If Music Be the Food of Love

Since it’s Valentine Day I thought I would share My Top 5 Shakespeare Quotes about Love, along with corresponding images from my favorite productions.

1. “Other slow arts entirely keep the brain, But love, first learnèd in a lady's eyes, Lives not alone immurèd in the brain, But with the motion of all elements Courses as swift as thought in every power, And gives to every power a double power,” -Berowne

(Act 4, Scene 3 Love's Labour's Lost)

Shakespeare's Globe's 2010 Production of Love's Labour's Lost

2."Doubt thou the stars are fire,

Doubt that the sun doth move, Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love." - Hamlet (in a letter to Ophelia) (Act 2, Scene 2 Hamlet)

Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet in Simon Godwin's 2016 production of Hamlet at the RSC

3. "If it proves so, then loving goes by haps;

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps."

-Hero

(Act 3, Scene 1 Much Ado About Nothing)

Much Ado About Nothing (2011).

4. "Love is a smoke raised with the fume of sighs;

Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;

Being vexed, a sea nourished with loving tears.

What is it else? A madness most discreet,

A choking gall, and a preserving sweet."

-Romeo

(Act 1, Scene 1 Romeo and Juliet)

1996 Film Poster

5. "O Mistress mine where are you roaming?

O stay and hear, your true love's coming,

That can sing both high and low.

Trip no further pretty sweeting.

Journeys end in lovers' meeting,

Every wise man's son doth know."

-Feste (Singing)

(Act 2, Scene 2 Twelfth Night)

I hope everyone has a Valentine's Day filled with LOVE!