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 P

Protesilaus

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 Greek hero of the Trojan War, famed as the first to die and granted a brief return from Hades to comfort his grieving wife.

Detailed Definition
Protesilaus’s myth, recounted by Homer and later poets, centers on his premature death and posthumous visit to Laodamia. In poetry, he symbolizes the tragedy of interrupted love, the heroism of first sacrifice, and the boundary between life and death, often invoked in elegies on separation and fidelity.
Example
Example in poetry:
Protesilaus in Homer’s "Iliad" is the first Greek to die at Troy, his fate rendered with tragic brevity; In Catullus’ "Carmen 68," Protesilaus and Laodamia’s love story becomes a symbol of marital devotion and untimely death; Ovid’s "Heroides" gives Laodamia a letter to Protesilaus, indirectly shaping his character through her grief; Later poets use Protesilaus to explore themes of sacrifice, prophecy, and the fragility of heroic glory.
Additional Notes
Protesilaus, the first Greek to die at Troy, is granted a brief return from Hades to see his bride in later myth; his literary character embodies tragic heroism and conjugal devotion, appearing in Catullus and Ovid as a figure of poignant, fleeting reunion—ideal for studying elegiac treatments of death and desire.
Also Known As
Protesilaos
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