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 N

narrative lai

Form
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 short, rhymed medieval French narrative poem, often based on Breton folklore, focusing on romance, adventure, or the supernatural.

Detailed Definition
Narrative lai is a short medieval French or English verse tale, often in octosyllabic couplets, that blends romance, folklore, and moral instruction; typically featuring supernatural elements and courtly love, it served as both entertainment and ethical exemplum, influencing later narrative forms like the ballad.
Example
Example in poetry:
narrative lai: Marie de France’s “Lanval” tells of a knight’s magical love with fairy elements and courtly betrayal; “Eliduc” explores marital fidelity and supernatural resurrection in medieval Brittany; “Bisclavret” recounts a werewolf’s tragic loyalty and restoration through lyrical brevity; “Chaitivel” narrates four lovers’ fates with fatalistic economy; modern adaptations like “The Lais of Marie de France” translated by Dorothy Gilbert preserve the lai’s compact storytelling; contemporary poets like Marilyn Hacker have reimagined the lai form to explore queer desire and diaspora.
Additional Notes
A narrative lai is a short medieval French or English poem, often with a refrain, telling a romantic or supernatural tale; it influenced later ballad and lyric forms with its musicality and brevity.
Also Known As
Breton lai medieval narrative song courtly tale-verse lyrical romance Lai (Breton lai)
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