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 E

Elli

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

Personification of old age who defeats Thor in a wrestling match at Útgarða-Loki’s hall

Detailed Definition
Elli is the Norse embodiment of old age, appearing in the Prose Edda as an old woman who wrestles and overpowers Thor during his visit to Útgarða-Loki. This allegorical match illustrates that even gods cannot overcome time. Elli’s brief but powerful appearance serves as a humbling lesson on mortality. Poets invoke her to explore themes of aging, inevitable decline, and the limits of strength in the face of natural law.
Example
Example in poetry:
Elli, personification of old age, appears in Gylfaginning: “Thor wrestled Elli and fell—no one escapes age”; Snorri uses Elli to illustrate the inevitability of aging, even for gods; Though not in the Poetic Edda, her allegorical role is clear; Poets reference “Elli’s grip” to denote frailty or decline; Her victory over Thor underscores Norse themes of fate and mortality; Elli serves as a moral figure in mythic didacticism.
Additional Notes
Elli is the personification of old age, appearing allegorically in Gylfaginning when Thor wrestles her and loses—demonstrating that even gods cannot overcome time. Her name literally means "old age" in Old Norse, and her victory over Thor underscores a core Norse theme: the inevitability of fate (ørlög). Though not a goddess with a cult, Elli functions as a didactic figure in myth, teaching humility and the limits of strength. Poetry students can use Elli to explore allegory in Norse narrative—where abstract concepts are embodied to convey philosophical truths. Her brief appearance is thematically dense, linking to broader Indo-European motifs of heroes defeated by time or death (e.g., Heracles and Geras). Elli reminds us that Norse myth values wisdom over brute force.
Also Known As
Old Age Crone of Inevitability Elli the Unconquerable Personified Senescence
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