twelfth night
There is a tendency by human beings to be deluded by the outward show and by the shape of fancy. In William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, romance and infatuation actually play a greater role than actual true love. Throughout the play, love is generally represented as something sudden and irresistible. When we are first introduced to the duke, Orsino, he is moping around his house, lovesick. Olivia, the woman with whom he claims to be in love, is mourning over the death of her brother, and claims she will not marry for seven years. Wallowing in his self-pity, Orsino tells his servants and musicians, “If music be the food of love, play on, /Give me excess of it that, surfeiting, /The appetite may sicken and so die.” Orsino views love as a kind of suffering, and begs them for so much musical love, that he will overdose, and never desire love again.