The play opens with one of Shakespeare's most famous lines — "If music be the food of love, play on" — immediately establishing love and excess as central concerns. Orsino doesn't merely want music; he wants to be glutted with it, hoping that an overdose will cure his lovesickness. This paradox — seeking more of the thing that causes his pain — reveals the self-indulgent, performative quality of his romantic suffering.

Orsino's language is lush and sensory, full of synesthesia and metaphor. Music breathes like wind upon violets, simultaneously "stealing and giving odour." But his attention is mercurial — he demands the same strain again, then just as quickly dismisses it as no longer sweet. This fickleness undercuts his claims of deep devotion and foreshadows the instability of his love throughout the play.

The hunting metaphor is central to the scene. When Curio asks about hunting a "hart" (male deer), Orsino puns on "heart," casting himself as the prey rather than the hunter. He invokes the myth of Actaeon, who was transformed into a stag and torn apart by his own hounds — a mythological parallel that frames desire as self-destructive. Orsino is hunted by his own passions, yet he seems to relish the chase.

Valentine's report introduces Olivia before she appears, establishing her as a figure of mourning and withdrawal. Her seven-year vow parallels Orsino's own excessive emotional display — both characters adopt extreme, theatrical poses in response to feeling. Olivia's grief for her brother also introduces the play's concern with sibling bonds and loss, themes that will deepen when Viola's story unfolds.

Orsino's final speech transforms Olivia's mourning into a reason for optimism: if she can love a brother this intensely, imagine her romantic love! This reasoning reveals his narcissistic tendency to make everything about his own desire. He doesn't see Olivia as a grieving person but as a vessel of passionate potential aimed, he hopes, at him. The scene closes with Orsino retreating to "sweet beds of flowers," confirming that his preferred habitat is romantic fantasy rather than action.