Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare
Act 1 - Scene 1
DUKE ORSINO’s palace.
Orsino : If music be the food of love, play on;
[p]Give me excess of it, that,
surfeiting,
[p]The appetite may sicken, and so die.
[p]That strain
again! it had a dying fall:
[p]O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet
sound,
[p]That breathes upon a bank of violets,
[p]Stealing and giving
odour! Enough; no more:
[p]'Tis not so sweet now as it was
before.
[p]O spirit of love! how quick and fresh art thou,
[p]That,
notwithstanding thy capacity
[p]Receiveth as the sea, nought enters
there,
[p]Of what validity and pitch soe'er,
[p]But falls into
abatement and low price,
[p]Even in a minute: so full of shapes is
fancy
[p]That it alone is high fantastical.
Curio : Will you go hunt, my lord?
Orsino : What, Curio?
Curio : The hart.
Orsino : Why, so I do, the noblest that I have:
[p]O, when mine eyes did see
Olivia first,
[p]Methought she purged the air of pestilence!
[p]That
instant was I turn'd into a hart;
[p]And my desires, like fell and
cruel hounds,
[p]E'er since pursue me.
[p][Enter VALENTINE]
[p]How
now! what news from her?
Valentine : So please my lord, I might not be admitted;
[p]But from her handmaid
do return this answer:
[p]The element itself, till seven years'
heat,
[p]Shall not behold her face at ample view;
[p]But, like a
cloistress, she will veiled walk
[p]And water once a day her chamber
round
[p]With eye-offending brine: all this to season
[p]A brother's
dead love, which she would keep fresh
[p]And lasting in her sad
remembrance.
Orsino : O, she that hath a heart of that fine frame
[p]To pay this debt of
love but to a brother,
[p]How will she love, when the rich golden
shaft
[p]Hath kill'd the flock of all affections else
[p]That live in
her; when liver, brain and heart,
[p]These sovereign thrones, are all
supplied, and fill'd
[p]Her sweet perfections with one self
king!
[p]Away before me to sweet beds of flowers:
[p]Love-thoughts lie
rich when canopied with bowers.
Next: Act 1 - Scene 2
