If music be the food of love, play on - eNotes Shakespeare Quotes If music be the food of love, play on Duke Orsino: If music be the food of love, play on, Give me excess of it; that surfeiting, The appetite may sicken, and so die. Read on Owl Eyes This eText is now on Owl Eyes. Clicking this link will open a new window. Duke Orsino of Illyria, presiding over the merry, mixed-up world of Twelfth Night, opens the play with these festive sentiments, soured though they be by the affected airs of the melancholic lover. He has convinced himself that he's insanely in love with a wealthy and resistant lady, who is in mourning for her brother and only annoyed by Orsino's inappropriate attentions. The duke's idea of a cure for his disease is to stuff himself sick with his own passions. Orsino's brand of self-indulgent pouting comes in for much ribbing here and elsewhere in Shakespeare, most vividly in As You Like It and Much Ado about Nothing.

For melancholic poseurs like Orsino, who are actually expected to make spectacles of themselves, affecting gestures are more important than sincere emotions. Music in Shakespeare's Plays | Shakespeare, William | Britannica.com If music be the food of love ” Henry Purcell’s setting of Orsino’s opening speech, “If music be the food of love” … It was customary in Tudor and Stuart drama to include at least one song in every play. Only the most profound tragedies, in accordance with Senecan models , occasionally eschewed all music except for the sounds of trumpets and drums. In his later tragedies, William Shakespeare defied this orthodoxy and used songs startlingly and movingly, particularly in Othello, King Lear, and Hamlet. Dramas produced at court were invariably much more lavish than those put on by the professional companies. Casts were larger, as were the instrumental ensembles used to accompany songs and provide incidental music. Gorboduc (1561) by Thomas Sackville and Thomas Norton, the first English five-act drama in blank verse, used a five-part instrumental ensemble to accompany the dumb shows that introduced each act. Wit and Science (c.

1539) by John Redford provided as an interlude a composition played and sung by four allegorical characters. The sententious choirboy dramas presented at court throughout the second half of the 16th century were acted and sung by two companies, the Children of Paul’s and the Gentlemen and Children of the Chapel Royal. Most of these plays included a lament to be sung by a treble voice and accompanied by a consort of viols. About eight of these pieces survive; several are sufficiently lovely to justify their dreary alliterative verse. Shakespeare parodies the genre mercilessly in the Pyramus and Thisbe interlude performed by the rustics in A Midsummer Night’s Dream; the blissfully absurd lament “ What dreadful dole is here? ” is a send-up of “ ” a consort song that has survived into the 21st century. The vocal music The professional companies that put on plays in the public theatres worked with much-reduced musical resources. Normally, one boy actor could sing and perhaps play an instrument. Adult actors, especially those specializing in clown roles, sang as well.

A special musical-comic genre, the jigg, was the particular domain of the great Shakespearean comedians Richard Tarlton and William Kempe . Jiggs (bawdy, half-improvised low-comedy burlesques) were put on at the conclusion of a history play or tragedy. They involved from two to five characters, were sung to popular melodies (such as “ Walsingham ” and “ Rowland ”), and were accompanied by the fiddle or cittern (a small wire-strung instrument strummed with a pick). Touring troupes created a vogue for jiggs on the Continent beginning in the 1590s. As a result, we have marvelous settings of jigg tunes by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck , Samuel Scheidt , and other important northern European composers. The most accomplished of the comedians was Robert Armin , who joined the Chamberlain’s Men about 1598. Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies To what sorts of characters did Shakespeare assign most of the singing? Servants (both children and adults), clowns, fools, rogues, and minor personalities.

Major figures never sing, except when in disguise or in distracted mental states. Most songs, in fact, are addressed to the protagonists themselves. It is thought that the boys’ songs in commercial plays were often set pieces, drawn from a repertoire of music suitable to a variety of dramatic situations. Thus, in Antony and Cleopatra the boy musician of the company sings a generic drinking song, “ Come, thou monarch of the vine ” (for which there is no surviving melody). Another boy, who was sufficiently famous for his name to have been included in the stage directions of the First Folio of 1623—he was Jacke Wilson—sang “ Sigh no more, ladies ” in Much Ado About Nothing. There is some debate about whether “ Take, O, take those lips away ” from Measure for Measure and “ O mistress mine ” from Twelfth Night predate these plays. The lyrics seem to most experts to be authentically Shakespearean, but there is the hint of an unperformed second verse to “ Take, O, take, ” and instrumental settings of “ O mistress ” by William Byrd and Thomas Morley do indeed antedate the first production of Twelfth Night.

It is reasonable to conclude that Shakespeare both made use of songs that were established in the popular repertoire of the period and composed his own lyrics as well. In both cases, the songs in his plays never seem to be extraneous, though their reasons for being there can be complex. Shakespeare used vocal music to evoke mood, as in “ Come, thou monarch, ” and, while doing so, to provide ironic commentary on plot or character. “ O mistress, ” sung by Robert Armin in the role of Feste, is directed toward the aging Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek; the lyrics touch on all the themes of the play and even hint at Viola’s transgendered disguise in the phrase “that can sing both high and low.” The incantatory, magical, and ritual uses of song are also central to such plays as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest , and Macbeth. In the first, the fairies use “ You spotted snakes ” as a sleep-inducing charm, while in The Tempest, Ariel’s song “ Come unto these yellow sands ” reassures the shipwrecked arrivals in Prospero’s magical realm.

The heavily magical-musical Weird Sisters’ (Three Witches’) scenes in Macbeth were so popular that they were greatly expanded in Restoration revivals of the play. Songs of the ritual type usually occur near the conclusion of a play; at the end of A Midsummer Night’s Dream , for example, Titania calls upon the fairies to “First, rehearse your song by rote, / To each word a warbling note. / Hand in hand, with fairy grace, / Will we sing, and bless this place.” Juno’s song “ Honour, riches ” in Act IV, scene 1, of The Tempest is clearly the ritual blessing of a marriage and a charm incanted to produce fruitfulness. Connect with Britannica Listen: Othello: Willow Song The Willow Song (traditional), sung by Desdemona in Othello, Act IV, scene … Shakespeare also used songs to establish the character or mental state of the singer. Ariel simply describes himself in “ Where the bee sucks. ” Iago uses songs to give himself the appearance of a rough soldier. Most significantly, Ophelia’s snatches of folk song demonstrate the regressive breakdown of her personality. (The only other Shakespeare heroine who sings is Desdemona.

To overwhelming effect, she sings a popular tune, “ The Willow Song ”—for which 16th-century words and music exist—just before she is murdered by Othello.) In King Lear Edgar feigns madness by singing snatches of folk song. Other types of vocal music that appeared in the plays include serenades, part-songs, rounds, and catches, all used very much in imitation of real life in Renaissance England. Instrumental music Eyjafjallajökull volcano The instrumental forces available to Shakespeare were, for the most part, fairly sparse. Exceptions were the plays produced at court. Twelfth Night was first performed at Whitehall on Twelfth Night, 1601, as part of a traditional royal celebration of the holiday. The Tempest was given two court performances, the first in 1611 at Whitehall and the second in 1613 for the wedding festivities of the Princess Elizabeth and the elector palatine. Both plays contain nearly three times the amount of music normally present in the plays. For these special occasions, Shakespeare probably had access to court singers and instrumentalists.

A more typical Globe Theatre production would have made do with a trumpeter, another wind player who doubtless doubled on shawm (a double-reed ancestor of the oboe, called “ hoboy” in the First Folio stage directions), flute, and recorders. Textual evidence points to the availability of two string players who were competent at the violin, viol, and lute. A few plays, notably Romeo and Juliet, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Cymbeline, indicate specific consorts (ensembles) of instruments. More commonly, a stage direction will simply state that music is played. Small onstage bands accompanied serenade s, dances, and masque s. Offstage, they provided interludes between acts and “atmosphere” music to establish the emotional climate of a scene, very much as film music does today. “Solemn,” “strange,” or “still” music accompanied pageants and the magical actions in The Tempest. Certain instruments had symbolic significance for Elizabethans. Hoboys (oboes) were ill winds that blew no good; their sounds presaged doom or disaster.

They heralded the evil banquets in Titus Andronicus and Macbeth and accompanied the vision of the eight kings in the great witches’ scene of the latter play. Hoboys provided a grim overture to the dumb show in Hamlet. The sounds of the lute and viol were perceived by Elizabethans to act as benign forces over the human spirit; like musical homeopathy, they eased melancholy by transforming it into exquisite art. In Much Ado , as a prelude to Jacke Wilson’s singing of “ Sigh no more, ladies, ” Benedick observes: “Is it not strange that cheeps’ guts [the strings of an instrument] should hale souls out of men’s bodies?” The viol was becoming a very popular gentleman’s instrument at the turn of the 17th century, challenging the primacy of the lute.

Henry Peacham , in The Compleat Gentleman (1622), urges the young and socially ambitious to be able to “sing your part sure, and at first sight, withall, to play the same upon your viol, or the exercise of the lute, privately, to your self.” It was probably the trendiness of the viol that attracted Sir Andrew Aguecheek to the instrument. Not a single note of instrumental music from the Shakespeare plays has been preserved, with the possible exception of the witches’ dances from Macbeth, which are thought to have been borrowed from a contemporary masque. Even descriptions of the kinds of music to be played are sparse. Trumpets sounded “flourishes,” “sennets,” and “tuckets.” A flourish was a short blast of notes. The words sennet and tucket were English manglings of the Italian terms sonata and toccata. These were longer pieces, though still probably improvised. “Doleful dumps” were melancholy pieces (of which a few are still preserved) usually composed over a repeated bass line. “Measures” were dance steps of various sorts.

The commonest court dances of the period were the pavane , a stately walking dance; the almain (see allemande ), a brisker walking dance; the galliard , a vigorous leaping dance in triple time, of which Queen Elizabeth was particularly fond; and the branle , or brawl, an easy circle dance. The authenticity of the songs Listen: Schubert, Franz: “ Franz Schubert’s song setting of “ Who is Silvia? ” (from … The problem of authenticity plagues most of the vocal music as well. Barely a dozen of the songs exist in contemporary settings, and not all of them are known to have been used in Shakespeare’s own productions. For example, the famous Thomas Morley version of “ It was a lover and his lass ” is a very ungratefully arranged lute song. In As You Like It the song was sung, rather badly it seems, by two pages, probably children. Some of the most important and beloved lyrics, such as “ Sigh no more, ladies, ” and, saddest of all, “ Come away, death, ” are no longer attached to their melodies.

It is believed that, in addition to Morley, two other composers, Robert Johnson and John Wilson (probably the selfsame Jacke Wilson who sang “ Sigh no more ” in Much Ado About Nothing and “ Take, O, take ” in Measure for Measure), had some association with Shakespeare at the end of his career. As soon as public theatre moved indoors, this frustrating state of preservation changed; there are examples of at least 50 intact songs from the plays of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher and their contemporaries, many of them composed by Johnson and Wilson. (For further discussion of indoor versus outdoor venues, see Globe Theatre . For further discussion of the role of theatre in Elizabethan England, see Sidebar: Shakespeare and the Liberties .) Musical reference as a dramatic device In addition to performed vocal music, Shakespeare used all kinds of music and musical instruments referentially. The folk song and ballad tunes he quoted so frequently were equally well known to the groundlings as to the more distinguished patrons. Scraps of these tunes were used to create in-jokes and to evoke other sentiments as well.

The pathos of Ophelia’s madness was increased with the knowledge, which probably went back to childhood, of the folk songs she croons in her distraction. A favourite device of the playwright was to turn the lyrics of a popular song into a bantering dialogue between characters. A classic instance of this technique is the scene between the clown Peter and the household musicians in Romeo and Juliet (Act IV, scene 5). Peter first begs them to play “ Heart’s ease ” and “ My heart is full of woe, ” both well-loved popular tunes. Then Peter challenges the musicians Simon Catling, Hugh Rebeck, and James Soundpost to an interpretive debate over a fusty old lyric from The Garden of Dainty Devices (1576). When griping griefs the heart doth wound, And doleful dumps the mind oppress, Then music with her silver sound— Peter then banters with the players, asking them whether “silver sound” refers to the sweet sound of silver—that is, money. The old lyric concludes Is wont with speed to give redress, Of troubled mind for every sore, Sweet music hath a salve therefore.

Shakespeare depended on the audience’s prior knowledge of the verse to give meaning and pathos to this otherwise rather bizarre interchange. Shakespeare used musical instruments and their playing techniques as the basis for sexual double entendre or extended metaphor. A fine example of the former can be found in Act II, scene 3, of Cymbeline , where Cloten reports: “I am advised to give her music o’ mornings; they say it will penetrate.” The musicians enter, and Cloten continues: “Come on, tune. If you can penetrate her with your fingering, so; we’ll try with tongue too.” The best-known instance of extended metaphor is Hamlet ’s warning to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern against trying to manipulate him, couched in the language of recorder technique (Act III, scene 2). He says: You would play upon me, you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery, you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass, and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak.

Shakespeare’s musical ethos Shakespeare on Music Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends; Unless some dull and favourable hand Will whisper music to my weary spirit. (2 Henry IV, 4.5.1-3), Henry IV Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all, With measure heap'd in joy, to the measures fall. (As You Like It, 5.4.174), Duke Senior Give me some music; music, moody food Of us that trade in love. (Antony and Cleopatra, 2.5.1-2) Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.

Orpheus with his lute made trees, And the mountain tops that freeze, Bow themselves, when he did sing: To his music plants and flowers Ever sprung; as sun and showers There had made a lasting spring. Every thing that heard him play, Even the billows of the sea, Hung their heads, and then lay by. In sweet music is such art, Killing care and grief of heart Fall asleep, or hearing, die. (Henry VIII, 3.1.4-15) 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. Music oft hath such a charm To make bad good, and good provoke to harm. (Measure for Measure, 4.1.14) Let music sound while he doth make his choice; Then, if he lose, he makes a swan-like end, Fading in music.

(The Merchant of Venice, 3.2.46), Portia How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night Become the touches of sweet harmony. (The Merchant of Venice, 5.1.63-66) The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils; The motions of his spirit are dull as night And his affections dark as Erebus: Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music. (The Merchant of Venice, 5.1.91-7) Thou rememberst Since once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid on a dolphins back Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song, And certain stars shot madly from their spheres To hear the sea-maids music. (A Midsummer Night's Dream, 2.1.153-9) I have a reasonable good ear in music.

(A Midsummer Night's Dream, 4.1.28) DON PEDRO: Come, Balthasar, we'll hear that song again. BALTHASAR: O, good my lord, tax not so bad a voice To slander music any more than once. (Much Ado About Nothing, 2.3.37-9) Mark how one string, sweet husband to another, Strikes each in each by mutual ordering; Resembling sire and child and happy mother, Who, all in one, one pleasing note do sing. Sonnet 8 What did thy song bode, lady? Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan, And die in music: Ha, ha! keep time: how sour sweet music is, When time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men's lives. And here have I the daintiness of ear To cheque time broke in a disorder'd string; But for the concord of my state and time Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.

(Richard II, 5.5.42-9) It is the lark that sings so out of tune, Straining harsh discords and unpleasing sharps. (Romeo and Juliet, 3.5.28-29), Juliet It is 'music with her silver sound,' because musicians have no gold for sounding: 'Then music with her silver sound With speedy help doth lend redress.' (Romeo and Juliet, 4.5.137-40), Peter Preposterous ass, that never read so far To know the cause why music was ordain'd! Was it not to refresh the mind of man After his studies or his usual pain? (The Taming of the Shrew, 3.1.10-13), Lucentio Where should this music be? i' the air or the earth? It sounds no more: and sure, it waits upon Some god o' the island. Sitting on a bank, Weeping again the king my father's wreck, This music crept by me upon the waters, Allaying both their fury and my passion With its sweet air: thence I have follow'd it, Or it hath drawn me rather.

But 'tis gone. No, it begins again. Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises, Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices That, if I then had waked after long sleep, Will make me sleep again: and then, in dreaming, The clouds methought would open and show riches Ready to drop upon me that, when I waked, I cried to dream again. (The Tempest, 3.2.135-43) He plays o' the viol-de-gamboys, and speaks three or four languages word for word without book, and hath all the good gifts of nature. (Twelfth Night, 1.3.24) Twelfth Night 1.1 - If music be the food of love play on... Explanatory Notes for Act 1, Scene 1 From Twelfth Night Or What You Will. Ed. Kenneth Deighton. London: Macmillan. 1-3. If music ... die.

If music be, as they say, that on which lovers best like to feed their passion, continue to play (for the hunger of love is strong upon me); give me even excess of that food, so that the desire, cloyed by that excess, may become sick, and in time may die; cp. T. G. iii. 1. 219, 20, "O, I have fed upon this woe already. And now excess of it will make me surfeit"; Oth. ii. 1. 50, "Therefore my hopes, not surfeited to death. Stand in bold cure." Appetite, desire; but not, as frequently in Shakespeare, sensual desire. 4. it had ... fall; it had a lingering cadence, it died away softly; fall, what in R. II. ii. 1. 12, is called "music at its close"; cp. also Bacon, Adv. of Learning, ii. v. 3. 33 (Wright's edition), "Is not the trope of music to avoid a slide from the close or cadence," etc., and H. V. i. 2. 182. 5. south.

most modern editors retain 'sound,' the reading of the folios, and explain it as referring to the sweet murmur of the breeze, the effect being put for the cause. As I cannot believe that Shakespeare would, under any figure of speech, talk of a "sound stealing and giving odour," I accept, with Dyce, Pope's emendation "south." The strongest objection urged against that emendation is that Shakespeare always represents the south wind as baneful. This is true, though in R. J. i. 4. 103, speaking of the quarter from which the south wind blows, he calls it the "dew-dropping south," certainly not with any idea of its being baneful. But even if Shakespeare has elsewhere given the south wind a bad character, there seems no reason why he should not in this instance refer to another characteristic, the capacity which, from its warmth, it has of taking up and conveying odours. In support of Pope's emendation, Steevens quotes Sidney's Arcadia, Bk. i., from which he supposes the thought may have been borrowed by Shakespeare; "...more sweet than a gentle south-west wind, which comes creeping over flowery beds," etc.

Staunton says that if 'south' is to be read, it must be taken "as south, sowth, or sough, is used in the North to signify the soft whispers of the breeze," and quotes Dunbar, Maitland's Poems, "The soft south of the swyre [i.e. hollow], and sound of the stremes," etc. 7. no more, let the music cease. 9. quick, sensitive, sprightly, nimble, and so, full of swift change; the literal sense is 'living,' 'moving.' 10-4. That ... minute: insomuch that though thy capacity of receiving (ideas) is as vast as that of the sea (in receiving its tributary streams), nothing finds entrance into that capacity (there), but, however great its worth, however high its pitch, it swiftly loses much of that worth, swiftly falls to a lower level; abatement is to be contrasted with pitch, low price with validity. For validity = value, worth, cp. A. W. v. 3.

192, "Whose high respect and rich validity Did lack a parallel." Pitch is generally taken here in the technical sense of the height to which a hawk rises before swooping, as in H. II. i. 1. 109, "How high a pitch his resolution soars," but, considering the context, the metaphor may be from music. Coleridge, in his poem "Love," stanza 1, speaks similarly of the capacity of love: "All thoughts, all passions, all desires, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of love, And feed his sacred flame." 14. so full ... fancy, so full is love of constantly changing images; cp. M. N. D. v. 1. 5, "such shaping fantasies": fancy, love; but also with the idea of fancifulness, capriciousness, as is shown by high-fantastical (i.e. supremely fanciful, capricious) in the next line. 15. alone, beyond everything else; cp. A. C. iv. 6. 30, "I am alone the villain of the earth." 16.

go hunt, for this almost redundant use of 'go,' which is very frequent in Shakespeare, cp. e.g. Temp. i. 2. 301-3, ii. 1. 190. The more common colloquial expression still in use of 'go,' joined to the following verb by 'and,' is also found in Shakespeare, e.g. W. T. iii. 2. 205, "If word nor oath Prevail not, go and see." 18. the noblest ... have, so I do hunt the hart, I, i.e. my desires pursue my heart which is the noblest part of me; cp. J. C. iii. 1. 207, 8, "O world, thou wast the forest to this hart; And this, indeed, O world, the heart of thee." 20. Methought ... pestilence. I follow Capell and Delius in regarding this line as parenthetical. 22, 3. And my ... me. The allusion is to the story of Actaeon, a celebrated huntsman, trained in this art by the centaur Chiron.

One day, when out hunting, he saw Artemis, daughter of Zeus and Leto, bathing with her nymphs, and was changed by her into a stag, in which form he was torn to pieces by his fifty hounds on Mount Cithaeron. The idea has been supposed to be borrowed from Daniel's fifth sonnet (1594), in which occur the lines, "Which turn'd my sport into a hart's despair, Which still is chac'd while I have any breath, By mine own thoughts, sett on me by my faire; My thoughts, like hounds, pursue me to my death." Fell, cruel, fierce; A.S. fel, fierce, dire. 24. So please ... admitted, if I may be pardoned for saying so, I was unable to gain admittance to her presence: so ... lord, an apologetic preface to a statement: for might = could, was able, see Abb. � 312. 25. But from ... answer: but brought back this answer from her handmaid. 'To return an answer' is more commonly used of the person who sends it, but also by Shakespeare of the person who brings it, e.g. i.

H. IV. iv. 3. 106, "Shall I return this answer to the King?" 26. The element ... heat, the outer world (lit. the air and sky around and above) itself till it has been warmed by the sun during seven annual revolutions, shall, etc. heat is generally taken here as a past part. (see Abb. � 342); the Camb. Edd. think it is more probably a subs., and read "seven years' heat." 27. at ample view, openly and unveiled; for at see Abb. � 144. 28. cloistress, one who inhabits a nunnery, a nun; 'cloister,' more commonly used for the enclosed walk beneath the upper story of monasteries, convents, colleges, etc., but also for the buildings themselves, or any place of religious seclusion, from Lat. claustrum, an enclosure. 29. round, around; adv. 30. With ... brine, salt tears that are annoying to the eyes; cp. A. W. i.

56, "'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in": season, i.q. keep fresh, in the next line. 31. A brother's ... love, her love for her dead brother; brother's, obj. gen.: would keep, desires to keep. 32. remembrance, a quadrisyllable; see Abb. � 477. 33, 4. of that ... pay, so finely, sensitively, organized as to pay; see Abb. � 277, and cp. Lear, i. 4, 290, "my frame of nature": but, merely. 35. How, with what ardour: golden shaft, from Cupid's quiver; Delius quotes Golding's translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, "That causes love is all of gold, with point full sharp and bright: That chaseth love is blunt, whose steel with leaden head is dight." 37-9. when ... king. If the reading is right, this probably means, When the organs of her being, the thrones of all noble thought and feeling, which (sc.

the organs) constitute her rare perfection, shall be occupied by one and the same king, viz., love. Staunton would read, "With one self king � her sweet perfection," taking "perfection" to mean her husband, that which renders woman perfect. This sense of the word he illustrates by two passages from poetry of the period, but a better illustration than either of them may be found in Pt. ii. of Marston's Antonio and Mellida, iii. 2. 12, 3, "I have read Aristotle's Problems, which saith that woman receiveth perfection by the man." Dyce objects that the epithet 'sweet' is opposed to such an interpretation; but this objection would fall to the ground if the one self-king be explained as 'Love' (not as a husband), which, having overcome all rivals, now reigns alone. It seems also to support such an interpretation that the words These sovereign thrones are already appositional to liver, brain, and heart, and that such a double apposition as is involved in taking Her sweet perfections in the usual way is very unlikely. The 'liver,' as the seat of love, is frequent in Shakespeare. For self, see Abb.

� 20. 40. Away before me, lead the way, precede me. 41. Love-thoughts ... bowers. Thoughts of love can have no more sumptuous and befitting couch than when entertained beneath the overhanging shade of trees and flowers; cp. A. W. i. 2. 49, "His good remembrance, sir, lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb." ... bower, properly means a chamber, thence used generally of a shady recess formed by trees and shrubs. ________ How to cite the explanatory notes: Shakespeare, William. Twelfth Night Or What You Will. Ed. Kenneth Deighton. London: Macmillan, 1889. Shakespeare Online. 20 Dec. 2010. < > ________ What's Happening? Orsino, the Duke of Illyria, is consumed by his passion for the melancholy Countess Olivia. His ostentatious musings on the nature of love begin with what has become one of Shakespeare's most famous lines: "If music be the food of love, play on." It is apparent that Orsino's love is hollow.

He is a romantic dreamer, for whom the idea of being in love is most important. When Valentine gives him the terrible news that Olivia plans to seclude herself for seven years to mourn her deceased brother, Orsino seems unfazed, and hopes Olivia may one day be as bewitched by love (the one self king) as he. Fittingly, the scene ends with Orsino off to lay in a bed of flowers, where he can be alone with his love-thoughts. Later in the play it will be up to Viola to teach Orsino the true meaning of love. ____ Shakespeare's Food & Drink: 20 Shakespeare Quotes On Food & Drink Shakespeare Quotes on Food and Drink You are here: Home / Shakespeare Quotes / Shakespeare Quotes on Food and Drink Shakespeare’s plays are full of food and drink quotes. As usual with Shakespeare, he uses such everyday things to characterise the people who populate the world of his plays. He also uses food and drink as metaphors to create accurate impressions of the times he lived in. No Sweat Shakespeare has browsed through the plays to delight you with the top 20 Shakespeare quotes on food and drink. 1.

Twelfth Night: Act 2, Scene 3 Do you think because you are virtuous, that there shall be no more cakes and ale? 2. Othello: Act 2, Scene 3 Good wine is a good familiar creature, if it be well used. 3. Henry V: Act 3, Scene 2 I would give all my fame for a pot of ale. 4. As You Like It: Act 3, Scene 2 Truly, thou art damned like an ill roasted egg, all on one saide. 5. The Merry Wives Of Windsor: Act 1, Scene 1 Why, sir, for my part I say the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five senses. 6. Antony and Cleopatra: Act 2, Scene 1 Eight wild boars roasted whole at breakfast, but twelve persons there. 7. Romeo and Juliet: Act 4, Scene 2 Tis an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers. 8. Twelfth Night: Act 1, Scene 3 I ama great eater of beefd and I believe that does harm to my wit. 9.

Henry IV Part 1: Act 2, Scene 1 He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his. 10. Macbeth: Act 2, Scene 3 Drink sir, is a great provoker of three things….nose painting, sleep and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes; it provokes the desire but takes away the performance. 11. Henry IV Part I: Act 3, Scene 1 O, he is as tedious as a tired horse, a railing wife; worse than a smokey house: I had rather live with cheese and garlic in a windmil, far, than than feed on cates and have him talk to me in any summer-house in Christendom. 12. The Comedy Of Errors: Act 5, Scene 1 Unquiet meals make ill digestions. 13. Richard III: Act 3, Scene 4 My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn I saw good strawberries in your garden there; I do beseech you send for some of them. 14.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Act 4, Scene 2 And, most dear actors, eat no onions or garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath; and I do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy. No more words: Away! Go, away! 15. Henry IV Part II: Act 5, Scene 1 A’ shall answer it. Some pigeons, Davy, a couple of short-legged hens, a joint of mutton, and any pretty little tiny kickshaws, tell William cook. 16. All’s Well That Ends Well: Act 5, Scene 3 Mine eyes smell onions; I shall weep anon. 17. Romeo and Juliet: Act 4, Scene 4 They call for dates and quinces in the pastry. 18. Henry IV Part II: Act 2, Scene 4 A man cannot make him laugh – but that’s no marvel; he drinks no wine. 19. As You Like It: Act 3, Scene 5 I pray you, do not fall in love with me, For I am falser than vows made in wine. 20.

Othello: Act 2, Scene 3 O thou invisible spirit of wine! If thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil! 6 replies Twelfth Night: Entire Play Twelfth Night SCENE I. DUKE ORSINO's palace. Enter DUKE ORSINO, CURIO, and other Lords; Musicians attending

Question: Which of Shakespeare's plays begins with the words `If music be the food of love, play on`?
Answer: Twelfth Night