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

Pythian Verse

Technique
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

Ancient Greek choral odes composed for the Pythian Games in honor of Apollo, often prophetic, mythic, and structured in triadic stanzas.

Detailed Definition
Pythian verse refers to hymns or choral odes composed for the Pythian Games in Delphi, dedicated to Apollo and often infused with oracular or prophetic tones. These works combined lyricism with civic ritual, showcasing poetry’s role in mediating divine will and communal identity in classical antiquity.
Example
Example in poetry:
Pythian verse, associated with the Delphic Oracle, uses cryptic, rhythmic utterances—e.g., “Beware the ides of March” (adapted from historical oracles); A modern imitation: “When moon swallows sun, the king shall fall”; Another: “Seek not the path where shadows creep— / Truth sleeps where widows weep”; Pythian verse often employs dactylic hexameter in classical contexts; A poetic oracle: “Gold brings ruin, peace brings war— / Heed the raven at your door.”
Additional Notes
Pythian verse evokes the cryptic, prophetic utterances of the Delphic Oracle (Pythia), often in dactylic hexameter in antiquity; characterized by ambiguity, rhythmic solemnity, and symbolic language; modern poets use it for mythic resonance or apocalyptic tone; students should note its function as divine (or pseudo-divine) speech—meant to be interpreted, not taken literally; related to vatic poetry and the “poet as seer” tradition; effective Pythian lines balance obscurity with suggestive power.
Also Known As
Oracular Verse Delphic Utterance Vatic Poetry
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