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 Z

Zoroaster

Historical Figure
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 Persian prophet who founded Zoroastrianism, emphasizing cosmic dualism

Detailed Definition
Zarathustra taught the struggle between Ahura Mazda (good) and Angra Mainyu (evil), influencing Judaism and Christianity. Poets reference him as the original dualist, symbol of ethical choice, and the seer who frames existence as a battle between light and darkness.
Example
Example in poetry:
Zoroaster appears in poetry as the ancient Persian prophet who introduced dualism—light versus darkness, good versus evil; Poets reference his vision of cosmic struggle to explore moral choice and spiritual warfare; Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” reimagines him as a prophet of the Übermensch, inspiring modern philosophical verse; His fire temples and reverence for light inspire imagery of purity, truth, and divine presence; Modern poets contrast Zoroastrian ethics with contemporary moral ambiguity; Zoroaster symbolizes the origin of ethical monotheism and the poet as seer of cosmic order.
Additional Notes
Zoroaster (or Zarathustra, c. 1500–1000 BCE, though dates are debated) was the ancient Iranian prophet and founder of Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s earliest monotheistic or dualistic faiths, centered on the cosmic struggle between Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord, representing truth and light) and Angra Mainyu (destructive spirit, representing falsehood and darkness); his teachings, preserved in the Gathas (hymns composed in Avestan), emphasize free will, moral choice, and the ultimate triumph of good; in poetry, Zoroaster symbolizes prophetic revelation, ethical dualism, and the dawn of religious philosophy—his influence permeates Persian literature (e.g., Ferdowsi’s “Shahnameh”), Nietzsche’s “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” (which reimagines him as a secular prophet of the Übermensch), and modern verse exploring light/dark metaphors, eschatology, or the origins of moral consciousness; for poetry students, recognizing Zoroastrian motifs—such as fire as divine symbol, the bridge of judgment (Chinvat), or the three ethical precepts (good thoughts, good words, good deeds)—can illuminate intertextual layers in works from Romanticism to postcolonial writing; professors may use Zoroaster to discuss the transmission of Near Eastern ideas into Greek philosophy (via Heraclitus or Plato), the roots of apocalyptic literature, or the poetic legacy of pre-Islamic Persia.
Also Known As
Zarathustra Zarathushtra
Skip to main content