SCENE I. An Apartment in the DUKE’S Palace.
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[Enter DUKE, CURIO, Lords; Musicians attending.]
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DUKE.
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 south,
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 soever,
But falls into abatement and low price
Even in a minute! so full of shapes is fancy,
That it alone is high fantastical.