By Sandra Gaton

Instructions

Look at your own copy of the play to find out which words and phrases have been missed out. Instead of putting in Shakespeare's original words, use the translations at the end of the passage to put in their place. This will help you to understand the scene more easily.

[Music.] Enter Orsino, Duke of Illyria, Curio, and other Lords.

Summary: Orsino calls for music to feed his hunger for love. He thinks that love is like the sea because it absorbs everything else and makes everything seem less important. He says he is completely obsessed by his love for Olivia.

Orsino

If music be the food of love, play on,

Give me excess of it, that, __________________,

The appetite may sicken, and so die.

______________________, 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!

'Tis not so sweet now as it was before.

O spirit of love, how quick and fresh art thou,

That, ______________________________________

Receiveth as the sea, nought enters there,

Of what ____________________________________,

But _____________________________________,

Even in a minute! So full of shapes is __________,

That it alone is _______________________________.

Curio

Will you go hunt, my lord?

Orsino

What, Curio?

Curio

The ___________________.

Orsino

Why so I do, the noblest that I have.

O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,

Methought she __________ the air of __________________;

That instant was I turn'd into a hart,

And my desires, like ______________ and cruel hounds,

E'er since pursue me.

Enter Valentine.

How now? what news from her?

Summary: Valentine tells Orsino about Olivia’s vow to mourn her brother for seven years. Orsino says that this reveals how she will love him totally.

Valentine

So please my lord, I might not be ________________,

But from her handmaid do return this answer:

The ______ itself, till ___________________________,

Shall not ______________________________________________;

But like _____________________________________________________she will veiled walk,

And water once a day her chamber round

With _________________________: all this to ______________

A brother's dead love, which she would keep fresh

And lasting, in her sad remembrance.

Orsino

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 __________________________________

Hath kill'd ________________________________________________

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 flowers!

Love-thoughts lie rich when _________________________________________________.

Exeunt

surfeiting over-filled

That strain again play that again

notwithstanding thy capacity despite your ability to absorb

validity and pitch soe’er high value whatsoever

falls into abatement and low price is lessened and devalued

fancy love

high fantastical intensely imaginative

hart male deer

purged cleared

pestilence plague (disease)

fell savage

admitted let in

element sky

seven years’ heat seven summers

behold her face at ample view see her face very much

a cloistress a nun who keeps herself hidden from the world

eye-offending brine bitter tears

season preserve

rich golden shaft Cupid’s arrow of love

the flock of all affections else all of the many other affections

canopied with bowers covered with a shady, leafy shelter

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