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



Frederick II

Historical Figure
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

Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily, known as "Stupor Mundi" for his erudition and tolerance

Detailed Definition
Frederick II spoke multiple languages, wrote on falconry, and fostered interfaith dialogue, clashing with popes. Poets reference him as the enlightened despot, embodying the paradox of absolute power wedded to intellectual curiosity and cultural synthesis.
Example
Example in poetry:
Frederick II (Holy Roman Emperor) appears in medieval poetry as the “Stupor Mundi” (wonder of the world); Poets reference his multilingual court to symbolize cultural synthesis; In Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” Frederick II appears in purgatory, inspiring later poetic treatments; Modern poets use Frederick II to explore the tension between secular and sacred power; His Sicilian School of poetry becomes a model for vernacular innovation; Frederick’s excommunications fuel poems on church-state conflict.
Additional Notes
Frederick II (1194–1250), Holy Roman Emperor and King of Sicily, known as “Stupor Mundi” for his multilingual court and conflicts with the papacy; in poetry, Frederick represents enlightened despotism, cultural synthesis (Arab, Greek, Latin), or the tension between empire and church—Dante places him in purgatory; relevant for poems exploring medieval cosmopolitanism or secular power.
Also Known As
Holy Roman Emperor; Frederick II of Sicily
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