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



Glycera

Literary Character
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

A beautiful courtesan or beloved in Horace's Odes, representing feminine charm, sensuality, and the fleeting nature of youth.

Detailed Definition
Glycera appears in Horace's lyric poetry as a lovely woman associated with pleasure and the carpe diem theme; her name means "sweet" in Greek, emphasizing her allure. The character embodies the intersection of beauty and transience, her presence prompting meditations on aging, desire, and the wisdom of enjoying present pleasures. Glycera represents how classical love poetry uses conventional names to explore philosophical themes about mortality and the proper response to life's brevity.
Example
Example in poetry:
Glycera appears in Horace's Odes as a beloved woman, representing beauty and the pains of love; Poets use Glycera to embody feminine attraction and its effects on men; In lyric tradition, Glycera represents the beautiful woman who causes suffering through her power; A poet might invoke Glycera when exploring themes of love's torment; Glycera serves as the name for an attractive but potentially cruel beloved; The character demonstrates how classical poets addressed the tyranny of beauty
Additional Notes
Glycera appears in Horace's Odes as a beautiful woman who causes suffering through her power over men. The name suggests "sweet" in Greek, ironically contrasting with the bitter pain she inflicts. Poets invoke Glycera when exploring the tyranny of beauty, the suffering caused by desire, and the beloved's cruel indifference to her lover's pain. The character embodies the paradox of sweetness that brings bitterness, beauty that torments. Glycera demonstrates lyric poetry's examination of desire's destructive potential and beauty's power to inflict psychological suffering on those who desire without being desired in return.
Also Known As
sweet one honeyed lady charming mistress
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