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 G

gestes

Archaic Terms
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

Tales or stories, especially of adventure or heroic deeds; also deeds or exploits themselves, from romance tradition.

Detailed Definition
"Gestes" (also "gests") derives from Old French "geste" (exploit, story), referring both to heroic deeds and to tales recounting them—the term encompassed both action and narrative. Medieval romance titles like "Gesta Romanorum" (Deeds of the Romans) employed it, establishing "geste" as the proper term for adventure narratives. Poets used it when referring to tales of chivalric adventure, knightly quests, and heroic exploits. The word's dual meaning—both deed and tale—reflected medieval understanding that great deeds demanded narration and achieved immortality through story. "Gestes" appeared in contexts of storytelling and reputation where fame depended on narrative preservation. Its archaic quality made it essential for romance and epic, genres celebrating heroic action. The term's association with oral tradition and minstrelsy connected written poetry to performance roots, emphasizing literature's role in preserving and celebrating deeds through narrative craft.
Example
Example in poetry:
The minstrel sang gestes of Charlemagne; "Gestes of Roland" recounts heroic deeds; Gestes are tales of adventure and heroism; Medieval audiences loved hearing martial gestes; The poet composed gestes praising his patron; Ancient gestes preserved historical memory
Additional Notes
Gestes appears primarily in medieval romance titles and descriptions of heroic narrative: "gestes of Arthur," "romantic gestes." The term encompasses both the deeds themselves and narratives recounting them, showing medieval unity between act and telling. Related to "jest" (which evolved to mean joke, showing semantic drift) and "gesture." Essential for analyzing medieval narrative categories, the relationship between deed and story, and heroic literature's self-conception. The term appears in prologues and epic invocations where narrators announce their subject matter. Useful for discussing genre categories, how medieval literature classified itself, and the performative aspects of heroic narrative. The French origin reflects Romance language dominance in medieval literary terminology. Its obsolescence obscures the medieval genre system.
Also Known As
tales stories adventures deeds
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