The brain has a specific structure called the thalamus, and it also has a hypothalamus. I had not known the meaning of thalamus before epithalamion was the WOTD. I'm not sure why early anatomists assigned the thalamus its name, but it is sort of a central point through which many types of signals and stimuli travel. All the sensory inputs except smell travel through the thalamus. I've often wondered if this is at least partly responsible for our inability to conjure up a smell in our head, whereas we can sort of hear a favorite song in our memory without even humming to ourselves.

The word epithalamion reminded me of an older thread about the light verse form known as the double dactyl. One of the best ones I've encountered on the internet uses the word. It's an extended example of the form. Its author is, according to the source page, Jan D. Hodge.

Romeo and Juliet

Saddest of tragedies--
Juliet Capulet
tumbles in love with fair
Romeo's grace,
but to her sorrow an
irreconcilable
quarrel denies her her
lover's embrace.

Troublesome circumstance--
Romeo Montague,
killing her kinsman in
combat of arms,
finds himself subject to
prosecutorial
fervor and flees from his
Juliet's charms.

Frantic and woebegone,
Romeo's Juliet
hopelessly hoping her
lover to keep,
gets from her chaplain a
pharmacological
wonder that brings on a
death-aping sleep.

Rushing to be with her,
Juliet's Romeo
swallows a poison, be-
lieving her dead.
Waking, she--pitiful
epithalamion!--
joins him in death on that
sorrowful bed.