Twelfth Night: Act 1, Scene 1

    comedy

    DUKE ORSINO's palace.

    Scene Summary

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    Duke Orsino of Illyria is infatuated with Olivia, a noblewoman who has refused all contact with the outside world to mourn her dead brother. Orsino opens the play with 'If music be the food of love, play on' — he wallows in his own romantic feelings as much as in his desire for Olivia. His love for her is more about the experience of longing than about Olivia herself.

    Enter DUKE ORSINO, CURIO, and other Lords; Musicians attending
    DUKE ORSINO
    If music be the food of love, play on;
    Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
    The appetite may sicken, and so die.
    That strain again! it had a dying fall:
    O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet sound,
    That breathes upon a bank of violets,
    Stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:
    'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.
    O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
    That, notwithstanding thy capacity
    Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,
    Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
    But falls into abatement and low price,
    Even in a minute: so full of shapes is fancy
    That it alone is high fantastical.
    CURIO
    Will you go hunt, my lord?
    DUKE ORSINO
    What, Curio?
    CURIO
    The hart.
    DUKE ORSINO
    Why, so I do, the noblest that I have:
    O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,
    Methought she purged the air of pestilence!
    That instant was I turn'd into a hart;
    And my desires, like fell and cruel hounds,
    E'er since pursue me.
    Enter VALENTINE
    How now! what news from her?
    VALENTINE
    So please my lord, I might not be admitted;
    But from her handmaid do return this answer:
    The element itself, till seven years' heat,
    Shall not behold her face at ample view;
    But, like a cloistress, she will veiled walk
    And water once a day her chamber round
    With eye-offending brine: all this to season
    A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh
    And lasting in her sad remembrance.
    DUKE ORSINO
    O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame
    To pay this debt of love but to a brother,
    How will she love, when the rich golden shaft
    Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else
    That live in her; when liver, brain and heart,
    These sovereign thrones, are all supplied, and fill'd
    Her sweet perfections with one self king!
    Away before me to sweet beds of flowers:
    Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers.
    Exeunt