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!
– William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 1. The soliloquy by lovesick Orsino, Duke of Illyria, forms the opening lines of Twelfth Night. The first line is one of the most famous in the play and one of Shakespeare’s most quoted. Orsino is so maddened with desire and love for the Lady Olivia, who does not reciprocate his passions, that it makes him sick and melancholic. He instructs his musicians to play him so much musical love-food that he overdoses and no longer desires love.