Helena Quotes

O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!
To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
That pure congealed white, high Taurus snow,
Fann’d with the eastern wind, turns to a crow
When thou hold’st up thy hand: O, let me kiss
This princess of pure white, this seal of bliss!

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2. After Puck drops the love potion into Demetrius’ eyes, he wakes up, sees Helena and immediately falls in love with her. Demetrius uses metaphorical language to describe Helena’s beauty and compare her to a goddess and her lips to tempting cherries. This is a sharp change from his former dislike and disgust of Helena. She is really confused at this stage, as Lysander just before this told her that Demetrius didn’t like her: "he loves not you."

O spite! O hell! I see you all are bent
To set against me for your merriment:
If you were civil and knew courtesy,
You would not do me thus much injury.
Can you not hate me, as I know you do,
But you must join in souls to mock me too?
If you were men, as men you are in show,
You would not use a gentle lady so;
To vow, and swear, and superpraise my parts,
When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.
You both are rivals, and love Hermia;
And now both rivals, to mock Helena:
A trim exploit, a manly enterprise,
To conjure tears up in a poor maid’s eyes
With your derision! none of noble sort
Would so offend a virgin, and extort
A poor soul’s patience, all to make you sport.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2. Helena vehemently protests that Lysander and Demetrius are mocking her for their own amusement. With Lysander trying to convince Helena of the sincerity of his love, Demetrius has awakened and also falls in love with Helena. But she has had enough of their "sport," believing that they are simply making fun of her. However, the audience knows that the real reason for the men’s behavior is they have been enchanted by a love potion, making this is an example of dramatic irony.

Lysander, keep thy Hermia. I will none.
If e’er I loved her, all that love is gone.
My heart to her but as guest-wise sojourned,
And now to Helen is it home returned,
There to remain.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2. Demetrius, after his enchantment by the fairies and under the influence of Puck’s magic, declares his love for Helena – once again! He first loved Helena. Then he loved Hermia and couldn’t stand the sight of Helena. Now he suddenly discovers that it was Helena all along. Demetrius, thy name is fickleness. This passage uses a metaphor to describe how Demetrius’ heart visited Hermia while on a small journey, but now it had returned home to Helena and would remain there.

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 it all forgot?

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2. Helena accuses her childhood friend Hermia of joining in a conspiracy with Lysander and Demetrius to make her the target of a sick joke and cruel mockery. She calls Hermia an "ungrateful maid." The two men have been enchanted by a love potion to make them fall in love with Helena. But none of them knows that, while the amused audience does – one of the many examples of dramatic irony in the play.

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.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2. Helena asserts the close connection between her and Hermia, starting from the time they grew up together. She uses a simile to compare the two close friends to two gods embroidering a flower together on the same sampler.

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?

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2. Helena is very confused and upset about the situation when Lydander and Demetrius both declare their love for her. She believes that they and Hermia have conspired together to make fun of her. This is an example of dramatic irony, as the audience knows the two men are under the effects of a love potion.

"Puppet!" why so? Ay, that way goes the game.
Now I perceive that she hath made compare
Between our statures; she hath urg’d her height,
And with her personage, her tall personage,
Her height, forsooth, she hath prevail’d 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.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 3, Scene 2. The war of the insults by metaphor continues between Hermia and Helena, as Hermia responds to Helena’s "puppet" jibe. She thinks Helena is making fun of her short height. In the escalating quarrel between the two, she uses an uncomplimentary metaphor as she labels the taller Helena a "painted beanpole." Relations between the childhood friends have hit an all-time low.

My love to Hermia,
Melted as the snow, seems to me now
As the remembrance of an idle gaud
Which in my childhood I did dote upon.
And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,
The object and the pleasure of mine eye,
Is only Helena. To her, my lord,
Was I betrothed ere I saw Hermia,
But like a sickness did I loathe this food,
But, as in health, come to my natural taste,
Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,
And will for evermore be true to it.

– William Shakespeare

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 4, Scene 1. Demetrius professes his complete affection for Helena, declaring that she is his one true love. He analyzes his brief crush on Hermia as a momentary lapse of his normal taste. Using a simile, he says that his infatuation for Hermia is "melted as the snow." He uses a metaphor to compare it to "an idle gaud" or cheap trinket that he used to love as a child. Employing a food metaphor he describes the changing tastes of love. Engaged to Helena before he ever saw Hermia, he was like a sick man who could not stand "this food." But now being healthy again, his normal taste had returned, and all he wanted was Helena.
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