But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?

LYSANDER

Why should he stay whom love doth press to go?

HERMIA

What love could press Lysander from my side?

LYSANDER

Lysander’s love, that would not let him bide,

Fair Helena, who more engilds the night

Than all yon fiery oes and eyes of light.

Why seek’st thou me? Could not this make thee

know

The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?

HERMIA

You speak not as you think. It cannot be.

HELENA

Lo, she is one of this confederacy!

Now I perceive they have conjoined all three

To fashion this false sport in spite of me.—

Injurious Hermia, most ungrateful maid,

Have you conspired, have you with these contrived,

To bait me with this foul derision?

Is all the counsel that we two have shared,

The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent

When we have chid the hasty-footed time

For parting us—O, is all forgot?

All schooldays’ friendship, childhood innocence?

We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,

Have with our needles created both one flower,

Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,

Both warbling of one song, both in one key,

As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds

Had been incorporate. So we grew together

Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,

But yet an union in partition,

Two lovely berries molded on one stem;

So with two seeming bodies but one heart,

Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,

Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.

And will you rent our ancient love asunder,

To join with men in scorning your poor friend?

It is not friendly; ’tis not maidenly.

Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,

Though I alone do feel the injury.

HERMIA

I am amazed at your words.

I scorn you not. It seems that you scorn me.

HELENA

Have you not set Lysander, as in scorn,

To follow me and praise my eyes and face,

And made your other love, Demetrius,

Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,

To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,

Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this

To her he hates? And wherefore doth Lysander

Deny your love (so rich within his soul)

And tender me, forsooth, affection,

But by your setting on, by your consent?

What though I be not so in grace as you,

So hung upon with love, so fortunate,

But miserable most, to love unloved?

This you should pity rather than despise.

HERMIA

I understand not what you mean by this.

HELENA

Ay, do. Persever, counterfeit sad looks,

Make mouths upon me when I turn my back,

Wink each at other, hold the sweet jest up.

This sport, well carried, shall be chronicled.

If you have any pity, grace, or manners,

You would not make me such an argument.

But fare you well. ’Tis partly my own fault,

Which death or absence soon shall remedy.

LYSANDER

Stay, gentle Helena. Hear my excuse,

My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena.

HELENA

O excellent!

HERMIA, to Lysander

Sweet, do not scorn her so.

DEMETRIUS, to Lysander

If she cannot entreat, I can compel.

LYSANDER

Thou canst compel no more than she entreat.

Thy threats have no more strength than her weak

prayers.—

Helen, I love thee. By my life, I do.

I swear by that which I will lose for thee,

To prove him false that says I love thee not.

DEMETRIUS

I say I love thee more than he can do.

LYSANDER

If thou say so, withdraw and prove it too.

DEMETRIUS

Quick, come.

HERMIA Lysander, whereto tends all this?

She takes hold of Lysander.

LYSANDER

Away, you Ethiop!

DEMETRIUS, to Hermia

No, no. He’ll

Seem to break loose. To Lysander. Take on as you

would follow,

But yet come not. You are a tame man, go!

LYSANDER, to Hermia

Hang off, thou cat, thou burr! Vile thing, let loose,

Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent.

HERMIA

Why are you grown so rude? What change is this,

Sweet love?

LYSANDER Thy love? Out, tawny Tartar, out!

Out, loathed med’cine! O, hated potion, hence!

HERMIA

Do you not jest?

HELENA Yes, sooth, and so do you.

LYSANDER

Demetrius, I will keep my word with thee.

DEMETRIUS

I would I had your bond. For I perceive

A weak bond holds you. I’ll not trust your word.

LYSANDER

What? Should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?

Although I hate her, I’ll not harm her so.

HERMIA

What, can you do me greater harm than hate?

Hate me? Wherefore? O me, what news, my love?

Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?

I am as fair now as I was erewhile.

Since night you loved me; yet since night you left

me.

Why, then, you left me—O, the gods forbid!—

In earnest, shall I say?

LYSANDER Ay, by my life,

And never did desire to see thee more.

Therefore be out of hope, of question, of doubt.

Be certain, nothing truer, ’tis no jest

That I do hate thee and love Helena.

Hermia turns him loose.

HERMIA

O me! To Helena. You juggler, you cankerblossom,

You thief of love! What, have you come by night

And stol’n my love’s heart from him?

HELENA Fine, i’ faith.

Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,

No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear

Impatient answers from my gentle tongue?

Fie, fie, you counterfeit, you puppet, you!

HERMIA

“Puppet”? Why so? Ay, that way goes the game.

Now I perceive that she hath made compare

Between our statures; she hath urged her height,

And with her personage, her tall personage,

Her height, forsooth, she hath prevailed with him.

And are you grown so high in his esteem

Because I am so dwarfish and so low?

How low am I, thou painted maypole? Speak!

How low am I? I am not yet so low

But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes.

HELENA

I pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,

Let her not hurt me. I was never curst;

I have no gift at all in shrewishness.

I am a right maid for my cowardice.

Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,

Because she is something lower than myself,

That I can match her.

HERMIA “Lower”? Hark, again!

HELENA

Good Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.

I evermore did love you, Hermia,

Did ever keep your counsels, never wronged you—

Save that, in love unto Demetrius,

I told him of your stealth unto this wood.

He followed you; for love, I followed him.

But he hath chid me hence and threatened me

To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too.

And now, so you will let me quiet go,

To Athens will I bear my folly back

And follow you no further. Let me go.

You see how simple and how fond I am.

HERMIA

Why, get you gone. Who is ’t that hinders you?

HELENA

A foolish heart that I leave here behind.

HERMIA

What, with Lysander?

HELENA With Demetrius.

LYSANDER

Be not afraid. She shall not harm thee, Helena.

DEMETRIUS

No, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.

HELENA

O, when she is angry, she is keen and shrewd.

She was a vixen when she went to school,

And though she be but little, she is fierce.

HERMIA

“Little” again? Nothing but “low” and “little”?

Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?

Let me come to her.

LYSANDER Get you gone, you dwarf,

You minimus of hind’ring knotgrass made,