Act I, Scene i:
An apartment in the DUKE'S palace.

[Enter DUKE, CURIO, and other LORDS; MUSICIANS attending.]

DUKE:

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;

'T is 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:

What, Curio?

CURIO:

The hart.

DUKE:

Why, so I do, the noblest that I have.

O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,

Methought she purg'd 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:

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 flow'rs;

Love-thoughts lie rich when canopied with bow'rs.

[Exeunt.]