SCENE I. An Apartment in the Duke's Palace. Enter DUKE, CURIO, Lords; Musicians attending.

Duke.

F musick 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 south1, That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing, and giving odour.-Enough! no more;

1 The old copies read sound, the emendation is Pope's. Rowe had changed it to wind. In Sidney's Arcadia, 1590, we have"more sweet than a gentle south-west wind which comes creeping over flowery fields."

2 Milton has very successfully introduced the same image in Paradise Lost:

"Now gentle gales,

Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense

Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils."

Shakespeare, in his Ninety-ninth Sonnet, has made the violet

the thief:

"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 validity3 and pitch soever,
But falls into abatement and low price,

Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy,
That it alone is high-fantastical.

Cur. Will you go hunt, my lord?

Duke.

Cur.

What, 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 me1.-How now! what news from her?

The forward violet thus did I chide:

Sweet thief, whence didst thou steal thy sweet that smells, If not from my love's breath."

Pope, in his Ode on St. Cecilia's Day; and Thomson, in his Spring, have availed themselves of the epithet a dying fall. Validity, i. e. value.

• Shakespeare here applies the fable of Acteon, who saw Diana naked, and was torn to pieces by his hounds, as a caution against too great familiarity with hidden beauty; as a man indulging his eyes or his imagination with a view of a woman he cannot gain, has his heart torn with incessant longing. With this we may contrast the political interpretation of Lord Bacon, who, in his Wisdom of the Ancients, from his own point of view, discerns a warning against inquiring into the secrets of princes, by showing that those who know that which for reasons of state ought to be concealed will be detected and destroyed by their own servants. The thought may have been suggested by Daniel's Fifth Sonnet, in his Delia; or by Whitney's Emblems, 1586, p. 15; and a passage in the Dedication to Adlington's translation of The Golden Asse of Apuleius, 1566, may have suggested these.

Enter VALENTINE.

Val. So please my lord, I might not be admitted, But from her handmaid do return this answer: The element itself, till seven years heat5, 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,
Το pay
this debt of love but to a brother,
How will she love, when the rich golden shaft
Hath kill'd the flock6 of all affections else

That live in her! when liver, brain, and heart7,
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.

SCENE II. The Sea Coast.

Enter VIOLA, Captain, and Sailors.

Vio. What country, friends, is this?

Cap.

[Exeunt.

This is Illyria, lady. Vio. And what should I do in Illyria?

My brother he is in Elysium.

5 Heat for heated.

So, in Sidney's Arcadia-" the flock of unspeakable virtues." 7 The liver, brain, and heart were then considered the seats of passion, judgment, and sentiments. The metaphors change and intermingle here with some confusion. Self-king is literally autocrat, a single passion that will sway her whole being. Her sweet perfections is an ejaculation interposed, and referring to the moral aspect of the metaphorical throves. The second folio has, one self-same king."

66

Perchance he is not drown'd:-What think you,

sailors?

Cap. It is perchance that you yourself were saved. Vio. O my poor brother! and so, perchance, may he be.

Cap. True, madam: and, to comfort you with

Hung on our driving boat, I saw your brother,
Most provident in peril, bind himself

(Courage and hope both teaching him the practice)
To a strong mast, that lived upon the sea.
Where, like Arion on the dolphin's back,
I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves,
So long as I could see.

Vio.
For saying so, there's gold:
Mine own escape unfoldeth to my hope,

Whereto thy speech serves for authority,

The like of him. Know'st thou this country?

Cap. Ay, madam, well; for I was bred and born Not three hours travel from this very place.

Vio. Who governs here?

Cap. A noble duke, in nature, as in name.

Vio. What is his name?

Cap.

Vio. Orsino! I have heard

He was a bachelor then.

Orsino.

my father name him

Cap. And so is now, or was so very late : For but a month ago I went from hence;

And then 'twas fresh in murmur (as you know,

great ones do, the less will prattle of),

e did seek the love of fair Olivia.

What's she?

:

ose poor number. Shakespeare regards number as plural, > error of the press for the or that, need be suspected.

Cap. A virtuous maid, the daughter of a count That died some twelvemonth since; then leaving her In the protection of his son, her brother,

Who shortly also died: for whose dear love
They say she hath abjur'd the company?
And sight of men.

Vio.

O, that I serv'd that lady:

And might not be delivered to the world,
Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,
What my estate is3.

Cap.

That were hard to compass;

Because she will admit no kind of suit,
No, not the duke's.

Vio. There is a fair behaviour in thee, captain; And though that nature with a beauteous wall Doth oft close in pollution, yet of thee

I will believe, thou hast a mind that suits
With this thy fair and outward character.
I pr'ythee, and I'll pay thee bounteously,
Conceal me what I am; and be my aid
For such disguise as, haply, shall become
The form of my intent. I'll serve this duke;
Thou shalt present me as an eunuch to him*,
It may be worth thy pains; for I can sing,
And speak to him in many sorts of musick,

2 The old copy has, "They say she has abjur'd the sight and company of men." Hanmer made the transposition.

3 i. e. I wish I might not be made public to the world, with regard to the state of my birth and fortune, till I have gained a ripe opportunity for my design. Johnson remarks that "Viola seems to have formed a deep design with very little premeditation." In the novel upon which the play is founded, the Duke being driven upon the isle of Cyprus, by a tempest, Silla, the daughter of the governor, falls in love with him, and on his departure goes in pursuit of him.

This plan of Viola's was not pursued, as it would have been inconsistent with the plot of the play. She was presented as a page not as an eunuch.