SCENE I. DUKE ORSINO's palace. Twelfth Night  Shakespeare homepage  |  Twelfth Night  | Act 1, Scene 1 

 Next scene  SCENE I. DUKE ORSINO's palace. 

 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  Shakespeare homepage  |  Twelfth Night  | Act 1, Scene 1 

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