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

zounds

Archaic Terms
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 exclamation expressing surprise, anger, or emphasis; originally a euphemistic oath derived from "God's wounds," referring to Christ's crucifixion wounds, softened to avoid blasphemy.

Detailed Definition
“Zounds” (from “God’s wounds”) was a minced oath avoiding blasphemy. It appears in Shakespearean drama and swashbuckling verse to express shock or fury without profanity. Its explosive sound suits comic or heated dialogue. Though obsolete, “zounds” adds period authenticity and rhetorical flair to poetic exclamations, capturing the energy of Early Modern emotional outbursts.
Example
Example in poetry:
Zounds, what a terrible sight! (oath expressing surprise or anger - "God's wounds"); Zounds, man, have you lost your wits? (exclamation of astonishment); Zounds, we are betrayed! (oath of shock or anger); Zounds, I never saw the like! (exclamation of amazement); Zounds, the enemy is upon us! (oath of alarm); Zounds, what news is this? (expression of surprise)
Additional Notes
Zounds is an exclamation expressing surprise, anger, or emphasis—originally a euphemistic oath meaning "God's wounds" (referring to Christ's crucifixion wounds). Like gadzooks and 'sblood, zounds softens blasphemous swearing. The term appears frequently in Elizabethan and Restoration drama: Shakespeare uses it in plays for emphatic or aggressive characters. Students should recognize zounds as belonging to specific historical period (1500s-1700s) and social register (attempting to avoid direct blasphemy while retaining emotional force). By the 18th century, zounds sounded old-fashioned; by Victorian times, it was archaic or comic. Understanding minced oaths reveals cultural tensions between expressive speech and religious propriety. Compare "God's wounds" (blasphemous original), "zounds" (euphemistic substitution), and modern equivalents like "gosh" (for God) or "darn" (for damn). In modern usage, zounds appears only in historical fiction, period drama, or comic archaism. The term's phonetic force (harsh initial 'z', strong diphthong) maintains emotional impact despite euphemistic origin. Students should note class and period associations—genteel speakers avoiding blasphemy, pre-Victorian era.
Also Known As
'zounds zwounds God's wounds swounds
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