Orsino's Speech on Music and Love, Explained：dying fall

What's really going on

The play begins with a man who cannot stop wanting. Orsino has the musicians repeat the phrase, then admits, "It is not so sweet now as it was before" — a neat image of how appetite turns on itself. He is in love with the idea of love as much as with Olivia: one moment he is a hart hunted by his own desires, the next he is lecturing on how fancy overflows with shapes. When Valentine brings word that Olivia will veil herself for seven years, Orsino doesn't hear a refusal; he hears proof of how much she can love. His closing line turns her mourning into a compliment to himself — imagine how she would love a husband. The scene sets the play's engine running: love as excess, appetite, and self-fed fantasy.

Theme

このチャプターで学べること

• Orsino craves too much music, then hears it turn flat.
• The hart pun links hunting with his own hunted heart.
• Olivia's vow turns mourning into a locked door.
• A dying fall is a fade, not a full stop.

発音のポイント

• excess of it — Link excess of it smoothly; the of almost disappears.