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 S

Saint Raymond Nonnatus

Saints
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

13th-century Catalan Mercedarian who ransomed captives and was born by cesarean after his mother's death.

Detailed Definition
Saint Raymond Nonnatus endured imprisonment and founded hospitals. In poetry, he represents redemptive ransom and miraculous birth. Poets invoke him in verses on captivity and maternal intercession. His patronage of expectant mothers and the unborn inspires themes of liberation and new life in medieval hagiographic poetry.
Example
Example in poetry:
Saint Raymond Nonnatus's cesarean birth and ransoming of captives inspire medieval poetry on miraculous origins and redemptive liberation.; Poets use Saint Raymond Nonnatus in hagiographic ballads to symbolize the Mercedarian order's mission of freeing prisoners.; A contemporary lyric might dramatize his endurance in Muslim captivity as a model of faithful suffering.; Students could write verses on his patronage of expectant mothers, linking birth miracles to themes of new life.; His life appears in sequences exploring ransom as metaphor for Christ's redemption in 13th-century Catalan devotional verse.; Modern poets invoke him in justice-themed poems addressing human trafficking and the cost of mercy.
Additional Notes
Saint Raymond Nonnatus (c. 1204–1240), a Catalan Mercedarian known as "Nonnatus" (not born) because he was delivered by cesarean section after his mother's death, dedicated his life to ransoming Christian captives from Muslim pirates in North Africa, enduring imprisonment and torture while founding hospitals. For poetry students, his dramatic birth and ransom missions offer powerful imagery of miraculous new life and redemptive liberation. Medieval hagiographic ballads often highlight his patient endurance and the Mercedarian charism of exchanging oneself for the enslaved. Usage tip: dramatize his captivity or cesarean origin in verses on birth as metaphor for redemption or use his patronage of expectant mothers in protective and maternal lyrics; related to other ransom saints like Peter Nolasco, he enriches themes of embodied charity, the cost of mercy, and the intersection of crusade-era conflict with personal sacrifice in 13th-century Catalan and broader medieval devotional poetry, helping students explore how saints transform historical violence into models of Christ-like substitution.
Also Known As
Raymond Nonnatus Ramon Nonat St. Raymond Nonnatus Raymond the Unborn
Skip to main content