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 F

Festus

Biblical
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

The Roman governor who succeeded Felix, heard Paul’s defense, and sent him to Caesar in Rome, as described in the Book of Acts.

Detailed Definition
Festus, more upright than Felix, still yielded to Jewish pressure, sending Paul to Rome for trial. He consulted Agrippa on Paul’s case. In poetry, Festus symbolizes bureaucratic neutrality that fails to protect the innocent, the clash between Roman law and religious fervor, and the unwitting facilitation of gospel expansion through legal process.
Example
Example in poetry:
In John Milton’s "Paradise Lost," Festus’s appeal to Caesar (Acts 25) illustrates Roman justice intersecting with divine plan; In T.S. Eliot’s "The Rock," Festus represents pragmatic governance blind to spiritual reality; In Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s "A Drama of Exile," Festus symbolizes the reasonable man who cannot grasp faith; In George Herbert’s "The Church-porch," Festus’s “madness” charge against Paul warns against dismissing revelation; In John Keble’s "Lyra Apostolica," Festus embodies the worldly judge; In W.H. Auden’s "For the Time Being," Festus illustrates the bureaucratic mind confronting mystery.
Additional Notes
Festus: Successor to Felix; heard Paul’s case and consulted Agrippa II (Acts 25–26). More just than Felix but still bound by Roman protocol. In poetry, Festus embodies bureaucratic neutrality, the limits of legal justice, and the near-miss of conversion. His exclamation (“Paul, you are out of your mind!” Acts 26:24) captures rationalist dismissal of revelation—ideal for poems on reason vs. faith, or the tragic gap between hearing and believing.
Also Known As
Festus governor of Judea Porcius Festus
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