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 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! Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy, Cur. Will you go hunt, my lord? Duke. Cur. What, Curio? 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, That live in her! when liver, brain, and heart7, 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, (Courage and hope both teaching him the practice) Vio. 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 Vio. O, that I serv'd that lady: And might not be delivered to the world, Cap. That were hard to compass; Because she will admit no kind of suit, 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 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. |