THE SPEECH

from TWELFTH NIGHT or WHAT YOU WILL
By William Shakespeare

 

 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.
  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;
  '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 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.

 

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