| ACT ISCENE 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: | 5 |
| | 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, | 10 |
| | 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 | 15 |
| | 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: | 20 |
| | 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. | 25 |
| | 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; | 30 |
| | 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. | 35 |
| 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, | 40 |
| | 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 | |
