: excessive inquisitiveness can lead to harm or trouble; the feline's proverbial nine lives make this a surprisingly ominous warning against prying too deeply.

Detailed Definition
Curiosity killed the cat warns of the dangers inherent in risky probing or excessive inquiry, allowing poetry to explore knowledge's double-edged nature, the tension between wonder and peril, and boundaries of safe exploration. This idiomatic phrase, often completed with "but satisfaction brought it back," balances cautionary tales with celebration of intellectual courage. Poets integrate it into fables, philosophical musings, or coming-of-age narratives to depict scientific ambition, forbidden love, or existential questioning, adding proverbial wisdom and narrative drive that enriches moral complexity and human drive for discovery.
Example
Example in poetry:
Cautionary tale: "Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back, some say."; Adventurous: "Curiosity killed the cat yet birthed explorers' greatest discoveries."; For students: "Balances risk and reward in exploratory verses."; "Curiosity killed the cat in the forbidden library."
Additional Notes
Risk warning, balances inquiry dangers with rewards in exploratory works. Valuable for knowledge themes.
Also Known As
Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back Prying brings peril
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