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 D

Dubh

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

Dubh, whose name means "dark" or "black," appears in various Irish myths as a character associated with darkness, shadow, or tragic fate, often connected to place-name origins.

Detailed Definition
Different figures named Dubh appear throughout Irish mythology, frequently associated with drowning or bodies of water that bear their names, such as Dubhlinn (Dublin). The name itself carries connotations of mystery, depth, and the unknown aspects of existence. These characters often meet tragic ends that transform the landscape. In poetry, Dubh represents the dark feminine, the shadow self, and the way personal tragedy becomes embedded in geography. The name serves as a touchstone for exploring themes of darkness, hidden depths, mourning, and how individual stories become eternal through place.
Example
Example in poetry:
Dubh appears as a name meaning "dark" or "black" in various Irish legendary figures; Poets invoke Dubh when exploring darkness as beauty, as in the lake Dubhlinn named for a woman; The color symbolism of dubh allows poets to work with themes of mystery and hidden depths; In place-name poetry, Dubh connects landscape features to legendary or divine origins; Modern verse uses dubh as part of compound names to evoke the Celtic tradition of descriptive epithets; The simple word allows poets to invoke darkness without necessarily implying evil
Additional Notes
Dubh (“dark” or “black”) appears in names and epithets (e.g., Dubh Lacha, Dubthach) to denote mystery, danger, or depth; in myth, darkness is not inherently evil but signifies the unknown, the underworld, or hidden knowledge; poets may use “Dubh” as a symbolic prefix to evoke shadow, secrecy, or ancestral memory; it pairs well with luminous names (e.g., Finn = “fair”) to create contrast; understanding “dubh” enriches reading of Irish poetic diction, where color terms carry emotional and metaphysical weight.
Also Known As
Dub Dubhán Dub (as prefix in compound names)
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