Play on

Was anyone else reminded of Orsino's opening lines of Twelfth Night when they read this sonnet?

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 odor. 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, naught enter 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.

I'd like to pick up on something Chris mentioned about the perception of music and see how it works in both Orsino's lines and in the sonnet. The sonnet seems to suggest that music IS the food of love, but we just hear it all wrong when we listen for the individual parts and ignore the harmony of many. In fact, the sonnet points out that we're really bad at hearing music since we find pleasure in the sadness it brings. Once we are trained to hear the "true concord of well-tuned sounds" and welcome the harmony of "many, seeming one" will the music truly live up to its full potential. The sonnet pushes the subject toward love.

Orsino would seem to be on board with all of this up until about line 7 of his speech when he declares "Enough; no more." What's changed? Why the sudden demand to stop the music? Well, because he realizes that it sounded different this time, not as sweet as before. It's after hearing the strain for the second time that Orsino declares that the spirit of love has "fallen into abatement and low price." So love is cheap? What exactly is this comparison that he (and the sonnet) seem to be drawing between love and music? Is music an easy way to reach love, as the sonnet seems to suggest? Or, as Orsino suggests, is it "high fantastical"?