READ STUDY GUIDE: Act I, scenes i–ii |
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Act I, Scene i:
An apartment in the DUKE'S palace.
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.] |
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