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 V

Veii

Historical Location
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

An ancient Etruscan city near Rome, conquered by the Romans after a ten-year siege in the 5th century BCE

Detailed Definition
Veii was Rome’s wealthy rival, famed for its temple to Juno and skilled artisans. Its fall marked Rome’s rise in Latium. In poetry, Veii evokes the cost of expansion, the absorption of rivals, and the transformation of enemies into citizens—often used to reflect on the paradoxes of conquest: destruction enabling growth, and foreign gods becoming Roman.
Example
Example in poetry:
Roman historians inspired poets to depict Veii as Rome’s rival, destroyed after a decade-long siege; Etruscan Veii’s terra-cotta Apollo becomes a poetic symbol of lost artistry; Renaissance humanists evoke Veii in verse as a cautionary tale of hubris; Victorian archaeologists’ discoveries inspired lyric meditations on Veii’s silent streets; Modern Italian poetry uses Veii to reflect on the erasure of non-Roman Italic cultures.
Additional Notes
Veii, an Etruscan city just north of Rome, was Rome’s chief rival in early Latium. After a legendary ten-year siege (c. 406–396 BCE), Veii fell, its wealth and cult statue of Juno transferred to Rome—a foundational moment in Roman expansion. In poetry, Veii represents the “other” absorbed into Rome, the cost of victory, and the ritualized transfer of divine favor. Its proximity makes it a mirror for Roman identity formation.
Also Known As
Veius
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